Asset Tracking

8 Reasons Why You Should Use Asset Tracking Software

Posted on by Robert Hoyt

Asset tracking software can save an immense amount of time and reduce frustration in running a business. If you’re constantly finding yourself or your team wasting time looking for lost items or dealing with broken equipment, you should seriously consider asset tracking and management software.

Benefits of Asset Tracking Software
Asset Tracking Provides Many Benefits

Decrease the Cost of Maintenance

You can substantially reduce maintenance costs with proactive asset tracking. When you know when your last service on an asset was, you can pre-emptively schedule maintenance before any of your equipment breaks. Getting ahead of asset maintenance is important to improve uptime and reliability.

No More Asset Theft

Without proper asset tracking, it’s never definitely known who has an asset. This is how your company’s assets can walk off. But with asset tracking, you always know who has what assets and can easily identify where assets should be.

Accurate Information About Assets

Knowledge is power! And asset tracking gives you knowledge about all of your company’s assets. With real-time information about the assets your company owns, you can make more informed and better decisions about procurement and usage. Include commonly sought information about your assets like documentation, expiration dates, service dates, ownership and cost all at your fingertips.

Save Money

When you know what items your company has, you can make better purchasing decisions and reduce waste. When you have an accurate maintenance schedule, it reduces overhead and excess expenses, ensuring you use your assets to their fullest extend.

Increase Asset Utilization & Efficiency

Get the most out of your assets with accurate scheduling and reduced wait times. Asset tracking enables you to understand how your company uses assets and which are under utilized. With this information, you can be optimize your scheduling of their usage and improve employee satisfaction by eliminating the need to wait for assets when you don’t have a good scheduling system.

Make Audits Easier

Asset tracking helps you with audits of your company’s assets and assists you in avoiding discrepancies in taxes and maintenance fees. When you’re able to easily audit your assets accurately, you reduce you compliance risk and reduce your tax liability.

Improve Customer Service

When you reduce the downtime of your assets, you can be ready for anything your customers throw at you. Whether you loan your assets directly to your customers or to your employees, asset tracking is essential to providing timely and efficient support.

Save Time

Well done asset tracking limits the amount of time your employees wait for broken or lost equipment and optimizes their time doing the work that matters. With premade reports available in asset tracking tools, asset audits can be done in seconds instead of hours. Pre-emptively scheduling maintenance minimizes your company’s downtime.

Start Tracking Assets today with Reftab. Track up to 50 assets for free.

Asset Tracking

What Is Asset Tracking? Why Do It?

Posted on by Robert Hoyt
Onboarding Image

Asset tracking is the process of recording information about your company’s physical assets and their location as well as anyone who has custody of an asset. Asset tracking is also known as asset management . There are software providers that build asset tracking software solutions for business and schools. As one of these software providers, we often get asked, “what is asset tracking?”, this blog post will help explain.

Common information collected with an asset tracking solution include:

  • Purchase cost & date
  • Status (working, broken – needs repair, etc.)
  • Who possesses the asset
  • Maintenance schedule
  • General stats (warranty information, model, vendor, etc..)
  • Maintenance work history.

What Are Physical Assets?

Physical assets are items purchased by your company to be used for a long time. Physical assets are also known as fixed assets or tangible assets. It is common for organizations to put an asset tag on each fixed asset. Fixed assets are different from inventory because inventory is meant to be sold or distributed in some way.

Common Examples of physical assets to be recorded in an asset tracking system include:

  • Computers
  • Phones
  • Buildings
  • Vehicles
  • Furniture
  • Equipment
  • Machinery

The best asset tracking system should have the capabilities to log different types of assets and track them to their usage such as locations and people. Critical assets also need to be modeled, tagged with an asset label and have a defined asset lifecycle.

There are many different types of assets that need tracking across different business organizations

Why Track Assets?

The purpose of an asset tracking platform is to save time and money. Tracking assets properly ensures the company has information to optimize asset usage, prevent theft, and conduct preventative maintenance. If you have barcode labels on your assets, it lets people know where to return a lost item and helps keeps equipment organized.

For example, if your company or school is not tracking assets, how do you know where your laptops and mobile devices are? How do you keep an accurate assessment of who was given what and when? If someone requests new equipment, it should be absolutely painless to look up what equipment was issued to them and when. This way, you can avoid unnecessary purchases.

