Why Financial Institutions Lose Track of Assets
Financial companies have many valuable assets, and devices such as laptops and mobile phones hold information that is crucial for business continuity and for meeting service levels and turnaround times.
Not surprisingly, financial sector entities such as banks, lending services and brokerage firms face several issues when assets are mismanaged. They suffer from asset misplacement, asset theft, lower productivity, and unknown asset movement. All of these lead to business loss.
The Problem: Assets Circulating Across Hundreds of Branches
Our client, a well-established financial institution, has thousands of assets spread across hundreds of locations. A large financial institution has many branches, and its assets circulate between locations as hiring needs, staffing changes and branch requirements shift. Our client’s assets kept circulating too. Most were laptops, computers and mobile phones. The organization noticed regular complaints about asset misplacement, asset recovery and asset identification, but it could not find out how assets were going missing, and the root cause was never identified. The main reason it could not know the exact location of an asset was that it relied on manual methods such as spreadsheets and pen and paper. The asset data it collected was neither accurate nor up to date. Every time an asset changed hands, someone at the branch had to write the change down and pass it to head office, and much of it never arrived.
Because assets moved so often from one location to another and nobody knew where they were, the client faced business continuity problems and lost business.
The questions were plenty:
Who is using their assets?
Were all the assets accounted for?
Were the assets in good condition?
How would they find an asset that an exiting employee had handed over 6 months back?
Did this employee return all company owned assets issued to him/her?
What Is the Problem with Using Spreadsheets and Manual Entries?
Spreadsheets work when you have a limited number of assets and little inventory. As the number of assets grows, they become chaotic and complex. Manual data entry invites human error, and human error can have serious consequences. When several users edit a spreadsheet at the same time, data can be changed unintentionally. There is also the risk of duplicate data and version confusion. Spreadsheet data is not always centrally visible or up to date, so accuracy suffers, and that is exactly the problem our financial institution client faced. Because of inaccurate data, assets went missing or were unaccounted for. What seemed like a good solution created business and operational confusion in the long run and began to affect the business.
How Our Financial Institution Client Overcame These Issues with Asset Infinity
The approach had three parts:
Asset Register
Creating a central record of all assets along with their owners.
Asset Tracking
Asset Infinity was used to assign, return, exchange and track assets allocated to individuals, branches, locations and regions.
Asset Audits
Regular, recurring audits were carried out on assets at the individual, branch and regional level.
With Asset Infinity, the client’s asset managers could keep track of every asset at their fingertips and see every asset movement as it was recorded. Because the process was automated, manual handling and the errors that come with it were minimized, and the spreadsheets were retired.
To keep track of assets, they must be verified physically, so audits were run to carry out thorough asset physical verification. The organization used two methods: self-audit and aided audit.
In a self-audit, employees who hold the organization’s assets receive an email and confirm the assets themselves. In an aided audit, a user was assigned to visit the location, check each asset physically and record whether it was present, missing, or present with incorrect details. Differences found during an audit could be corrected in the register on the spot, so the next audit started from accurate data.
The organization could also record contracts such as leases and rentals against assets. Users could add important asset information such as model number, serial number, purchase date and other details. With check-in and check-out, employees kept a precise trail of asset movement by location and department. Together, these gave the organization full control over its assets.
What Other Gains Did Our Financial Institution Client See?
Asset Location and Movement Visible at Any Time
In the Asset Infinity mobile app or web app, employees could see all asset movement. This keeps assets safe and shows their exact recorded location. They could also check the movement history of all assets or of one specific asset, filtering by category, department and more. A trail was kept of every asset movement, which made it easy to find an asset’s current location. Our client now knows how many assets it has, where they are, and all the information related to each one.
Knowing Which Equipment Is Available
It is important to know that every employee has the equipment needed to work, such as a laptop or computer, and that all of it is used well and accounted for. The client could see which assets were in use and which were available to issue. When an employee resigned, their assets were taken back and the asset status was changed accordingly.
Current Information in One Place
The client has current information on where assets are located, who is using them, how many are available and what condition they are in. It can see all its assets in a single place and export the data. Whenever an asset is added, discarded or transferred, the record is updated.
Approvals for Moves and Disposals
Heads of operations and asset managers kept track of asset movement with Asset Infinity. For instance, when an asset moved from City A to City B, the move was recorded with who took it on and why, so asset locations were easy to identify. Approval steps mean that sensitive changes, such as retiring or disposing of an asset, are done in an authorized way.
Access Limited by Site
Management can restrict what each user sees. For example, the IT maintenance team at location A can see only the assets at location A. A top-level user can access all the data. Access can also be limited by what a user may do, such as whether they can change data or only view it. This keeps sensitive information with the people who need it and reduces the chance of accidental changes.
Owned and Leased Assets Kept Apart
This financial institution has many assets. Some it owns, and some are leased. Recording lease and rental contracts against assets makes them easy to identify and helps the team return leased assets on time and avoid penalties. It also gives the finance team a clear picture of which assets the institution actually owns.
Forms That Fit the Organization
Asset Infinity let the organization adapt its forms, with its own fields, to suit its internal processes. Each team saw the fields that mattered to its own work, which made the system easier to adopt. Data could be imported and exported as internal stakeholders such as operations, procurement and finance needed. This helped the teams act quickly, and filtered reports could be downloaded easily.
What the Client Gained from Asset Infinity
- Better use of assets
- Complete asset information at their fingertips
- Better decisions supported by reports
- Higher productivity
- Fast and effective asset audits
- Better return on investment (ROI)
- Email confirmation of the assets each employee holds
Where the Client Stands Now
There is no doubt that technology can make you more efficient. Our client now knows where its assets are and how they move. It knows who is using which asset because it has complete information at hand. The client uses Asset Infinity to prevent asset theft and misplacement, and it has become more efficient and productive.
About Asset Infinity
Asset Infinity provides asset management software that helps organizations keep track of their assets. It can be used on the web and through iOS and Android mobile apps. The software covers asset tracking, asset management, asset audits, inventory management, maintenance management (breakdowns and preventive maintenance), purchasing and requests. Its features include check-in and check-out, movement tracking and history, tracking by department, category and employee, and reorder levels for stock. Asset Infinity also supports asset tagging with barcodes, QR (Quick Response) codes, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), GPS (Global Positioning System), BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) and NFC (Near Field Communication). Overall, the software supports every stage of an asset’s life, from procurement to disposal.