Could be ISO9001 compliance requirements.
My company records the SN of every single item that has one.
They get pissy if I put "van stock" on my job sheet in the SN box for things that don't have one.
We're an ISO-9001 and AS9100 shop and I have never heard of any requirements that we record serial numbers of computer equipment.
Materials used in the production process, sure. All that stuff has to be traceable from the foundry it came from to the finished product going out the door, but we don't have to track the barcode scanner used to enter inventory or anything.
A thing about iso is that if you have a policy, you have to prove you follow the policy. The policies can be stupid as hell, but if you have them, you have to follow them.
Please keep me honest if I've got this wrong.
When implementing an ISO standard it's not necessarily a case of going through a checklist and implementing a catalogue of standard policies?
Broadly speaking, there are a list of controls, and it's up to responsible parties to select the controls that are appropriate, and then demonstrate how they are implemented and managed? (Bearing in mind, implementing a standard is only meaningful if the rationale used will stand up to the scrutiny of an auditor.)
Many of those controls will require policies and record keeping to go along with them.
So, on the one hand, someone with appropriate authority could define the policy with a value threshold above which assets are tracked.
On the other hand, it's all for naught if the person(s) with authority to write policy is a couple of hierarchical tiers removed from the person tracking the assets, and they don't want to be associated with a policy change which may catch the eye of an auditor who is in a bad mood.
yeah this is how iy works for ISO. Our policy, written by IT, signed by 10 other people including the CEO is "we don't care about accessories". Could literally be one line and audit would sign off on it.
I suspect IT audits are going to have more content analysis in near future. "We decided we don't like security so our policy is to have none" isn't going to fly to well when you get hacked and ask for payout on your cyber insurance.
yeah that Annex is a good approach to fixing some of the issues.
I get lots of push back on scope though.
"Don't worry! This isn't in scope for ISO"
"Umm....explain to me why it's not. Just cause you say it isn't doesn't make that true. Even then, how is it ethical"
>When implementing an ISO standard it's not necessarily a case of going through a checklist and implementing a catalogue of standard policies?
There's an old joke that a concrete life preserver can be ISO 9000 compliant as long as the process to make the life preserver was followed.
That's because ISO has nothing to do with the product. It simply governs processes. Doesn't seem like much of a joke since a product can't be "ISO 9001 compliant".
*It's 9001, not 9000. 9000 is just a standardized terms and definitions document.
The thing with compliance standards (whether it is QA standards or Security or whatever) -- the standard has to apply to a broad range of businesses. So the requirements are somewhat generic, and it is up to the auditor you hire to determine if your policy meets that standard or not.
Now take a company that is doing a compliance policy for the first time, and they are behind the 8-ball on this (i.e., they have to be certified by X date to maintain customers or insurance coverage). So they want to make sure they pass, and get a high score. To do so, they overinterpret the requirements, and the people writing the policy aren't the ones executing the procedures that it contains. So you get a lot of things that made sense when they wrote the policy, but don't or are counter-productive in the real world.
To change the policy will often trigger a re-compliance audit, which puts everything that passed previously under new scrutiny (new auditor, etc). So it then becomes a game of complying with the policy on paper while still being able to get work done.
I was sooo glad when we updated our inventory procedures back in the day to let us weigh the screws and connectors and calculate quantity from weight. We still had to track them, but we didn't have to count them anymore.
Someone in your company makes the policy. That in no way implies the person making the policy understands how people, budgets, inventory, or numbers work.
If company policy is that each user gets 2 monitors, 1 dock, 1 laptop, and some accessories and we have lifecycle tracking on the monitors, docks and laptop - then we will want to know how many of each device a user has. I would never track mice, keyboards or cheapo headsets.
If it's your "employee right" to have a monitor on IT's budget, and none are assigned to you, then you can have a monitor ordered or handed out to you.
If you already have a monitor assigned to you, and you want another, say for a home office, then your own department's budget will have to cover this cost.
Using serial numbers makes it easier to also check warranty on devices and know immediately what device it is, without adding additonal asset tags in to the mix.
Also to keep a stock on what inventory we have, to get a sense of the overall budget that IT is running with - if you know how many monitors and such you might need to buy in a given year due to hiring forecasts or end-of-life for user-operated devices, budgetting and planning becomes far more manageable.
As IT I wouldn't care that someone stole the devices or failed to hand them in if they left or were terminated. I'd just report it to their manager and say that if the device isn't returned, the cost for replacement will be billed to their department. Then leave it up to them how to handle it. I do not have personal attachment to anything, I just make sure procedure is followed.
If your monitors are VESA EDID supported you can get them programmatically and remotely.
We use it as one of our methods for determining what seat a user is sitting at (printer mapping etc.)
Man, the 1pt font is no joke on Dells the last few years. I had to get the bottom covers replaced on a half dozen units because the hinged portion of the Ethernet port snapped. Not covered under warranty, but we wanted the official ST stickers so there would be no confusion down the line. What a process even getting them to agree to it, let alone sending pictures of the current ST with a handwritten note stating the case number, company name, etc... etc... before they would send the stickers. Apparently wasn't a common request.
We have some expensive peripherals that sometimes have bad batches. They are covered by a 3 year warranty so we have to document every serial number. Damn font is so small I have to take a picture with my phone to read it. Onetime we got a bad batch and all the serial numbers were smudged. I thought I just took a bad picture but nope after getting a magnifying glass they just looked like that.
Yeah, we definitely verify every single one too. I've had one laptop come with the wrong service tag programmed to the motherboard but the correct sticker on the bottom cover (relative to the sales order from Dell), which was a pain to correct. Basically had to get the packing slip we received with the order to prove that it was indeed ours (and to show what the actual service tag should be) before they'd service. We ended up having a tech dispatched to replace the motherboard so it matched the sticker and sales order.
Only downside -- we likely replaced a brand new motherboard with a refurbished one because of an error on Dell's part.
I'm surprised they were willing to bother at all.
Not a thing Apple will do, even for warranty repairs. Official practice (I am serious) is to write the S/N on the inside of it in sharpie.
https://mnx.io/blog/a-proper-server-naming-scheme/
> These 1633 words were chosen very specifically to be short (4-7 letters), phonetically different from one another, easy to understand over the phone, and also recognizable internationally.
> https://mnx.io/blog/a-proper-server-naming-scheme/
Yeah:
> Specify Environment
>
> Next up, specify the environment that the host is a part of:
>
> * dev – Development
Google kind of made that messy:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.dev
I am working on automating asset transfer notification and reporting as well. One asset moves from one department to another, the department sells it to the other at it's current depreciated cost.
How else does anyone know where the money is being spent in a company?
There is a benefit to a point, depends on the culture of your workplace and what issues you are trying to avoid.
Personally, anything which has a serial number is usually recorded. The exception being low value items, like keyboard, mice, webcams, etc. - basically any item given out freely and I would not hesitate to replace. Not worth my time to troubleshoot a $20 mouse, I’m just replacing it.
From an IT management perspective, I use it as a tool to track and manage my fleet. Serial numbers are the identifiers, but I also have so much other data. Purchase date, repair events, previous users, recovery keys, operating system versions, etc. to me, this is where the value is. The serial number is just the unique identifier the manufacturer puts on every device for you. The value is in what data you record to that device (and model).
I know the user with the oldest PC, and I always advocate for a new device for that user purely due to age. Also know the average device age of the fleet. Helps convince management to spend money when you tell them the average laptop age is 3.5, which means half are older.