Therefore, when a company knows how its assets are used, it can improve efficiency by reducing time spent looking for assets and save money by decreasing duplicate purchases.

Who Should Use Asset Tracking?

Almost all industries can benefit by tracking their assets. For example:

Education: Loan out laptops or lab equipment to students and faculty.

Healthcare: Track computers and medical equipment. (You likely have seen a barcode attached to assets in a doctors office)

Construction: Track and record maintenance of tools and vehicle across job sites.

Offices: Keep records for employee computers and devices. Non-Profits: Improve audits and make compliance easier.

Fleet Managers: Fleet managers need to keep an inventory of their vehicles. A tracking system will be help manage these mobile assets and help stay on top of maintenance.

In short, anyone currently experiencing wasted time and energy on things other than their main business or educational goals should seriously consider implementing a formal asset management system.

How Can I Implement Asset Tracking?

There are various ways to track your company’s assets. For instance, many companies do it manually with pen & paper, while some use Excel.

However, the most efficient way of tracking assets is to use a dedicated asset tracking software. How to Choose the Right Asset Management Software for Your Company .

Asset tracking software like Reftab gives you the power to record the information you want about your assets, loan items out to employees or students, and run detailed reports on your assets. The next time someone asks, “What is asset tracking” you’ll be able to let them know precisely what it is, how it’s different from inventory and the use of barcodes in working with the best asset tracking technology available.

Reftab is free for your first 50 assets. Start tracking assets today !

How-To

How to Choose the Right Asset Management Software for Your Company

Posted on by Michael Caslowitz

The best asset management software should work with how you manage your business because no one knows your business better than you do. Asset tracking software should be customizable enough to fit to your needs and be easy enough to use so that your team will want to use it every day without making any mistakes. You should have an understanding of what platforms are out there and what they offer. By doing some simple prep work, you can be sure you’re getting exactly what you need without wasting time.

Step 1: Knowing when to switch from spreadsheets to a dedicated asset management platform:

Like most people, you may already have an Excel or Google spreadsheet holding asset data. If your organization doesn’t have many fixed assets, this might be fine. Spreadsheets can work when you don’t need to make constant adjustments to assets or you’re not tracking historical changes, purchases or loans.

However, if you’re experiencing growth in your company and you’re brining in a lot more fixed assets and maybe looking to start tracking asset maintenance, spreadsheets become error-prone very quickly.

This could result in a cost to your business. There’s no excuse to waste anymore time or money on lost or broken equipment. Asset management and tracking software is specifically designed to keep you and your team organized so that enough equipment is always available and kept in working condition.

When you start working with a larger volume of assets, you will need to start tracking your available quantity of items, (items that are in use vs sitting in a stock room), you’ll need to reliably know where assets are and who has custody over them. You’ll also need to start understanding equipment utilization. You may even need to start calculating asset depreciation.

Ultimately, the goal of asset tracking is to reduce confusion, prevent loss of equipment and eliminate wasted time and expense. A spreadsheet simply cannot deliver on these key value metrics as your organization grows.

Step 2: Gather Requirements

When choosing an asset management system, it is best to first gather the requirements that you need. Think about what business goals are most important and start from there.

Start with broad requirements, good asset management software should:

  • Allow you to track assets to people and locations.
  • Allow you to group assets into custom categories.
  • Allow you to create users with role based access controls.
  • Separate digital assets from fixed assets and inventory.
  • Alert you when you’re running low on equipment.
  • Alert you when an asset will expire (safety certifications, warranties etc.)
  • Track asset depreciation.
  • Include a dedicated mobile app.
  • Include a feature for preventive maintenance.

Next, determine if you’ll be using barcodes to track assets. Barcodes allow you to scan assets with a barcode scanner which makes certain actions much faster such as performing an inventory audit or assigning items to users very quickly and other bulk actions.

It is strongly encouraged to attach asset tags with barcodes and contact information to your assets. If equipment gets lost, the person who finds it will know who to contact. It’s an easy way for physical assets to be returned. Plus, with the ubiquity of mobile phones these days, it is highly suggested to find asset tracking software that comes with a dedicated mobile app to scan barcodes.

