With property ownership comes responsibility—property assets need managing just as financial assets do, only the process can be a little (or a lot) more cumbersome. You have to move property where you want it, deploy/install it, store/protect it when it’s not needed, track your inventory and dispose of what you’re finished with.
Regardless of how much or how little you have, it’s important to protect your assets and efficiently manage them—if you don’t, it can cost you dearly in time, effort and ultimately, loss of your property. Here are a few components of asset management people don’t always think of that will absolutely impact their bottom line:
Logistics (Pickup/Delivery/Redeployment Coordination)
Coordinating the transfer of property in and out of storage is a critical part of asset management. Scheduling the delivery of stored inventory so production proceeds at maximum capacity without skipping a beat can be tricky. Whether for a retailer, hotel or manufacturer, it requires tightly coordinating logistics to pinpoint delivery times and have the right vehicles and personnel on-hand to maximize efficiency.
Descriptive Digital Inventory
There are many reasons to maintain a detailed inventory registry, including item dimensions, condition descriptions and images. Having the specifics available on-demand (and possibly online) helps for insurance purposes if you ever have a claim, assists with inventory depreciation calculations, gives you what you need if you ever list the items for sale or auction, and best of all, helps you always know exactly what you have on hand so you can deploy it where you need it when you need it.
Proper Long-Term Storage of Retired Assets
Retired assets like furniture, electronics, lab equipment, computers, machinery and even surplus inventory need to be stored properly to protect them pending their redeployment, sale or disposal. Items should be properly tagged, catalogued, wrapped in plastic for extra protection where warranted, and stored on racks or platforms in sealed vaults if needed. Items can then be easily refurbished if needed and disposed of by resale, recycling or auction.
Records Archiving
Records Management is part of asset management, but because of information security and compliance concerns, it has its own subset of options and requirements. Records need to be stored properly to prevent damage and degradation, converted to digital format for easy collaboration and to backup the data, properly catalogued and indexed, and when the time comes, securely destroyed.
If you don’t manage your assets properly, they will manage you out of a lot of time and money. Doing it right can be a full-time job all by itself– if you’re smart, you’ll partner with an office moving and storage specialist or records management specialist that handles it all for you the right way. The choice is yours– choose wisely, and if you have any questions about how to best manage your assets, please call (877) 816-5430 today!