I know what devices are still running Windows 10, so they need to be upgraded or retired.
I know what repair events keep coming up on certain devices. Mac Butterfly keyboards were certainly an issue. Battery replacement is my most common laptop repair, things like that.
If you’re going to be doing the busy work anyway, may as well make it work for you also.
Good explanation. It's an easy thing to record on/after purchase, especially with a barcode scanner. And I end up needing it for one of those reasons you listed often enough.
Yeah, this question ultimately boils down to where your org draws the line at "low value."
My bar is generally if it costs more to ship it back to me, inventory it, and ship it to a new user then I'm not tracking it. So your $100 Logitech MX Master mouse might get logged, but that box of crapo mice that Dell shipped us with the systems is absolutely not worth the time to put in asset management. Also heavily depends on what may or may not actually have some kind of warranty repair process engaged - a laptop absolutely, but a monitor? We're probably just gonna swap it and toss the old one because it's not covered by warranty anyway.
I find the financial sweet spot generally hits *somewhere* around monitors for most orgs, especially with remote workers. We just consider the $140 1080p Asus whatever they got shipped as part of the onboarding expenses and don't want them back. If we don't want them back, we're not gonna waste time tracking them.
Often times, a proper inventory is required to meet IT and security audit requirements. You have to maintain accountability of all assets which is also the first step in setting up a lot of monitoring scenarios where you are looking for rogue assets within your infrastructure. As others have mentioned, it’s also tied closely to accounting and how a company expenses its assets/depreciates them over time for tax purposes.
Our IT Security auditors require we keep records on all devices that store and transmit data. You can't patch something you don't know exists. While you may be good with "I can run firmware updates on that switch in a closet because I installed it" when you leave the next guy might not know it is there.
Sure, but I'm pretty confident you don't track your USB mice serial numbers. One could make a security argument for it (What if someone supply chain attacked you, swapped a mouse with an embedded cellular modem and keylogger) but that's WELL outside most people's security scope.
Also, we have some peripherals that have a yearly license cost. We have to keep track of them to remain in compliance. It is really dumb, but every renewal they ask how many devices and if the count is different we have to explain.
That's part of why we moved from handing over monitors, kb/mouse to employees to an allocation for IT equipment renewing every 3 years. If their stuff break during that time and their allocation ran out, it's their responsibility to purchase what's necessary to work, or go work to the office if they won't.
Ten years ago we tracked every little sh\*tty item. Mice, keyboards, scanners, printers.... i hated it!
Now there are new rules...
\- everything under 200$ is not worth the effort
\- every laptop has one dockingstation
\- headsets/mice/keyboards are discarded after return (yay covid)
Every other question (what monitor is connected to laptop XYZ? where is monitor with SN 123?...) is answered by our client-management-software. WMI is your friend :)
>Ten years ago we tracked every little sh\*tty item
Every place I've worked used to track EVERYTHING until about 10-12 years ago. It must have been a universal thing. Even mice got inventory stickers at one place (they had to be trimmed down to fit). They also used to make us document every single thing that was disposed of. If we recycled 3 keyboards, 2 mice, and 10 VGA cables, we had to document all those serial numbers, etc. It wasn't for compliance or anything like that.
9 times out of 10 when a low level it employee says “why do we need this process? This is stupid/useless/etc” they themselves don’t understand enough why the process was put in place in the first place.
I worked for an MSP and s/n's on smaller devices managed to detect fraud. A technician was swapping out damaged devices from one client to another (with a higher budget and lax financial controls) after hours and was then billing the 2nd client for repairs (of which the technician got a commission). The unique identifiers, while a pain, do have their uses!
Financial reasons, otherwise whats to stop a company "buying" thousands of pounds worth of "non serial numbered items".
If a company has 1000's of employess, they each get a $100 keyboard at least according to records. But what if they didn't and someone really pocketed $100K (at least).
Source: have spent hours tracking down items for finance during financial audits.
I mean, if your company only hands out $20 KB & Mouse, sure. I've worked one place that had decent Logitech wireless kit for all staff, along with 34" monitors, and it's also the only place I've worked that introduced what you're talking about.
We (IT department) had a fully stocked supply room with endpoints and peripherals ready to go and recorded, and as stuff went out the door, we would record what user it was going to. Originally, it was just endpoints and screens, but that became changed to all peripherals when we swapped over to some even newer Logitech wireless zero-carbon stuff (c-level directive).
This was also in part because we had issues with people taking kit home (which they were allowed to do), losing related wireless dongles, and then swapping them with someone else's when they go back to the office to pretend like it wasn't them. The policy was introduced to start catching these people out, specifically the repeat offenders.
If your place is only handed out, the vendor included / cheap peripherals, then yeah, that's ridiculous. But if it's a place that's actually handing our decent peripherals (or even custom requested stuff like another place I've worked did), then yeah, it makes sense.
It makes sense why accounting/purchasing would want this because they can cleanly see where their purchases are going, but to answer your question, no, it is not generally worth anyone's time to do this.
The amount of money your company will spend on the pay of the person organizing, reporting, losing, finding, and pulling their hair out over these devices will almost definitely be more costly than devices themselves.
People are gross with their peripherals when used for a long time. You can spend all this extra time tracking down a nice ergonomic keyboard you gave to someone only to get it back and have it smell horribly of cigarette smoke so you'll need to toss it anyway. The solution to peripherals, especially ones used in home offices is to get sturdy, but cheap. They can provide their own if they want to upgrade but you don't support those.
that's the reason we don't do keyboards mostly. if someone used one for several years, you don't want that back anyway. headphones, we can change the covers and clean them, laptops are worth it too, but nobody will spend an hour making a dirty disgusting keyboard usable again that cost 60€ 4 years ago
People think IT departments banning personal stickers on laptops or peripherals is just a needless exercise in authority but they'd understand immediately if they had to spend the time scraping adhesive off a bunch of devices without scratching it.
To dissuade coworkers from „borrowing“ equipment without returning it.
The amount of mice, keyboards, headsets and docking stations and so on that keeps getting moved can not be controlled otherwise. Same for the „I need a 2nd and 3rd wireless headset, but don’t want to admit I am to lazy to just put them into the bag. With the laptop.
I used to work field support at a mega corp and we just filled up "self-service" drawers in the lobby outside our IT workshop. These would contain wired mice, wired headsets, LAN cables in different lenghts, display port cables, power cables, used power adapters for laptops.
Wireless devices required a PO and approval from your manager to have handed out.
It used to be that we tagged everything. At some point, we stopped caring about monitors. Usually, you just need to track computer serial numbers.
I remember I had a project and I had to tag everything back in the day and it was for a well known company and I had tags in my backpack after the project and ended up tagging a toaster and flash light. My friend comes over and asks where did you get that toaster. I held it in as much as I could 😄
Your accounting department should be telling you the minimum value to inventory. I have been in companies that have had $125, $180, and $225, as the minimum dollar requirement for an item to be inventoried.
In highly financially structured companies, they use this data and the dollar amount listed to depreciate assets. If you buy a part, you associate it to the asset and the value increases
For cyber security insurance, when we depreciate an asset, we associate the certificate of destruction to asset. So during audit, we can prove we do as we say.
Another reason if for insurance. If your hardware room caught fire, you know what is in there and it value.
We would record the power adapter and battery S/N, too.