Some mobile app requirements should be:

  • Built-in barcode scanner
  • Edit and loan assets from anywhere.
  • Take pictures of assets.
  • Log maintenance work

Additional Requirements Worth Mentioning:

Automation can be extremely beneficial and save a ton of time and reduce headache. In the world of asset tracking, you’ll want to seriously consider a platform with automation features such as:

  • Running automated reports.
  • Send customized alerts.
  • Send emails to people who don’t return equipment.
  • Automate user provisioning (single sign-on)
  • Automatically put assets in a state of maintenance.

Obviously these automated features are highly customized to their needs for specific use cases. But it is certainly worth thinking about.

For example, would you want to log into a platform every day to run a report on missing equipment from the past week and track down users manually? Or run a report on depreciation and have to manually download the results and send Excel files to the finance team? Or even have to remember to look at your software licenses every so often to hope that you’ve not unwittingly had a lapse in a renewal?

A good asset tracking solution will give you abilities to automate all of that. It is very worth it especially as you grow and have to deal with a more complex asset lifecycle.

Another honorable mention is self service. Tracking assets can be done by having a person or a small team manage equipment. However, think about a system where you allow your end users to browse an equipment catalog showing them what’s in stock and can submit reservations for themselves. This could save a tremendous amount of time in reducing back and forth emails about whats available and when. An organization’s assets could potentially be best utilized in this way because nothing goes unused and no purchases are wasted. This can result in much better asset utilization.

Finally, another honorable mention here would be integrations. In today’s world it is not uncommon for an organization to use literally hundreds, if not thousands of different pieces of software. and it’s important for systems to talk to each other. A common integration for asset tracking software is with help desk software. Another thing to think about is compliance with security policies. Software that can integrate with single sign-on is major advantage in the world of data security.

Step 3:Establishing a Budget

As is the case with most software, pricing can be dependent upon things like features, users, support etc. However, we suggest to first get an idea of how much your current asset inventory is worth.

Let’s say you have about 300 assets in total. If on average each piece is worth $500, then your total inventory value is $150,000. Make sure that the asset management tool you choose meets your needs and is built and maintained well. Your asset data is important and remember, the main goal is to keep your equipment organized so that you have more time and energy to spend on running your business. If you spend the money for a good platform, you know your $150,000 worth of equipment is being protected and you can focus on more important tasks.

Step 4: Trial Platforms

You’ve now mapped out your requirements, you’ve established a budget and have come up with an idea of the customizations that are needed. Now is the time to sign up and trial an asset management platform. Remember, effective asset management occurs when people are on the same page as to what’s expected, so bring in different people to get their opinions and to trial software on their mobile device as well.

We urge you to try, Reftab. We offer users free accounts to manage up to 50 assets. It’s a great way to explore our platform and get a feel for how asset tracking works. You can start by signing up for a free account here: Reftab.com

We always suggest a demo so you can have questions answered. Demos help save time to really understand if a platform will work for your specific needs.

If you would like a demo of Reftab, schedule a time on our calendar here: Reftab Calendar

Uncategorized

August 2020 Release Notes

Posted on by Michael Caslowitz

Hello!
Welcome to this month’s feature release notes. We’ve been listening to customer feedback and are pleased to announce the following new features and enhancements:
New Features

1) Capture Loan Signatures

When checking out items, you can have userssign for items on mobile or the desktop app.  Loan signatures are ideal in scenarios where you want to add an extra layer of accountability for asset loaning

The signature is then saved on the loan record. When checking out items in bulk, (using the desktop site) users can sign once for all items being checked out.

Signatures can be enforced for specific categories that you choose and can include custom loan agreement text. 

Click “Settings” > “Loan Options” > “Configure Loan Signatures“

2) Custom Fields for Loans, Loanees, Users, Licenses and Accessories

Custom fields are ideal in scenarios where you need to capture additional information on asset loans in addition to the notes. Custom fields for sub users and loanees can be added to hold more information on your user base as well.

Custom fields can be utilized in workflow automation. For example, if you stored a field on loanees called, “Class Level” and during check out, if a loanee is a class level of “beginner” you can reject assets that should be for advanced users only.

