Being Prepared for IT Failures: The Importance of Tracking Your Assets
Asset tracking is an essential part of any centralised asset register.Aside from issues of compliance with national and global accounting practice standards, business can no longer rely on piecemeal policies and outmoded practices.Doing so will leave a huge hole in corporate value and expose the company to potentially costly liabilities. Only through the implementation of rigorous asset acquisition and disposal policies and recording detailed information about all the company’s hardware and software assets can an organisation retain full control over those fixed assets and understand its true business value.
That’s especially the case with IT assets, given the fact that computers and telecommunications now lie at the heart of almost every organisation or commercial business. The frequency of software audits will increase as more emphasis is placed on managing software licences on the asset inventory to comply with SIRB and Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) legislation.A central register that records the serial number and asset location as well as the value of each IT item is necessary if you wish to avoid a ten year jail term, that being the maximum penalty for illegal software use.Aside from keeping out of pokey, it’s well worth maintaining a central register to increase business efficiency and overall economy. Competent UK asset tracking software packages will also provide the ability to present detailed information that can inform management decisions about the disposition of resources.
Asset management determines corporate value and has direct impact on the bottom line. The process of asset tracking can satisfy the requirements of a finance department and provide detailed information required to track valuable IT assets in particular. This is not a question meaningful only to finance teams.Should the company suffer a disaster such as flood or fire, insurance cover should hopefully get the organisation back up and running as soon as possible? However, any inconsistency between the asset register held centrally and other inventory records will raise questions in the insurer’s mind that could delay or prevent payment.
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