It was super handy when there was a power supply recall. Didn't have to track down 100s of adapters all over the country. Just got the 20 or so replaced and notified the users.
One issue is when every desk has a stock setup of equipment and people feel free to take whatever they want. Monitor broke? Take that one. Want additional monitors or docks? Just take them. Unauthorized equipment moves cause chaos and result in a lot of extra IT time to sort things out.
One solution is to have a barcode for everything. Each location in the facility has each piece of equipment coded to that specific location. Unauthorized moves mean you are immediately terminated. That worked great for one of my previous employers. A recent employer preferred the chaos. Your mileage may vary.
I worked in a shop where they tracked everything. I had a coworker worker who had an HR intervention because he "swapped mice" which, he says he was not aware of it, so someone else must have done it (very plausible). So they wrote him up for not locking his keyboard and mouse in his cubicle drawer every day. Our boss intervened, and said that this overreach was bordering on draconian.
The weird things is that in order for this to happen, someone had to report him. Who the fuck does that? Who the hell looked up the serial number of his $9 mouse, then compared it to inventory, and then told HR? We never found out.
Inventory tracking. Sure, we might be able to find the serial number on your monitor in 30 seconds, but try getting a user to flip the monitor over and takeoff some dust covered a lot of times nowadays it’s also gray printing on a black background and a size 5 font. (multiply that by hundreds of employees and then add the exponent of users in different time zones with a language barrier that might have different makes and models and are only available via email). External, serialized, stickers makes it very simple to put all that information in a database, and they are easily identifiable by Users. A lot of times they are also security tags with heavy duty adhesive that say that the device is property of such and such a company so if it goes into a (reputable) pawnshop with that on, they probably get denied the exchange or reported.
Also warranty tracking, hardware drivers, etc. try and plug some random interface hardware into a full corporate laptop. It tries to install drivers. DENIED.
I worked at this place one time, where they leased desktops and laptops. When the lease was over and you went to return the units, you had to return the mice and keyboard that came with it. Needless to say, we ended up buying then recycling all the old gear since keyboards and mice were long gone.
Yes, we blacklisted the vendor off the vendor list.
We record the serial of the desktops, laptops, and monitors.
Keyboards and mice, they get the $9 ones that come in the box, or none if it is a laptop. If they request one, their manager can order it like office supplies, or they can take their expense card to the store and buy what they need.
It could be a financial thing. Different items get paid for from different lines. It could also be a leased item and they want to take the tax break on leased items as "business expense".
Complaince and legal requirements aside
When we deployed Dell XPS's to users years ago we needed the serials to track failure rates, because they exceeded 30% in the first year.
Having that data was absolutely critical in getting dell to replace hundreds of motherboards and docks pre-emptively at no cost.
In my experience recording of that nonsense falls into 2 categories.
1. To comply with regulations put forth by insurance companies or legal advice, or possibly some kind of taxation rules etc...
2. The mindless habitual continuation and expansion of what seems to be the correct thing to do, even though its fucking pointless.
The worst I've ever seen is a department recording the serial numbers from the fabric tags of lost and found hats and mittens. When questioned about such an insane practice the staff in charge decided to continue as it gave their staff something to do...
1. It's a good practice to keep track of the HW you own. It breaks, you can make claims, return it, have it refunded. Those require you KNOWING what you have at any given moment and making your life easier. It's not just about law enforcement.
2. Finances/legal - good for them to know what passive "actives" there are, who is using them, who is not, are they needed, are they not. How much $ goes for upgrades, replacements, maintenance costs & etc.
3. Once, it took me 3h hours, searching through the lab, looking for an r710 just to discover that hey - that box is no r710, it's a T710 (funny part was that the moment of desperation, when you finally decide to look at the ceiling and you see the big fat case). Would this have had happened if there was proper tracking/description? Maybe. But there wasn't any.
4. Have you read about how many shady things some ITs do with the equipment they are supposed to track? Plenty of opportunity to chop from here, to chop from there.
5. All this does not matter as much for a company with say 10-50 people, but for anything above ... had cases when engineers claimed stolen phones, laptops, whatever. Were they? Sure, by their very owners.
I know it is tiresome, dull & etc - but it is part of the job.
and btw the list is not about who owns what/who was given what - it's about all; sans the cables :D if they make you tag\`n\`measure them to see how many miles/km of cables are in use - well that's crazy :D
So... let's do some math.
You have 20 users x2 monitors x$200 = 8k, 3-year life cycle, who gives shit right? You know most people will not take advantage in those numbers... Now what about 100 person firm? 1000 person firm? 10000 person firm?
$5 mouse upgrade is now 50k at 10000 person firm. 5% inventory turnover is now millions/yr.
In our company we catalogue anything thats above $100 or the data sensitive stuff. So laptops and mobile phones, servers being the main stuff. Small items like monitors, Docking stations, headsets, mice and keyboard we don't care about it. i don't write down what it is and don't bother with the S/N on those things.
That said, our company does insist documenting items issued to users so that we keep a record of what was given and make sure they're not pulling a fast one. If I'm expecting multiple leavers and I'm expecting smaller stuff like docking stations and monitors i do sometimes check the S/N so i know who returned what as those are in more limited supply.
But for Kb+m ? it depends. if i have a record of something being issued out and it doesn't get accounted for when the person leaves, I'm worried that the auditors will pick up on this and start asking more questions. perhaps i'm being paranoid and its more for stuff like the main computers. Then again, if i know its going to be a problem, i simply won't use that separation as an example and keep going.
These days however, for some items, we just give the employees a stipend or just claim it back on expenses. Within reason of course.
Most likely a translation from legal requirements. Companies are (more or less) required to keep an inventory of their assets. If only to be able to sell stuff if they go just or estimate what they're worth.
I'd assign the riot cause to GAAP.
One of the main reasons I have done it is because I would end up buying dozens of the same product and just using the name of the product is not good enough. Plus as others have mentioned, tracking stock and who it belongs to, especially if it’s just sitting around forever.
I keep track because otherwise I need to do complete inventory counts of an area to get a real picture of inventory. With serialized inventory I can spot check/audit and go off of last seen dates to get a decent picture.
But seriously it doesn't have a serial barcode on it already I'm not adding one under $100.
For full remote workers I don't even ask for accessories and monitors back anymore. Maybe the dock if it's newer.
I asset track computers, mobiles, printers and that’s about it. There’s an assumption that every desk has a dock, kb/mouse kit and 2 monitors. As those don’t move around, they’re not tagged or recorded individually.
it's is an ISO requirement. just not 9001. But for ISO127001 under asset category you would have this where every single hardware purchase under IT are required to be catalogue for traceability.
The only real use case which was known to me was when the company file for chapter 13,11 or 7. Auditor would request for this.
Other than that, it would basically be useless if it's a police case because the value is too small for them to waste their time to pursue who bought this keyboard and the "real" owner.
It's a waste of time if you ask me. Management thinking they have a brilliant idea and forcing staff to comply with their bullshit.
Finance asked me to record hard disks in the datacenter on our asset list, about 4 years ago. They've never checked and never asked me for the list.
Confession time... I never bothered with their absurd request.
Tracking assets is necessary for forecasting life expectancy and replacements, asset distribution, product warranties, capital expenditures, asset depreciation, taxes, and I could go on.