Custom loan fields are under “Settings” > “Loan Options” > “Manage Custom Loan Fields“

(Reftab’s public API supports updating custom field data on your loanees and users too)

Enhancements 

1) When checking out or reserving items in bulk, items are now combined into one email. 

Turn this on from “Settings” > “Email Settings / Logs” > “Bulk Loan Checked Out” and “Bulk Reservation Submission“. (if this is not set to ‘on’ the bulk emails will not send)

2) Workflows can now run on a schedule – this is a major update to workflows as it allows you to even further automate your environment.

For example, a workflow can run every day and check for assets that have expired warranty dates. If any are found, you can change the status label of the asset to a custom label such as, “Expired Warranty”.

View video demo on scheduling workflows: https://youtu.be/p5chUUakDkI

3) We’ve added support for Gmail oAuth SMTP – you can now easily configure your gmail accounts to send Reftab emails.

4) Cloning an asset now clones the asset image.

5) Workflows can move assets between locations. (this is a new workflow ‘action’ called ‘change asset location’)

We build features with direct input from customers and we always welcome feedback. We’re certain these improvements will help you stay organized and save time. If you have any questions, please reach out to info@reftab.com, we’re always happy to help.

Thank you!

Uncategorized

Our API is now public

Posted on by Michael Caslowitz

Hello!

We’re happy to announce Reftab’s API is now public. Our documentation can be viewed here: https://www.reftab.com/api-docs/

A public API allows you to expand the use-case of Reftab by providing a great deal of flexibility.

For example, you can create scripts (Python, Javascript etc..) to generate or update assets. No matter what language you use, you can interface with Reftab to better meet your business needs by making Reftab fit to how you run your business today.

Simply log into your Reftab account and click “Settings“. You’ll see a new setting for “API Keys”. Click, “Create API Key” and a public / private key pair will generate.

Coming soon, we’ll be exposing more endpoints such as loans and reservations. Thank you! Please reach out to info@reftab.com for any questions.

Uncategorized

Updates To SSO – Just-in-Time Provisioning

Posted on by Michael Caslowitz
Departments Image


Reftab recently issued an update that effects the way users log in via Single Sign-On. 
Just-In-Time (JIT) Provisioning rules are now more strictly adhered to. 


What’s New
Every time a sub user logs into Reftab via SSO, whether their account exists or not, the Just-In-Time roles are checked to ensure that the user matches to a defined policy at all times. 


What Does This Affect?If a sub-account attempts to login and no JIT rules are found to match for the requesting user, the sub account will be disassociated and access will be removed.

Can I Prevent this From Happening?
To avoid this from happening, Reftab admins will need to set the “Role Lock” feature “On”. This will avoid the role check from occurring at each login.

What happened Previously?
If someone logged in and no matching JIT rules were found, (and the user’s accounts already existed in Reftab) they would login to whatever access role they had previously.


Why the Change?
The reason for this is to more strictly adhere to established security measures. 
For example, if a person works in a department that should have access to Reftab, then moves to another department that should not access Reftab, their account should no longer have access to Reftab automatically without a Reftab admin having to update anything on their end.

Finally, users who do not use Just-In-Time Provisioning should not see any changes. If you see any unanticipated changes, reach out and we will assist.
If you have any questions, please contact Reftab support, info@reftab.com
Thank you,

Updates!

April 2020 Release Notes

Posted on by Michael Caslowitz

First and foremost, we hope that everyone is safe and keeping busy during these times. We know a lot of companies are going fully remote; the Reftab team is here to make sure your asset management remains capable and robust. Read on below about our newest improvements.

If anyone has trouble paying their Reftab subscription, please reach out to us, we’re more than happy to work with you.

