Setting up your asset register
Plant, tools, PPE, trailers and IT kit — each with its own fields, statuses and history.
Rufineous Emmanuel
Last Update a day ago
Assets & equipment is your register of plant, tools, PPE, trailers and IT kit — "each carrying its certification register and custody history." (Vehicles have their own home under Fleet.)
Adding an asset
Click Add asset and fill in the record:
- Name (required), Category — Plant, Machinery, Tool, Access equipment, PPE, Trailer, IT equipment, Equipment or Other.
- Tracking — the key choice:
- Serialised (one item) — a single tracked thing (a specific generator, a specific laptop).
- Stock (quantity) — a countable pool (gloves, connectors). This reveals Unit (each, box, pair…), Min level and On hand.
- Asset tag (barcode / QR / plate), Reference, Manufacturer, Model, Serial number.
- Ownership — Owned, Hired or Leased (hired/leased adds a hire company), plus Supplier.
- Assigned to and Base site — the asset's home, distinct from who's currently holding it (that's custody — see Compliance, checks and custody).
Custom fields, statuses and views
- Fields — add typed columns (text, number, date, dropdown, checkbox, file, link) under the Fields chip.
- Statuses — four built-ins anchor the dashboard: Available, In use, Under repair, Retired. You can rename and recolour them and add your own. "Phase controls how a status counts (under repair, retired…)" — so a custom "Awaiting PAT" status can be phased as off/repair and it'll count correctly.
- Views — filter, group (by Category or Status) and search (Search assets), then Save view for a reusable personal view.
The table shows Name, Tag/ref, Category, Make/model, Status, Holder, Compliance, On hand and Defects, and the dashboard cards summarise Certs expired, Expiring soon, Out on loan, Overdue returns, Inspections due, Open work orders, Low stock, Open requests, Open defects, Under repair.
Importing in bulk
Import opens the assets importer: "Upload an Excel or CSV file, or paste rows below… Only Name is required." It's tolerant of header names and category wording, up to 2,000 rows per batch, all-or-nothing. A row with an on-hand value comes in as stock; everything else as serialised. You'll see "Imported {n} asset(s)."
Tip: decide serialised-vs-stock up front — it's the one setting that shapes everything else (custody and requests for serialised items; on-hand adjustments and low-stock alerts for stock). You can't casually flip a populated stock item to serialised later.