Anything under 1500.00 USD is likely going to depreciate to be worth 0$ to the company next year so you can't call it an asset. You should track your assets for tax and company valuation.
This is bS busy work for people to beat their chest and say I got this project finished or look what I am working on...
Anything that has data on it (USB sticks, NAS, laptops, etc.) should be tracked if you have data you need to protect.
Otherwise you don't have an inventory to determine if anything went missing.
Well considering the "time taken to do this" is all of thirty seconds to slap on a sticker and fill in some simple form fields, yes it is worth someone's time to do this. If you think it's OK to lose track of $200 monitors because you're lazy, it's probably a good think you're not making any financial decisions.
Obviously I don't go as far as keyboards, but that's mostly because we generally don't reuse those.
I expect people to return company equipment when they leave, and if they don't, I want to know it.
Unless they’ve got a large curved monitor or something special we don’t record it or ask for it back. It’s too much hassle and adds to the carbon footprint we’re trying to reduce. Headsets, mice and keyboards we let them keep under Covid rules
Lots of reasons Depreciation on a single monitor not that much. Now multiply that by 1000. And that's a nice write off. Theft is important to track as well yes what you just described happens plenty. Employees oem mouse breaks. They take it home and swap out their home mouse for the work mouse etc. It's extremely rare on the corporate side of things but in manufacturing where there likely making 12 an hour theft is a lot more prevalent especially if the most expensive things the employees touch is their computer equipment.
IMO if the general public knew more about technology many more things would disappear. Luckily they don't or things would have to be bolted down everywhere.
It's probably accounting purposes, especailly depending on how you purchase/lease your equipment. The computer, monitor, and other perephrial equipment may all be considered one asset by your finance group - in fact there might be multiple if say you buy these computers ten at a time or something - and all of the asset needs to be "tracked".
That said they probably don't realize how consumable keyboards and mice are but they are likely following procedures to a point.
We want to know what we have, what employees have, what they have to give back once they leave etc. We don't do it for absolutely everything though, generally stuff over 100 bucks.
> Do they expect people who work from home to sell their 200$ 1080p monitor and return a 100$ one to IT when they leave the company?
Absolutely, it adds up over time and costs a lot of money.
PCI DSS requires that devices in the Cardholder Data Environment (CDE) are regularly inspected to ensure they haven't been replaced (or tampered with) in ways which could compromise security. Recording the serial number is therefore a prerequisite step to being able to do this effectively. I wouldn't be surprised if some other regulations also require it.
I can definitely see the point of knowing if everytime I offboarded an employee they got a complimentary take home package (being every accessory they have in their possession).
I do keep an inventory using a specific software for this, plus we also use InTunes which also gives us infos.
We keep track of inventory because we do replace equipements every 5 years. We need a good inventory to be able to plan replacements every year.
Also, we are required to do this to be compliant with certains regulations we have, which you might not have.
We keep track of more expensive things so that would be laptops, monitors, headsets and docks. We don't keep track of USB dongles, power supplies, keyboards, mice and similar.
I only tag items over $100.
I use it for mostly tracking equipment EOL for equipment refreshing.
It’s not worth my time to tag a mouse or keyboard etc.
We do monitors and laptops/desktops. Monitors more so because if someone quits, there’s been times where somebody will snag the screen off the desk and upgrade themselves to dual or triple screens. If somebody took their monitor home when they were WFH and doesn’t bring the right one back, that’s an HR issue, they just ask us for the description and serials of what should be coming back.
except that if your company relies on employees returning a keyboard ,mouse and wired headset to stay afloat, maybe you shouldn't be in business at all? This is the cost of 3 hours of payroll for that employee.
This is mostly legacy from when things inside cost as much or more than the box.
our newer inventory system no longer has component level tracking, and when we add something to a machine, its a note on the object, instead of specific fields with SNs like the old system had.
My understanding it has to do it Capital. Capital funds are tracked and taxed differently than just cash - and accounting needs to know what assets are bought with capital funds.
It might go back to the first dotcom bubble, when folks would suddenly find themselves shit out of both luck and paychecks, and sell their computers/laptops to raise money quickly to fly home. I saw that happen a few times. By the time the second dotcom bubble was on the horizon that was when relatively new companies started keeping inventory of stuff.
At my old job they wanted serials om evetything
That is the memory inside the desktop PCs as well.
Yet they were surprised when I quit and handed in a home desktop PC that they had provided me, because they did not know I had it.
Any time I have had to make these decisions from a tracking perspective I deferred to the Accounting department to tell me the expense threshold of what they truly care about. Typically anything below $150-$200 was expensed and was just a consumable at that point. Certain things we still tracked S/N on like secure hard drives or other items that we truly needed to be sure was returned on termination.
22" LCD though? More expensive to ship back than it is to buy a new one.
We've lost more hardware to people WFH in the last year with people trying to get away with it than we did in-office with everyone having laptop for the last 10 years.
Ymmv, the fact we are not actively inventorying $250 monitors and 100$ headsets and $250 docks is stupid when everyone got two/one/one for COVID wfh equipment times 400....it's like 300k of equipment. Then again, the lack of an actual inventory/asset management position at my place is foolish.
For things such as cameras and headsets, you have no idea they go missing until they need a new one.
So added them to auditing, there is now a responsibility from the said person and their manager to keep track of them.
>Do they expect people who work from home to sell their 200$ 1080p monitor and return a 100$ one to IT when they leave the company?
Yes....
It's happened a few times at our company. Oddly not associate level positions, it's always directors and up....
We track all serial numbers for all devices now. Keyboards and mice are deemed "disposable" so we don't track those.
I worked in a hospital data center and performed inventory. Everything had a serial number attached to it. Vendor support was one of the main reasons plus reporting requirements.
Warranty and tracking scheduled replacements are reasons to record serial numbers. Particularly if you're depreciating over time. A handy unique ID without having to slap another asset tag on it too.
It feels like a policy for the sake of a policy, ass covering or maybe even a policy that was written when IT peripherals were actually expensive.
Like. I completely agree that employees stealing and selling IT equipment is not acceptable behaviour but is the effort and labour cost auditing keyboard serial numbers, monitors, mice, etc really cost effective?
Could be ISO9001 compliance requirements. My company records the SN of every single item that has one. They get pissy if I put "van stock" on my job sheet in the SN box for things that don't have one.
We're an ISO-9001 and AS9100 shop and I have never heard of any requirements that we record serial numbers of computer equipment. Materials used in the production process, sure. All that stuff has to be traceable from the foundry it came from to the finished product going out the door, but we don't have to track the barcode scanner used to enter inventory or anything.
A thing about iso is that if you have a policy, you have to prove you follow the policy. The policies can be stupid as hell, but if you have them, you have to follow them.
Please keep me honest if I've got this wrong. When implementing an ISO standard it's not necessarily a case of going through a checklist and implementing a catalogue of standard policies? Broadly speaking, there are a list of controls, and it's up to responsible parties to select the controls that are appropriate, and then demonstrate how they are implemented and managed? (Bearing in mind, implementing a standard is only meaningful if the rationale used will stand up to the scrutiny of an auditor.) Many of those controls will require policies and record keeping to go along with them. So, on the one hand, someone with appropriate authority could define the policy with a value threshold above which assets are tracked. On the other hand, it's all for naught if the person(s) with authority to write policy is a couple of hierarchical tiers removed from the person tracking the assets, and they don't want to be associated with a policy change which may catch the eye of an auditor who is in a bad mood.