New Updates

Over at Reftab, we’ve been keeping pretty busy. Here’s a list of what’s new since our last release notes were sent in January:

  • Options for asset number increment.
    • Click “Settings” > “General” > “Asset Increment“.
    • There are two options:
      • Standard – Asset ID’s will increment up based on all assets in your account.
      • Location – Asset ID’s will increment up based on all assets within the selected location.
  • Bulk attach accessories to assets.
    • When checking out accessories, you can use checkboxes to select multiple assets at once to attach accessories.
  • Increased picture quality of images taken from Reftab mobile app.
  • Images taken from mobile app now save the asset ID in the filename.
  • Kit loan history now visible within kits.
    • Click on any standard kit and you will see a button “View Kit Loan History”
    • A table will display that you can download to Excel of all loan history of the kit.
  • Clicking on the charts on the loans page will auto filter the loans list.
  • Bulk import of loans can now accept licenses and accessory loans.
  • New Access Role setting to limit category editor.
    • Click “Settings” > “Access Roles” > “New Access Role” > “Portal Access / Other Settings“. Look for the select menu labeled, “Category Editor Access“.
    • Change this to Hide to restrict the category editor for the users in your group.
    • Edit will allow users in the group to edit categories.
  • Two new options for custom text in the user portal. Click “Settings” > “Portal“. Look for the two below inputs:
    • Custom loan notes label – Provide custom text for loan notes area in the portal. By default, the text displays “Reason for Reservation“.
    • Custom portal information / notice display – Display a notice at the top of the portal page.
  • Search on partial asset ID’s.
  • Bulk extend loan return times by a date range.
    • On the loans page, master accounts will see the button, “Bulk Change Due“.
    • You can specify a date range such as May 1st, 9:00am – May 2nd, 9:00am.
    • You select a new due date, and click “Change Due Dates“
    • The system will identify any current loans that fall within the chosen date range and change all due dates to the newly chose due date.
  • Accept ACH payments via invoice.
    • Only available to yearly billing.
  • Other site optimizations

Additionally, two new updates: Workflows and Sub Locations are explained below.

Workflows

Showing the workflow builder
Reftab’s workflow builder

Reftab is proud to announce a major new feature called, “Workflows”. This very powerful feature allows you define certain conditions that when met, trigger an action.

For example, when an asset is checked out to a certain user (or type of user) display a custom message on screen. Or, when an asset is edited and changed from one location to another, update the status label of the asset.

There’s a lot of configurations that you can come up with. We suggest giving it a try and seeing how it can fit your business needs. This feature is only available for Enterprise accounts. We will be making additional updates to this feature as we progress. Please don’t hesitate to send feedback if you’d like something specific.

Sub Locations

Sub Locations

Sub Locations allow you to further organize your assets into more meaningful groupings within larger locations. For example, a building can be a location and each department within the building can be a sub location.

Assets can be easily transferred between locations and sub locations. You can run reports on locations and sub locations as well.

You can set a custom name to use instead of “Sub Locations”. For example, if you’d rather use a term such as, “Departments” you can. Click “Settings” > “General” > “Sub Locations Custom Label Name“. Change this to anything you’d like.

Thank you! Please reach out to info@reftab.com for any questions.

Uncategorized

Jan 2020 Release Notes

Posted on by Michael Caslowitz

Hello,

We are excited to share with you new Reftab features released this past weekend. These updates come from customer suggestions and we thank you for your continued feedback to help improve Reftab. 

Desktop Updates:

  1. Kit Templates: Available to Enterprise plans, you can now build templates which describe specific components kits should be made of before being loaned to anyone. You can use the mobile app, (and desktop site) to scan barcodes allowing you fill the kit.
    1. This helps ensure kits are built with all necessary components before going on loan.
    2. You are also given a “Potential Kits Count” which tells you how many kits can be made based upon the requirements in the template and the available items in your account. 
    3. For example, you can have a template, “Employee Workstations” which requires one laptop with 16GB RAM, a laptop charger and two monitors. Based upon items available in your account, Reftab will show you how many “Employee Workstation” kits can be assembled.
  2. Edit Reservation Dates of Assets: From the reservations page, a new button will allow you to edit the reservation dates of a submitted reservation.
    1. Portal users can edit their reservation time. However, the access role they are in must have the option, “Allow Edit of Asset Loan Due Date” set to “on” and “Allow Override Loan Rules” set to “on“.
    2. Note: Only reserved assets can be edited. We’re working to add kits / accessories / license reservation edits in a supplemental update.
  3. Edit Loan Return Time: From the loans page, a new button will allow you to edit the loan return time.
    1. Portal users can edit their loan return time. However the role they are in must have the option, “Allow Edit of Asset Loan Due Date” set to “on“.
    2. Note: Only loaned assets can have their loan return time edited. We’re working to add kits / accessories / license loan return edits in a supplemental update.
  4. Keyword Search:  Search assets based upon keyword is now available to portal users and admins. To use the keyword search as an admin, select ‘keyword’ from the search dropdown list. Portal users will use the search input above the list of categories. 
    1. For example, if you type “123-ABC”, Reftab searches all assets across all fields and asset titles that match that value and returns those assets.
    2. Note: Only searches assets currently.
  5. Scan Out Page Defaults:  From within “Settings” > “Loan Options” there is a new setting called “Scan Default”. The value set here will automatically be selected on the scan out page.
    1. This makes using the scan out page easier for users. The loan return time will auto select the option you choose instead of an end-user having re-select an option if the page refreshes or another user uses a different setting.
  6. Hide Indefinite Loans: From within “Settings” > “Loan Options” there is a new setting called “Hide Indefinite”. This allows you to hide (or show) indefinite loans on the loans page
    1. This helps clean up the loans page by hiding items that are indefinitely loaned. Feedback we’ve received was that most of the indefinite loans are more or less permanently assigned items. The loans page can now filter out indefinite loans by default to avoid accidental return of an assigned item and make the list easier to work with.
  7. Show Asset Images by Default: From within “Settings” > “General Settings” there is a new setting called “Display Images”.  Setting this to “on” will show asset images by default when viewing the asset table.

