Did you know that equipment moves at the speed of sound? Making it extremely difficult, tedious, and overwhelming to track.
Why is Tracking Equipment Difficult:
- Lack of resources: There’s a lack of resources provided to asset and property departments, requiring more manpower for comprehensive inventory management.
- Lack of compliance: Departments are unwilling to follow Asset Management policy procedures regarding disposals, tagging, serial number changes, etc.
- Lack of accountability: Most departments lack the accountability to put any importance on equipment inventories, making it a low priority.
- Lack of updates: Most location, disposal, and transfer changes are not being submitted from the department to the Property Management system for updates.
- Lack of offices: The lack of a central distribution office for assets creates a disconnect between the department equipment list and property equipment list.
- Lack of automation: Most departments have antiquated capital asset systems with limited access to automation for importing and exporting information for reporting.
Even though tracking equipment is a difficult and expensive task, it is a very important process.
Why is Tracking Equipment Important:
- It ensures that your organization is in compliance with Uniform Guidance requirements
- It gives your organization the ability to provide asset life study of equipment by classification
- It provides a “snapshot” in time of equipment location
- It provides an increased use of equipment because you know the location of each item
- It provides assistance in space and fun function with review and consistency
- It removes any “ghost” items
In conclusion, tracking your equipment can provide a positive impact on your financial overhead rate calculations and recoveries. A good way to calculate a “what if” impact scenario is to allocate equipment depreciation to a room and then multiply the impact by recovery per point. Once you have done that, we advise you to have a candid conversation on the benefits of precise facility allocations.
If you have any questions about tracking equipment, our team would be happy to help. You can message Greg Sheahan here.