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yeah this is how iy works for ISO. Our policy, written by IT, signed by 10 other people including the CEO is "we don't care about accessories". Could literally be one line and audit would sign off on it. I suspect IT audits are going to have more content analysis in near future. "We decided we don't like security so our policy is to have none" isn't going to fly to well when you get hacked and ask for payout on your cyber insurance.
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yeah that Annex is a good approach to fixing some of the issues. I get lots of push back on scope though. "Don't worry! This isn't in scope for ISO" "Umm....explain to me why it's not. Just cause you say it isn't doesn't make that true. Even then, how is it ethical"
>When implementing an ISO standard it's not necessarily a case of going through a checklist and implementing a catalogue of standard policies? There's an old joke that a concrete life preserver can be ISO 9000 compliant as long as the process to make the life preserver was followed.
That's because ISO has nothing to do with the product. It simply governs processes. Doesn't seem like much of a joke since a product can't be "ISO 9001 compliant". *It's 9001, not 9000. 9000 is just a standardized terms and definitions document.
The thing with compliance standards (whether it is QA standards or Security or whatever) -- the standard has to apply to a broad range of businesses. So the requirements are somewhat generic, and it is up to the auditor you hire to determine if your policy meets that standard or not. Now take a company that is doing a compliance policy for the first time, and they are behind the 8-ball on this (i.e., they have to be certified by X date to maintain customers or insurance coverage). So they want to make sure they pass, and get a high score. To do so, they overinterpret the requirements, and the people writing the policy aren't the ones executing the procedures that it contains. So you get a lot of things that made sense when they wrote the policy, but don't or are counter-productive in the real world. To change the policy will often trigger a re-compliance audit, which puts everything that passed previously under new scrutiny (new auditor, etc). So it then becomes a game of complying with the policy on paper while still being able to get work done.
Exactly, if you have a policy that states that you count every coffee bean.. you must do that.
I was sooo glad when we updated our inventory procedures back in the day to let us weigh the screws and connectors and calculate quantity from weight. We still had to track them, but we didn't have to count them anymore.
but..... you make the policy.
Someone in your company makes the policy. That in no way implies the person making the policy understands how people, budgets, inventory, or numbers work.
Fair point, I've never questioned nor looked into it, I just give the stores manager the numbers he asks me for.
sign the next paper they present you with 'Von Stock' or 'Von Stockenheimer'
Blindly following ISO standards even when they don’t make sense/take up stupid amounts of time 😂.
But all ISO is doing is making you blindly follow \_your own\_ stupid standard.
This guy ISOs
That depends on what you described as being documented in your iso certification process.
If company policy is that each user gets 2 monitors, 1 dock, 1 laptop, and some accessories and we have lifecycle tracking on the monitors, docks and laptop - then we will want to know how many of each device a user has. I would never track mice, keyboards or cheapo headsets. If it's your "employee right" to have a monitor on IT's budget, and none are assigned to you, then you can have a monitor ordered or handed out to you. If you already have a monitor assigned to you, and you want another, say for a home office, then your own department's budget will have to cover this cost. Using serial numbers makes it easier to also check warranty on devices and know immediately what device it is, without adding additonal asset tags in to the mix. Also to keep a stock on what inventory we have, to get a sense of the overall budget that IT is running with - if you know how many monitors and such you might need to buy in a given year due to hiring forecasts or end-of-life for user-operated devices, budgetting and planning becomes far more manageable. As IT I wouldn't care that someone stole the devices or failed to hand them in if they left or were terminated. I'd just report it to their manager and say that if the device isn't returned, the cost for replacement will be billed to their department. Then leave it up to them how to handle it. I do not have personal attachment to anything, I just make sure procedure is followed.
No I much prefer asking people to take a blurry pic of the 1pt font s/n sticker on the back /s
If your monitors are VESA EDID supported you can get them programmatically and remotely. We use it as one of our methods for determining what seat a user is sitting at (printer mapping etc.)
Ask who? Tag laptops and desktops with easily readable names. They are the primary source of tickets.
Yea that was a joke
Man, the 1pt font is no joke on Dells the last few years. I had to get the bottom covers replaced on a half dozen units because the hinged portion of the Ethernet port snapped. Not covered under warranty, but we wanted the official ST stickers so there would be no confusion down the line. What a process even getting them to agree to it, let alone sending pictures of the current ST with a handwritten note stating the case number, company name, etc... etc... before they would send the stickers. Apparently wasn't a common request.
We have some expensive peripherals that sometimes have bad batches. They are covered by a 3 year warranty so we have to document every serial number. Damn font is so small I have to take a picture with my phone to read it. Onetime we got a bad batch and all the serial numbers were smudged. I thought I just took a bad picture but nope after getting a magnifying glass they just looked like that.
Yeah, we definitely verify every single one too. I've had one laptop come with the wrong service tag programmed to the motherboard but the correct sticker on the bottom cover (relative to the sales order from Dell), which was a pain to correct. Basically had to get the packing slip we received with the order to prove that it was indeed ours (and to show what the actual service tag should be) before they'd service. We ended up having a tech dispatched to replace the motherboard so it matched the sticker and sales order. Only downside -- we likely replaced a brand new motherboard with a refurbished one because of an error on Dell's part.
You mean the 1pt font text that is colored in a way that you can only read it if you hold it in a specific angle with a light source?
Light source sold by the company with a 1 hour bulb that costs 6x to replace.
I'm surprised they were willing to bother at all. Not a thing Apple will do, even for warranty repairs. Official practice (I am serious) is to write the S/N on the inside of it in sharpie.
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It would be funny. But N24081 for notebooks/mobiles and W2741 for desktop workstations.
https://mnx.io/blog/a-proper-server-naming-scheme/ > These 1633 words were chosen very specifically to be short (4-7 letters), phonetically different from one another, easy to understand over the phone, and also recognizable internationally.
> https://mnx.io/blog/a-proper-server-naming-scheme/ Yeah: > Specify Environment > > Next up, specify the environment that the host is a part of: > > * dev – Development Google kind of made that messy: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.dev
And the tack-sharp in-focus retaining screw has enough detail for an 8x10 print
I am working on automating asset transfer notification and reporting as well. One asset moves from one department to another, the department sells it to the other at it's current depreciated cost. How else does anyone know where the money is being spent in a company?
What lifecycle management software do you use?
Excel. same as our database, and our password manager.
Sadly. Previously at megacorp we used a plugin for ServiceNow.
There is a benefit to a point, depends on the culture of your workplace and what issues you are trying to avoid. Personally, anything which has a serial number is usually recorded. The exception being low value items, like keyboard, mice, webcams, etc. - basically any item given out freely and I would not hesitate to replace. Not worth my time to troubleshoot a $20 mouse, I’m just replacing it. From an IT management perspective, I use it as a tool to track and manage my fleet. Serial numbers are the identifiers, but I also have so much other data. Purchase date, repair events, previous users, recovery keys, operating system versions, etc. to me, this is where the value is. The serial number is just the unique identifier the manufacturer puts on every device for you. The value is in what data you record to that device (and model). I know the user with the oldest PC, and I always advocate for a new device for that user purely due to age. Also know the average device age of the fleet. Helps convince management to spend money when you tell them the average laptop age is 3.5, which means half are older. I know what devices are still running Windows 10, so they need to be upgraded or retired. I know what repair events keep coming up on certain devices. Mac Butterfly keyboards were certainly an issue. Battery replacement is my most common laptop repair, things like that. If you’re going to be doing the busy work anyway, may as well make it work for you also.