Mobile App Updates:

  1. Clone Assets: Assets can be cloned from within the mobile app
  2. Fulfill a Reservation: When an asset is scanned, if the asset is reserved for the user, they can now tap a button to ‘fulfill’ their reservation. The item will move form being reserved to being checked out to the user.
    1. This allows users to fulfill their own reservation as opposed to having the need for an admin to check out a reserved item.
  3. Specify Loan Times: When loaning items within the app, you can now choose a specific time as opposed to a date only.
  4. Scan Kit Template Items: App can be used to scan items into kit templates.

General: 

  1. Fixed a bug on the login page when using the ‘Remember Me’ option would not remember the login. This is now resolved. 

Please remember to update your iOS and Android apps for proper functionality. If you have issues, please perform a force close and then reopen the app. 

Thank you for reviewing our release notes. For any questions, please reach out and we’ll be happy to help.

Uncategorized

NEW: Asset Depreciation / Additional Reminder Emails

Posted on by Michael Caslowitz

Hello!

Reftab has been working hard to deploy some new and useful features to the platform. A lot of what we do is based upon user requests and feedback. We’re happy to announce the below are now live in Reftab:

  1. Asset Depreciation is now live. Depreciation is calculated using US GAAP rules for depreciation.
  2. Email subject lines are now customizable
  3. Reservation reminder emails can be customized as a scheduled jobs, allowing you to alert users before, during and after a scheduled reservation. You can create as many of these notices as you need.
  4. The iOS and Android mobile apps have been updated with a new “Scan to Field” setting. This allows you to scan serial number barcodes to add to your asset instead of typing the serial number manually.
  5. Reports have been updated to report on loan check out and return dates. For example, you can now run automated reports on every asset returned or checked out in a relative time (next week, last week, next month etc..)
  6. New Avery Label size: 6576
  7. Bulk edit asset images. You can now select multiple assets at once and apply an image to all of them.

Thank you very much! We are always working on new features to make the platform more efficient and useful for our users. If you have any suggestions feel free to email us at: info@reftab.com and we’ll do our best to work with you to improve the platform.

Uncategorized

NEW: Relative Reports and Currency Field

Posted on by Michael Caslowitz

Hello,

Reftab is pleased to announce the release of two new features from the past few weeks:

1) A new field type to hold currency.
2) Relative Reporting.

First, from the categories page, you can now use ‘currency’ as a field type. This will properly store currency values formatted in your regions currency. Setting your currency can be done from the settings menu. Reftab has added this to eventually work alongside our upcoming feature of depreciation tracking.

Secondly, Reftab now supports relative reporting. This means you can run a report using relative language such as, “Next Week“, “Last Week“, “Next Month“, “Next Year” and so forth…

This is an extremely valuable report mechanism that can help keep you informed of your assets before certain dates occur. It is highly suggested to build these reports and use them with the job scheduler.

Check out this video on relative reporting for more details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqpiVyteQ0o