An IT equipment inventory is the IT asset inventory by its plainer name: the list of every laptop, desktop, phone, tablet, server, switch, firewall, access point and printer the organisation owns, with a serial number, a holder, a location, a cost, a purchase date and a warranty end date on each line. It is the list the IT manager is asked for by the insurer, the auditor, the security questionnaire and the budget, and it is the list that is wrong in most small organisations because it was typed once from purchase orders. This page sets out what to list, what each line needs, and the two ways the inventory is kept true: recording every movement, and reconciling against what is actually on the network.
What to list: everything with a serial number and a network address
Every device a person uses, every piece of network gear in a cupboard, every printer, and every server whether it is in the building or in a rack somewhere else. The test is a serial number or a network address: if it has either, it is on the inventory. Peripherals without a serial number, keyboards and cables, are consumables and stay off; monitors, which have serial numbers and walk, go on. CIS Control 1 describes the same inventory of enterprise assets as the first thing an organisation secures, because nothing can be protected that is not on a list.
What each line needs: serial, holder, location, cost, purchase and warranty dates
The serial number is the identity; the register's asset number is the tag. The holder and the location answer who has it and where. The cost feeds the fixed asset register for devices above the threshold. The purchase date and the warranty end date feed the refresh plan: the free IT asset inventory worksheet on this site takes the device counts, the replacement costs and the share out of warranty and returns the replacement value, the out-of-warranty value and the monthly reserve to refresh the estate on the cycle you choose.
Keeping it true: movements recorded as they happen
Every issue, return, swap and disposal is a row with a date and a person, recorded when it happens rather than at the annual count. The leaver's laptop returned and wiped, the phone swapped after a cracked screen, the spare lent for a week: each is a row. The inventory that has them can say where a serial number went; the one that does not can only say where it was in January.
Keeping it true: a discovery pass against the network
The inventory drifts from the day it is typed, and discovery is how it finds out. An agent report or a scan of the address ranges lists what is answering, and the difference between that and the inventory is the list of unknown devices and the list of devices that should have answered and did not. The discovery coverage worksheet on this site works that difference from a scan's figures. Federal agencies are directed to discover every 7 days; a small organisation that reconciles before each close is doing well.
Questions people ask about it equipment inventory
What is the difference between an IT equipment inventory and an IT asset inventory?
Nothing; the two phrases name the same list. Equipment inventory is the plainer word, asset inventory the ITAM word, and both need the same fields on every line.
Should monitors, keyboards and cables be on the IT equipment inventory?
Monitors yes, because they have serial numbers and walk. Keyboards and cables no; they are consumables. The test is a serial number or a network address.
How is an IT equipment inventory kept accurate?
By recording every issue, return, swap and disposal as it happens, and by reconciling the inventory against a discovery pass of the network on a cadence. The second catches what the first missed.
What does the inventory need for an insurance claim?
The serial number, the cost, the purchase date and the holder for every device claimed, and the replacement value of the estate, which the IT asset inventory worksheet here computes from the counts and the costs you enter.