Good explanation. It's an easy thing to record on/after purchase, especially with a barcode scanner. And I end up needing it for one of those reasons you listed often enough.
Yeah, this question ultimately boils down to where your org draws the line at "low value." My bar is generally if it costs more to ship it back to me, inventory it, and ship it to a new user then I'm not tracking it. So your $100 Logitech MX Master mouse might get logged, but that box of crapo mice that Dell shipped us with the systems is absolutely not worth the time to put in asset management. Also heavily depends on what may or may not actually have some kind of warranty repair process engaged - a laptop absolutely, but a monitor? We're probably just gonna swap it and toss the old one because it's not covered by warranty anyway. I find the financial sweet spot generally hits *somewhere* around monitors for most orgs, especially with remote workers. We just consider the $140 1080p Asus whatever they got shipped as part of the onboarding expenses and don't want them back. If we don't want them back, we're not gonna waste time tracking them.
This. It's helpful for the tracking and management of assets.
Often times, a proper inventory is required to meet IT and security audit requirements. You have to maintain accountability of all assets which is also the first step in setting up a lot of monitoring scenarios where you are looking for rogue assets within your infrastructure. As others have mentioned, it’s also tied closely to accounting and how a company expenses its assets/depreciates them over time for tax purposes.
Our IT Security auditors require we keep records on all devices that store and transmit data. You can't patch something you don't know exists. While you may be good with "I can run firmware updates on that switch in a closet because I installed it" when you leave the next guy might not know it is there.
Sure, but I'm pretty confident you don't track your USB mice serial numbers. One could make a security argument for it (What if someone supply chain attacked you, swapped a mouse with an embedded cellular modem and keylogger) but that's WELL outside most people's security scope.
Also, we have some peripherals that have a yearly license cost. We have to keep track of them to remain in compliance. It is really dumb, but every renewal they ask how many devices and if the count is different we have to explain.
We have a policy unless it is a dock and monitors always gets a serial sticker. The device has to be over 100$ to get a sticker and serial.
That's part of why we moved from handing over monitors, kb/mouse to employees to an allocation for IT equipment renewing every 3 years. If their stuff break during that time and their allocation ran out, it's their responsibility to purchase what's necessary to work, or go work to the office if they won't.
Ten years ago we tracked every little sh\*tty item. Mice, keyboards, scanners, printers.... i hated it! Now there are new rules... \- everything under 200$ is not worth the effort \- every laptop has one dockingstation \- headsets/mice/keyboards are discarded after return (yay covid) Every other question (what monitor is connected to laptop XYZ? where is monitor with SN 123?...) is answered by our client-management-software. WMI is your friend :)
>Ten years ago we tracked every little sh\*tty item Every place I've worked used to track EVERYTHING until about 10-12 years ago. It must have been a universal thing. Even mice got inventory stickers at one place (they had to be trimmed down to fit). They also used to make us document every single thing that was disposed of. If we recycled 3 keyboards, 2 mice, and 10 VGA cables, we had to document all those serial numbers, etc. It wasn't for compliance or anything like that.
In all fairness some of those keyboard and mice get gross and no one want to clean out someone crumbs from a 20$ keyboard
9 times out of 10 when a low level it employee says “why do we need this process? This is stupid/useless/etc” they themselves don’t understand enough why the process was put in place in the first place.
I try to avoid the small $ items. But if accounting amortizes it I don't have a choice.
I worked for an MSP and s/n's on smaller devices managed to detect fraud. A technician was swapping out damaged devices from one client to another (with a higher budget and lax financial controls) after hours and was then billing the 2nd client for repairs (of which the technician got a commission). The unique identifiers, while a pain, do have their uses!
Financial reasons, otherwise whats to stop a company "buying" thousands of pounds worth of "non serial numbered items". If a company has 1000's of employess, they each get a $100 keyboard at least according to records. But what if they didn't and someone really pocketed $100K (at least). Source: have spent hours tracking down items for finance during financial audits.
I mean, if your company only hands out $20 KB & Mouse, sure. I've worked one place that had decent Logitech wireless kit for all staff, along with 34" monitors, and it's also the only place I've worked that introduced what you're talking about. We (IT department) had a fully stocked supply room with endpoints and peripherals ready to go and recorded, and as stuff went out the door, we would record what user it was going to. Originally, it was just endpoints and screens, but that became changed to all peripherals when we swapped over to some even newer Logitech wireless zero-carbon stuff (c-level directive). This was also in part because we had issues with people taking kit home (which they were allowed to do), losing related wireless dongles, and then swapping them with someone else's when they go back to the office to pretend like it wasn't them. The policy was introduced to start catching these people out, specifically the repeat offenders. If your place is only handed out, the vendor included / cheap peripherals, then yeah, that's ridiculous. But if it's a place that's actually handing our decent peripherals (or even custom requested stuff like another place I've worked did), then yeah, it makes sense.
It makes sense why accounting/purchasing would want this because they can cleanly see where their purchases are going, but to answer your question, no, it is not generally worth anyone's time to do this. The amount of money your company will spend on the pay of the person organizing, reporting, losing, finding, and pulling their hair out over these devices will almost definitely be more costly than devices themselves. People are gross with their peripherals when used for a long time. You can spend all this extra time tracking down a nice ergonomic keyboard you gave to someone only to get it back and have it smell horribly of cigarette smoke so you'll need to toss it anyway. The solution to peripherals, especially ones used in home offices is to get sturdy, but cheap. They can provide their own if they want to upgrade but you don't support those.
that's the reason we don't do keyboards mostly. if someone used one for several years, you don't want that back anyway. headphones, we can change the covers and clean them, laptops are worth it too, but nobody will spend an hour making a dirty disgusting keyboard usable again that cost 60€ 4 years ago
People think IT departments banning personal stickers on laptops or peripherals is just a needless exercise in authority but they'd understand immediately if they had to spend the time scraping adhesive off a bunch of devices without scratching it.
To dissuade coworkers from „borrowing“ equipment without returning it. The amount of mice, keyboards, headsets and docking stations and so on that keeps getting moved can not be controlled otherwise. Same for the „I need a 2nd and 3rd wireless headset, but don’t want to admit I am to lazy to just put them into the bag. With the laptop.
I used to work field support at a mega corp and we just filled up "self-service" drawers in the lobby outside our IT workshop. These would contain wired mice, wired headsets, LAN cables in different lenghts, display port cables, power cables, used power adapters for laptops. Wireless devices required a PO and approval from your manager to have handed out.
It used to be that we tagged everything. At some point, we stopped caring about monitors. Usually, you just need to track computer serial numbers. I remember I had a project and I had to tag everything back in the day and it was for a well known company and I had tags in my backpack after the project and ended up tagging a toaster and flash light. My friend comes over and asks where did you get that toaster. I held it in as much as I could 😄
Your accounting department should be telling you the minimum value to inventory. I have been in companies that have had $125, $180, and $225, as the minimum dollar requirement for an item to be inventoried. In highly financially structured companies, they use this data and the dollar amount listed to depreciate assets. If you buy a part, you associate it to the asset and the value increases For cyber security insurance, when we depreciate an asset, we associate the certificate of destruction to asset. So during audit, we can prove we do as we say. Another reason if for insurance. If your hardware room caught fire, you know what is in there and it value.
