According to the dictionary an asset is anything owned that has exchange value, in other words a valuable or desirable thing. Due to this value that is held in certain items, many companies seek different methods of not only maintaining these assets, but also finding new assets that will continue to increase the profitability of their companies. One such way to do this is through the use of asset management software, which as the name suggests, was designed to manage and maintain all of your assets, big or small.

Asset management is the process of managing all of your physical assets to determine how profitable they may be as well as how well they will perform in a given industry. In most cases asset management will also include selecting new assets for your company along with renewing older ones, not to mention optimizing current assets to ensure they are being maintained at peak profitability levels.

Why is Asset Management Important

A companies success or sometimes failure can often depend on the capability of their asset management programs to provide them with meaningful information that will allow them to respond quickly when there is a change in business. These changes could be due to security issues, a declining market or even some sort of disaster in which the company was not prepared for, but with an effective asset management software, the company can quickly recover information that would have otherwise been lost and avoid the chance of an audit or maybe even worse.

The Key Functions of Asset Management Software

A good asset management software has numerous variables that it will need to cover and as such they are often very complicated software programs to use. The functions, or what they can handle, vary from company to company depending on the exact nature of the particular software, but generally these software are used to handle:

• Asset Tracking
• Barcoding and RFID Tracking
• Asset Depreciation
• Asset Management
• Consumables
• Asset Procurement or Purchasing
• Asset Maintenance
• Help Desk and Help Ticket Management
• Contracts Including Lease Management

Again depending on the asset management software you are using, these functions may be less or more. However, it is important to choose an asset management software that is not only robust, but that covers a wide spectrum of features in an effort to properly manage your assets while focusing on other aspects of your business as well.

Asset Management Software on The Market

Every company, large or small, has some sort of assets that its invested in, that is how they make money.

These assets may be customers, services they provide and/or products that they manufacture or sell, but even with all of this there are still only a handful of companies developing asset management software. Some of the more popular programs, which can be found online include WiseTrack, HardCat, xAssets and Avantis which offer asset management software at the Enterprise level, also known as EAM.

Depending on the number of features and effectiveness of the software these programs can get pretty pricey, hundreds or even thousands of dollars for some custom implementations. With this kind of monetary commitment, you need to know that you are getting the best software for your needs.

You may consider consulting a third party to conduct an audit or perform one yourself to determine if there is an actual need for this type of implementation in your company. It would also be recommended to consult with the individual software companies to find the best solution to suit your individual needs. Try not to pay more for features that you don’t need by purchasing an asset management software that has a smaller focus on particular aspects of each asset.

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Q. Is asset management software worth the investment?

A. It really depends on your company. For those of you running small businesses it would be very difficult to justify the cost of a good asset management implementation, however, if you operate on a larger scale, lets say medium to large scale business or at the enterprise level than this type of software may be just what you need to scrape the most profits from your companies assets.

Q. Should you use asset management software if your primary assets are customers?

A. Yes and no. Asset management software does a very nice job at managing and tracking the data of your customer base, but that is not necessarily the focus of this software. If you are primarily concerned with tracking customer data we would recommend looking into a good CRM software otherwise known as customer relationship management software, instead.

Q. Where else can you find more information about asset management software?

A. There are numerous documents on the web covering asset management information, we suggest you check out the Institute of Asset Management. You may also want to view the white papers on IT Asset Management and the Wikipedia entry for Enterprise Asset Management.

Have any questions about asset management software? Send us your questions and you could see the answer right here in the ComSoft Q & A section.