Why A Spreadsheet Is Not Advanced Enough For Asset Management
Saturday, September 5, 2009 21:37We’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 are not really advanced enough for some of our requirements, we still use them. No doubt the reason for this is because we would rather use a free package that came with our PC, instead of buying a new one that’s more suitable for the job.
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. We generally find use of these at some point. However, because of the amount of downsides they have, they aren’t useful for tasks like tracking your companies’UK fixed assets.
Although spreadsheets sound like they would be good for storing company asset data, they are simply not as advanced as anasset tracking software UK package.
Up until a certain point, a spreadsheet would prove to be useful for asset management, however, as obtain more and more assets and you wish to store more data about the assets, the spreadsheet becomes redundant.
Here are just a few of the points that should be required by any asset management software.
- It must be able to store enough information for your 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 particular asset can be located in a number of sectors within a company, a basic spreadsheet cannot reflect this complex formation.
- It should be flexible enough to be restructed quickly a easily. Altering the structure and data of a spreadsheet is easy, but once it becomes complex, the task automatically becomes difficult.
- It should be able to calculate a number of depreciation rates on several items. If a number of assets were linked together, however they had been bought at different times, such as a computer, keyboard and mouse. The software must be able to calculate different price depreciation levels.
- The software should be able to do re-lifeing of business assets. If an asset is assessed and found to be useful, the depreciation level must be altered as the asset is now useful.
- Must be able to create structured reports. Spreadsheets make it difficult to create useful, structured data reports.
Those were a few features that you must look for in any asset management software suite. Also, it’s the primary reason why a bog standard spreadsheet package is no good for storing asset data and managing it within afixed asset register.








Bill Patterson says:
September 6th, 2009 at 1:54 am
Several tools exist to meet this requirement. Hardcat, Assetware and xAssets are UK based. xAssets as far as I know are the only ones offering a saas service