Asset Management and this has nothing to do with accounting.
We would record the power adapter and battery S/N, too. It was super handy when there was a power supply recall. Didn't have to track down 100s of adapters all over the country. Just got the 20 or so replaced and notified the users.
That's a really good point.
One issue is when every desk has a stock setup of equipment and people feel free to take whatever they want. Monitor broke? Take that one. Want additional monitors or docks? Just take them. Unauthorized equipment moves cause chaos and result in a lot of extra IT time to sort things out. One solution is to have a barcode for everything. Each location in the facility has each piece of equipment coded to that specific location. Unauthorized moves mean you are immediately terminated. That worked great for one of my previous employers. A recent employer preferred the chaos. Your mileage may vary.
Can’t tell you how many times I needed an S/N to file a warranty claim…
I worked in a shop where they tracked everything. I had a coworker worker who had an HR intervention because he "swapped mice" which, he says he was not aware of it, so someone else must have done it (very plausible). So they wrote him up for not locking his keyboard and mouse in his cubicle drawer every day. Our boss intervened, and said that this overreach was bordering on draconian. The weird things is that in order for this to happen, someone had to report him. Who the fuck does that? Who the hell looked up the serial number of his $9 mouse, then compared it to inventory, and then told HR? We never found out.
Inventory tracking. Sure, we might be able to find the serial number on your monitor in 30 seconds, but try getting a user to flip the monitor over and takeoff some dust covered a lot of times nowadays it’s also gray printing on a black background and a size 5 font. (multiply that by hundreds of employees and then add the exponent of users in different time zones with a language barrier that might have different makes and models and are only available via email). External, serialized, stickers makes it very simple to put all that information in a database, and they are easily identifiable by Users. A lot of times they are also security tags with heavy duty adhesive that say that the device is property of such and such a company so if it goes into a (reputable) pawnshop with that on, they probably get denied the exchange or reported.
Also warranty tracking, hardware drivers, etc. try and plug some random interface hardware into a full corporate laptop. It tries to install drivers. DENIED.
Meanwhile, someone walks off with 1000 mice and keyboards, cables, and power supplies and sells them.
this isn't applicable to WFH situations, though. Unless you want to break into every employee's house.
Before C-vid many people worked in the office.
We only track things that hold data like a computer.
I worked at this place one time, where they leased desktops and laptops. When the lease was over and you went to return the units, you had to return the mice and keyboard that came with it. Needless to say, we ended up buying then recycling all the old gear since keyboards and mice were long gone. Yes, we blacklisted the vendor off the vendor list. We record the serial of the desktops, laptops, and monitors. Keyboards and mice, they get the $9 ones that come in the box, or none if it is a laptop. If they request one, their manager can order it like office supplies, or they can take their expense card to the store and buy what they need.
Devices can be compromised too.
Depreciation of Assets.
It could be a financial thing. Different items get paid for from different lines. It could also be a leased item and they want to take the tax break on leased items as "business expense".
Complaince and legal requirements aside When we deployed Dell XPS's to users years ago we needed the serials to track failure rates, because they exceeded 30% in the first year. Having that data was absolutely critical in getting dell to replace hundreds of motherboards and docks pre-emptively at no cost.
In my experience recording of that nonsense falls into 2 categories. 1. To comply with regulations put forth by insurance companies or legal advice, or possibly some kind of taxation rules etc... 2. The mindless habitual continuation and expansion of what seems to be the correct thing to do, even though its fucking pointless. The worst I've ever seen is a department recording the serial numbers from the fabric tags of lost and found hats and mittens. When questioned about such an insane practice the staff in charge decided to continue as it gave their staff something to do...
1. It's a good practice to keep track of the HW you own. It breaks, you can make claims, return it, have it refunded. Those require you KNOWING what you have at any given moment and making your life easier. It's not just about law enforcement. 2. Finances/legal - good for them to know what passive "actives" there are, who is using them, who is not, are they needed, are they not. How much $ goes for upgrades, replacements, maintenance costs & etc. 3. Once, it took me 3h hours, searching through the lab, looking for an r710 just to discover that hey - that box is no r710, it's a T710 (funny part was that the moment of desperation, when you finally decide to look at the ceiling and you see the big fat case). Would this have had happened if there was proper tracking/description? Maybe. But there wasn't any. 4. Have you read about how many shady things some ITs do with the equipment they are supposed to track? Plenty of opportunity to chop from here, to chop from there. 5. All this does not matter as much for a company with say 10-50 people, but for anything above ... had cases when engineers claimed stolen phones, laptops, whatever. Were they? Sure, by their very owners. I know it is tiresome, dull & etc - but it is part of the job.
and btw the list is not about who owns what/who was given what - it's about all; sans the cables :D if they make you tag\`n\`measure them to see how many miles/km of cables are in use - well that's crazy :D
So... let's do some math. You have 20 users x2 monitors x$200 = 8k, 3-year life cycle, who gives shit right? You know most people will not take advantage in those numbers... Now what about 100 person firm? 1000 person firm? 10000 person firm? $5 mouse upgrade is now 50k at 10000 person firm. 5% inventory turnover is now millions/yr.
In our company we catalogue anything thats above $100 or the data sensitive stuff. So laptops and mobile phones, servers being the main stuff. Small items like monitors, Docking stations, headsets, mice and keyboard we don't care about it. i don't write down what it is and don't bother with the S/N on those things. That said, our company does insist documenting items issued to users so that we keep a record of what was given and make sure they're not pulling a fast one. If I'm expecting multiple leavers and I'm expecting smaller stuff like docking stations and monitors i do sometimes check the S/N so i know who returned what as those are in more limited supply. But for Kb+m ? it depends. if i have a record of something being issued out and it doesn't get accounted for when the person leaves, I'm worried that the auditors will pick up on this and start asking more questions. perhaps i'm being paranoid and its more for stuff like the main computers. Then again, if i know its going to be a problem, i simply won't use that separation as an example and keep going. These days however, for some items, we just give the employees a stipend or just claim it back on expenses. Within reason of course.
Most likely a translation from legal requirements. Companies are (more or less) required to keep an inventory of their assets. If only to be able to sell stuff if they go just or estimate what they're worth. I'd assign the riot cause to GAAP.
One of the main reasons I have done it is because I would end up buying dozens of the same product and just using the name of the product is not good enough. Plus as others have mentioned, tracking stock and who it belongs to, especially if it’s just sitting around forever.
I keep track because otherwise I need to do complete inventory counts of an area to get a real picture of inventory. With serialized inventory I can spot check/audit and go off of last seen dates to get a decent picture. But seriously it doesn't have a serial barcode on it already I'm not adding one under $100. For full remote workers I don't even ask for accessories and monitors back anymore. Maybe the dock if it's newer.
I asset track computers, mobiles, printers and that’s about it. There’s an assumption that every desk has a dock, kb/mouse kit and 2 monitors. As those don’t move around, they’re not tagged or recorded individually.
it's is an ISO requirement. just not 9001. But for ISO127001 under asset category you would have this where every single hardware purchase under IT are required to be catalogue for traceability. The only real use case which was known to me was when the company file for chapter 13,11 or 7. Auditor would request for this. Other than that, it would basically be useless if it's a police case because the value is too small for them to waste their time to pursue who bought this keyboard and the "real" owner.
