An equipment inventory management system is the register of the equipment an organisation owns, kept with a tag on every item, a holder and a location on every line, and a count that proves the list. For a contractor, a workshop, a laboratory, a school or a church, the equipment is most of what the organisation owns beyond its devices, and it is the part most likely to be in a van, a cupboard or someone's garage rather than where the register says. This page sets out what the system keeps, how equipment is issued and returned, what the count does, and where the depreciation on the fixed asset register meets it.
What the equipment inventory holds on every line
A number and a tag, a description, a serial number where there is one, the class, the holder, the location, the status, the purchase date and the cost, and for calibrated or serviced equipment the date the next calibration or service is due. The cost feeds the fixed asset register line for items above the threshold, where the depreciation runs; the free fixed asset register worksheet on this site works one such line. Items below the threshold are tracked for custody only, and the system should hold both on one register.
Issue, return and the equipment in the van
Equipment moves: a tool kit goes out with a crew, an instrument goes to a field site, a projector goes to a classroom. Each issue is a scan of the tag and a pick of the holder with the date; each return is a scan with the condition. The list of items issued and not returned is the system's most useful print, and it is the one a spreadsheet cannot produce because nobody updates the spreadsheet from a van.
The count, and the two lists it produces
A count is a walk with a scanner through every location, and it produces two lists: items scanned that the register did not expect there, which are transfers nobody recorded, and items the register expected that were not scanned, which are losses or unrecorded disposals. Organisations holding equipment bought with federal funds count at least once every two years under 2 CFR 200.313; everyone else counts once a year because the two lists are how the register stays true.
Where equipment inventory management stops and maintenance begins
The system records what the organisation owns, who holds it and what it is worth. It can hold the date the next service is due as a field on the line. It does not schedule the service, raise the work order or record the condition readings; that is a maintenance system, a different product for the person who keeps the plant running, and an equipment register that tries to be both is usually neither.
Questions people ask about equipment inventory management system
What is the difference between an equipment inventory system and a stock inventory system?
A stock system counts units for sale by SKU. An equipment inventory system keeps one line per item the organisation owns and uses, with a holder and a location, and depreciates the ones above the threshold.
Do I need equipment inventory management software, or is a spreadsheet enough?
A spreadsheet holds the list. It does not record issue and return from a phone in a van, keep the history, or list what was not scanned at the count, which are the three things the register exists to do.
What is inventory equipment?
The same thing in the other word order: equipment that is held on the inventory, tagged and counted, rather than stock held for sale.
Should equipment inventory management include maintenance?
A next-service date on the line, yes. The scheduling and the work orders, no; that is a maintenance system with its own buyer, and the two records should be linked by the asset number rather than merged.