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Every business loves the idea of lowering administrative costs and planning for future growth while improving customer service. Fixed asset tracking allows you to do just that, letting you monitor every aspect of your operations environment so you can make better decisions that benefit your company, its bottom line, and your customers’ experiences.
About Fixed Asset Tracking Solutions
In decades past, most companies made buys via purchase orders, invoices, and checks or bank transfers. Managers could often purchase products under a certain value without approval from upper management, and the results were often costly, as tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets went “missing.”
That’s because asset tracking has traditionally been limited to checkpoints and scans, a far from perfect system that frequently led to ghost assets, including valuable pieces of equipment. In-transit tracking was typically limited to the method of transport, such as the location of a truck, but not whether the physical asset was on the vehicle.
Modern tracking devices make the issue of lost assets practically non-existent. You can attach them to bins, boxes, crates, and assets themselves, providing accurate, real-time reporting with end-to-end visibility of the asset’s precise location and status.
Advanced asset tracking solutions simultaneously monitor for motion, temperature, humidity, and other environmental conditions while ensuring your assets are easy to track in the office, the field, and everywhere in between.
The right asset tracking system:
- Increases efficiency and productivity.
- Ensures fewer misplaced or lost items.
- Makes for easier inventory management.
- Simplifies safety and accounting regulation compliance.
- Provides more accurate financial reports.
Most of all, an asset tracking solution gives you the peace of mind you need to efficiently and easily manage assets from wherever you are. No matter your company’s situation, all assets are fully accounted for down to location, operating status, accessibility, and condition.
Return on Investment With a Fixed Asset Tracker
Businesses that don’t accurately track fixed assets can lose thousands of dollars each year. When you don’t know the precise location and status of an asset, the result can be lost productivity, wasted cost in replacing ghost assets, and lost time.
Asset tracking software manages and streamlines assets and associated data monitoring and tracking, giving you better insight which, in turn, minimizes costs and simplifies workflows.
Here are just a few of the ways fixed asset tracking solutions deliver a significant return on your investment.
Fosters accuracy and eliminates ghost assets
With an older asset tracking method, you run the risk of starting and continuing with faulty numbers. Asset tracking software gives you a big picture perspective that ensures accuracy throughout operations.
Barcodes simplify record-keeping, reduce errors, and increase data integrity from asset acquisition to disposal. Multiple system users can access and update asset records in real-time, and there’s no need for messy, complicated spreadsheets that can cause tracking havoc.
Advanced tracking also eliminates ghost assets that often represent significant company investments and take up space on balance sheets. For instance, if just ten percent of your company’s recorded fixed assets are ghost assets, there’s an economic domino effect that impacts your insurance and taxes. Not only does this cause inaccuracy in fixed asset reporting, but it also negatively impacts your bottom line.
Helps in making informed decisions
Hidden or unproductive assets can disrupt the flow of operations and add to costs. Asset monitoring and management helps you control and account for assets throughout their lifecycle. Together with tracking and recording every phase of an asset’s life allows your business to plan new asset acquisition better and make more informed decisions when replacements are required.
Data like parts replacement frequency, servicing history, and how often an asset is used can also help reduce sudden downtimes that require emergency repair and end up costing you much more than they usually would.
Enables you to work smarter with mobile devices
Mobile-ready asset tracking solutions lets you work from anywhere and use various mobile devices for scan-intensive activities like taking physical inventories. Employees can use their Android or iOS smartphone or tablet to manage fixed assets on the fly from anywhere they have internet access.
Your company cuts maintenance and hardware costs and can handle all your data in the cloud. And since every asset change is date, time, and user-stamped, you don’t have to invest in other apps to organize your data or manage audits.
Accuracy in depreciation tracking
Improperly tracked asset depreciation costs businesses big when they overpay for insurance and taxes. Aside from these significant losses, even more minor asset depreciation mistakes can result in substantial costs like fines for regulatory non-compliance, particularly for companies that work with government funds or grants.
Asset tracking software helps you make accurate depreciation calculations and prevents any distortion of your company’s larger financial picture.
Increased productivity in the workplace
Businesses and organizations with 500 or more fixed assets typically have employees roaming from department to department, branch to branch, or warehouse to warehouse looking for required assets.
Asset tracking software helps you track in real-time the number and type of different assets moving through your departments or as they arrive at or leave specific locations. And as everyone knows, time is money, so the fewer employee working hours spent on locating or tracking assets can result in substantial savings. Workers are freed from menial tasks and can focus on more important areas of your business, contributing to your bottom line.
How to Estimate Your ROI With a Fixed Asset Tracker
It’s estimated that, on average, companies have up to a five percent error margin between recorded assets and actual inventory. One of the easiest ways to justify an investment in asset tracking software is to avoid paying taxes, maintenance costs, and insurance on these ghost assets.
We’re often asked if there’s an easy way to calculate the total return on investment of a fixed asset tracker. With our simple asset tracking ROI calculator, you can reach a quick estimate and determine your potential savings by filling in a few fields of information such as:
- Number of fixed assets.
- The average cost of each asset.
- Estimated percentage of ghost assets.
- Costs of asset searches by employees.
In just a few moments, you’re on your way to reducing costs and better managing your company’s fixed assets.
Lower administrative costs, a smarter approach to asset maintenance, and better asset accountability help your organization meet its asset management objectives and support its financial goals. RedBeam’s Asset Tracking system helps you monitor and manage your company’s fixed assets in real-time from wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer.
To learn more about using our ROI calculator to estimate your business’s savings, get in touch with our team today.