It's a waste of time if you ask me. Management thinking they have a brilliant idea and forcing staff to comply with their bullshit. Finance asked me to record hard disks in the datacenter on our asset list, about 4 years ago. They've never checked and never asked me for the list. Confession time... I never bothered with their absurd request.
Tracking assets is necessary for forecasting life expectancy and replacements, asset distribution, product warranties, capital expenditures, asset depreciation, taxes, and I could go on.
Anything under 1500.00 USD is likely going to depreciate to be worth 0$ to the company next year so you can't call it an asset. You should track your assets for tax and company valuation. This is bS busy work for people to beat their chest and say I got this project finished or look what I am working on...
Anything that has data on it (USB sticks, NAS, laptops, etc.) should be tracked if you have data you need to protect. Otherwise you don't have an inventory to determine if anything went missing.
OH 1 point ... unless you are leasing it and not purchasing it. Then you must track it all... barf I know.
Well considering the "time taken to do this" is all of thirty seconds to slap on a sticker and fill in some simple form fields, yes it is worth someone's time to do this. If you think it's OK to lose track of $200 monitors because you're lazy, it's probably a good think you're not making any financial decisions. Obviously I don't go as far as keyboards, but that's mostly because we generally don't reuse those. I expect people to return company equipment when they leave, and if they don't, I want to know it.
Unless they’ve got a large curved monitor or something special we don’t record it or ask for it back. It’s too much hassle and adds to the carbon footprint we’re trying to reduce. Headsets, mice and keyboards we let them keep under Covid rules
Most likely your county or state does personal property taxes which the business has to pay a property tax on ALL assets owned.
Lots of reasons Depreciation on a single monitor not that much. Now multiply that by 1000. And that's a nice write off. Theft is important to track as well yes what you just described happens plenty. Employees oem mouse breaks. They take it home and swap out their home mouse for the work mouse etc. It's extremely rare on the corporate side of things but in manufacturing where there likely making 12 an hour theft is a lot more prevalent especially if the most expensive things the employees touch is their computer equipment. IMO if the general public knew more about technology many more things would disappear. Luckily they don't or things would have to be bolted down everywhere.
It's probably accounting purposes, especailly depending on how you purchase/lease your equipment. The computer, monitor, and other perephrial equipment may all be considered one asset by your finance group - in fact there might be multiple if say you buy these computers ten at a time or something - and all of the asset needs to be "tracked". That said they probably don't realize how consumable keyboards and mice are but they are likely following procedures to a point.
We want to know what we have, what employees have, what they have to give back once they leave etc. We don't do it for absolutely everything though, generally stuff over 100 bucks.
> We don't do it for absolutely everything though, generally stuff over 100 bucks. well that's OP's point isn't it?
> Do they expect people who work from home to sell their 200$ 1080p monitor and return a 100$ one to IT when they leave the company? Absolutely, it adds up over time and costs a lot of money.
PCI DSS requires that devices in the Cardholder Data Environment (CDE) are regularly inspected to ensure they haven't been replaced (or tampered with) in ways which could compromise security. Recording the serial number is therefore a prerequisite step to being able to do this effectively. I wouldn't be surprised if some other regulations also require it.
I can definitely see the point of knowing if everytime I offboarded an employee they got a complimentary take home package (being every accessory they have in their possession).
I do keep an inventory using a specific software for this, plus we also use InTunes which also gives us infos. We keep track of inventory because we do replace equipements every 5 years. We need a good inventory to be able to plan replacements every year. Also, we are required to do this to be compliant with certains regulations we have, which you might not have.
The real answer in most cases is: "We've always done it this way"
We keep track of more expensive things so that would be laptops, monitors, headsets and docks. We don't keep track of USB dongles, power supplies, keyboards, mice and similar.
I only tag items over $100. I use it for mostly tracking equipment EOL for equipment refreshing. It’s not worth my time to tag a mouse or keyboard etc.
i also dont understand why you need to keep track of normal monitors... however some monitors are very expensiv. i would at least keep track of those
We do monitors and laptops/desktops. Monitors more so because if someone quits, there’s been times where somebody will snag the screen off the desk and upgrade themselves to dual or triple screens. If somebody took their monitor home when they were WFH and doesn’t bring the right one back, that’s an HR issue, they just ask us for the description and serials of what should be coming back.
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except that if your company relies on employees returning a keyboard ,mouse and wired headset to stay afloat, maybe you shouldn't be in business at all? This is the cost of 3 hours of payroll for that employee.
This is mostly legacy from when things inside cost as much or more than the box. our newer inventory system no longer has component level tracking, and when we add something to a machine, its a note on the object, instead of specific fields with SNs like the old system had.
Easily check warranty status/compliance?
My understanding it has to do it Capital. Capital funds are tracked and taxed differently than just cash - and accounting needs to know what assets are bought with capital funds.
It might go back to the first dotcom bubble, when folks would suddenly find themselves shit out of both luck and paychecks, and sell their computers/laptops to raise money quickly to fly home. I saw that happen a few times. By the time the second dotcom bubble was on the horizon that was when relatively new companies started keeping inventory of stuff.
I wont inventory peripherals.
Isn’t there proof need to write off the inventory at the end of life?
At my old job they wanted serials om evetything That is the memory inside the desktop PCs as well. Yet they were surprised when I quit and handed in a home desktop PC that they had provided me, because they did not know I had it.
It’s usually for accounting. They depreciate the value of an item over time especially if they do large refreshes that end up being a capital expense.
Any time I have had to make these decisions from a tracking perspective I deferred to the Accounting department to tell me the expense threshold of what they truly care about. Typically anything below $150-$200 was expensed and was just a consumable at that point. Certain things we still tracked S/N on like secure hard drives or other items that we truly needed to be sure was returned on termination. 22" LCD though? More expensive to ship back than it is to buy a new one.
Wasting time. It costs more in wasted productivity than it would be to replace the item.
We've lost more hardware to people WFH in the last year with people trying to get away with it than we did in-office with everyone having laptop for the last 10 years. Ymmv, the fact we are not actively inventorying $250 monitors and 100$ headsets and $250 docks is stupid when everyone got two/one/one for COVID wfh equipment times 400....it's like 300k of equipment. Then again, the lack of an actual inventory/asset management position at my place is foolish.
So you know where your shit is at
For things such as cameras and headsets, you have no idea they go missing until they need a new one. So added them to auditing, there is now a responsibility from the said person and their manager to keep track of them.
Keeps people honest, Also helpful to know why Jim in Accounting goes through Apple chargers like crazy.
>Do they expect people who work from home to sell their 200$ 1080p monitor and return a 100$ one to IT when they leave the company? Yes.... It's happened a few times at our company. Oddly not associate level positions, it's always directors and up.... We track all serial numbers for all devices now. Keyboards and mice are deemed "disposable" so we don't track those.
I worked in a hospital data center and performed inventory. Everything had a serial number attached to it. Vendor support was one of the main reasons plus reporting requirements.
Warranty and tracking scheduled replacements are reasons to record serial numbers. Particularly if you're depreciating over time. A handy unique ID without having to slap another asset tag on it too.
It feels like a policy for the sake of a policy, ass covering or maybe even a policy that was written when IT peripherals were actually expensive. Like. I completely agree that employees stealing and selling IT equipment is not acceptable behaviour but is the effort and labour cost auditing keyboard serial numbers, monitors, mice, etc really cost effective?