Asset tagging: An essential business task often overlooked

You may not know what it is when you start up your business, but if you don’t soon think about asset tags for your company’s belongings you could be making a big mistake.

In fact, the practice was recently highlighted as essential by one expert, who claims many firms aren’t giving it the attention it deserves. According to Matt Hornsby of whatishealthandsafety.co.uk , there are a wide range of asset tagging options available to businesses looking to protect themselves – but many don’t know they exist.

He explained that by investing in label printers and tapes to mark up important pieces of equipment like computers and other electronics, a company can make its inventory taking much simpler. At the same time, they can protect items from being stolen. “You can usually get a machine that prints up vinyl and polyester asset tags for a decent price and these are tamper proof. That way, if the tag is removed or tampered with by someone, it will be too damaged to be used somewhere else,” Mr Hornsby said.

The comment follows calls for greater emphasis to be placed on asset management, which some companies are failing to properly embrace as part of their administrative infrastructure. “Businesses need to think about asset tagging as it can save serious time on stock and inventory checks,” Mr Hornsby added. “It’s essential from a security and insurance point of view, but who doesn’t like making their working life a little easier at the same time?”

For those unfamiliar with asset labels, the practice involves labelling company-owned items like PCs, printers, phones or other mechanical or electronic equipment with small individually-numbered stickers. These feature unique numbers so the equipment can be catalogued and identified easily – which also helps when it comes to maintenance and upgrading. They can also feature barcodes that can be tailored to your own specification (as long as you have the right type of labels and printers).

Mr Hornsby concluded by saying: “It just makes sense. It’s a really simple way of keeping track of things and is absolutely invaluable when it comes to managing your insurance costs and renewals. If you don’t asset tag your stuff you could end up paying a much greater cost in the long run.”