The asset register

The asset register

The asset register is the trust’s inventory of every device it owns. The mental model: “if it’s plugged in or has a battery and it cost more than £20, it’s an asset”.

Why it matters

A good asset register answers:

• “Where is asset tag 0142?” — for incident response, audit, recovery from loss
• “What’s the warranty on this projector?” — before raising a hardware ticket
• “Which laptops are due replacement next year?” — for refresh planning
• “How many Chromebooks are at academy X?” — for licence reconciliation
• “What did we pay for this and when?” — for finance / disposal

What’s stored

Per asset:

• Reference — the trust’s own asset identifier (printed on the sticker); the canonical handle used throughout the system.
• Barcode — the scanned barcode value if different from the reference. Optional; used by the stocktake scanner.
• Serial number — the manufacturer’s
• Name — a human-readable label for the device (e.g. “Dell Latitude 5440 — IT001”)
• Type — one of: Hardware, Software, Furniture, Vehicle, Equipment, Other. Drives which compliance reports apply.
• Category — a configurable bucket (Laptop, Desktop, Projector, Tablet, etc.) that sets default lifespan and disposal route. See categories.
• Manufacturer + model — free-text fields; no linked model registry.
• Status — one of: Ordered, Received, In service, Under maintenance, Retired, Disposed. (Received, In service and Under maintenance count as the asset being active.)
• Assignment — assigned to a person or a room (see below)
• Location — room / building / site
• Purchase date + cost + supplier
• Warranty expiry
• Notes

Assignment vs location

A laptop’s assignment is who has it (a teacher); its location is where it usually lives (their classroom). For non-portable devices (a smartboard) the assignment is usually a room not a person.

Tickets attached to an asset auto-fill the requester from the assignment, which saves the agent picking it manually.

Filters

The asset register filter bar is the most-used surface. Filters available: free-text search (reference, name, serial, barcode, model), academy, site, building, category, type, status, warranty status, assignment status, and tag status. Common combinations:

• Status: In service AND Warranty: expired — out-of-warranty in service; risk
• Assignment: Unassigned AND Status: In service — drift; should be tracked down
• Building: — what’s in this building
• Category: Laptop — filtering by category

Disposal

When an asset reaches end-of-life, mark it Retired (still in the register, but no longer in service). When it physically leaves the trust, mark it Disposed with the disposal method (recycler, sold, donated, destroyed) and a date. Disposed assets stay in the register but disappear from default views.

The disposal record is part of the WEEE trail — the trust needs it for environmental compliance.