|
There are real bottom-line benefits to fixed asset management. Companies with effective asset management systems and processes find that they
Cut costs
The best way to cut costs is to stop spending money that you don’t need to spend. Here are some of the ways in which you may be spending money unnecessarily:
- buying things you don’t need because you already have them
- paying insurance premiums on non-existent items
- ‘losing’ equipment because of lax security
- paying maintenance and licensing charges on software which is no longer installed
- paying lease penalties because leased equipment is not properly controlled
Independent research has estimated that many companies are overspending by at least 20% because of under-utilisation, inefficient maintenance and petty theft of their assets.
Asset management is the key to expenditure control
Meet statutory requirements
The law requires you to keep accurate accounts and to produce a Balance Sheet and P&L at least annually. This means you must have some way of working out the value of your fixed assets - their cost and their depreciation.
Straightforward and accurate statutory reporting is a major benefit of asset management.
Control valuable IT assets
Most organisations are dependent for their day to day running on their IT assets – the hardware, software and systems which make up their IT infrastructure. But IT equipment can easily get out of control.
Controlling your IT assets means that you can:
- Identify the physical location of your IT assets - no matter how many times they are moved around.
- Identify all hardware and software changes over the life of a PC.
- Ensure that your organisation is legally compliant with software licensing
- Verify maintenance contracts and insurance .
- Monitor and record IT equipment which has been scrapped or replaced
- Determine if you have the appropriate hardware configuration to support new software upgrades.
- Maintain a comprehensive audit trail
IT asset management substantially lowers the costs of your IT installation and makes sure it runs efficiently.
Make informed decisions
Lack of accurate information means lack of transparency and inability to manage risks. If you know what you’ve got, what it is being used for, how much it’s worth and what it’s costing you, then you are in a position to anticipate, weigh up options, and proactively make informed business decisions based on real information.
Asset management supports informed business decisions
Comply with corporate governance legislation and international accounting standards
Starting with the requirement to show a clear audit trail, the trend is for standardisation, regulation and compliance with international accounting standards. For bigger companies, corporate governance legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley has become a major issue.
Asset management is an essential element in regulation and compliance
|
