Spreadsheets Are Not Good Enough For Asset Management

We’ve all used them, spreadsheets, whether it’s to do a simple list of items, or whether you are looking to create advanced sums for business forecasts. Even though they don’t come will all the feature we would want plus they can be annoying to use, we still force ourselfs to use them. No doubt this is because they come free with our operating systems and the majority of people prefer to put up with a free one instead of buying a new one.

Despite having their problems, spreadsheets do have some features that come in handy. The main advantages are that they can manage simple math calculations, create visual graphs and finally create easy to manage business forecasts. These all come in handy for certain jobs. However, because they do have their downsides, they are not suitable for some tasks such as tracking your UK fixed assets.

Even though spreadsheets intially sound useful for managing asset data, they can’t compete against an asset tracking software UK package.

To a certain extent, a spreadsheet is useful for asset management, however, as you increase the amount of assets your company has and the amount of data you want to store, they become useless.

Here are some handy features that you should look out for in your asset management software.

They must be able to store enough data and be detailed enough for use. Despite being able to store massive amounts of data, a spreadsheet can’t store enough for asset management. The information stored might not be in enough detail as required.
They must be able to match the complex structure of the company. If the asset can be placed in a number of categories within the company, a simple spreadsheet cannot handle this complex structure.
They should be able to be restructured quite easily. Altering the structure and data of a spreadsheet is easy, but once it becomes complex, the task automatically becomes difficult.
It must be able to cope with calculating several different depreciation levels on different assets. If items were bought at different points in time, for example a computer and a monitor. The software must be able to calculate different price depreciation levels.
The software should be able to do re-lifeing of business assets. If you are re-assessing assets and find that an item has now become useful, you should be able to alter the depreciation levels for that item.
They must be able to export the data into structured reports. Spreadsheets cannot easily created a structured data report.

That was a list of a few features that any asset management software suite should come with. Also it’s the reason why a spreadsheet is not good for adding asset data to a fixed asset register.

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