You’ll have heard about how asset tracking software saves your business time and money. But how does this work? In what ways does asset tracking save you money? What’s your end product?

Asset tracking software provides you with a suite of features and functions that you can implement, meaning your business operations are simplified, sped up and more transparent.

Find out more about how asset tracking software works below.

The core idea behind asset tracking software is that every asset is unique. That means that even if your business owns twenty MacBook Airs, each of these Macs are still individual, unique assets.

This is how asset tracking differs from stock and inventory, as it’s more important to know how each of these assets is behaving and who is using them than how many you own.

This is what asset tracking software does, it takes your unique assets and allows you to log them as individual asset profiles. Then, on these profiles, you can add a range of information that helps you manage, track, and optimise your asset operations. In turn, you save time and money.

First of all, asset tracking software lets you automate equipment location tracking. This is true whether you’re using a system for IT asset management, tools and equipment tracking or fixed asset management.

As each of your assets has a unique profile, you can attribute unique tracking data against your assets. You’ll do this by using asset tags, these are physical tags that you stick onto your assets to link the physical to the digital.

Every time you scan an asset’s tag, that asset’s profile will open. Not only does this speed up auditing, issue reporting and asset data changes, but it also means that if an asset would otherwise be lost, you can still scan that asset to view its data.

As you can see, something else happens, too. Every time you scan an asset’s tag, the last seen location also updates using your phone’s GPS data. This creates a neat and tidy audit trail showing you all of your assets’ prior interactions.

As mentioned, you can tailor your asset management operations using asset tracking software. In other words, you’ll be able to use your software as equipment checkout software as well as fixed asset management software.

This is because of the core concept of asset management: every asset is unique. Therefore, you need as many tracking functions and capabilities as possible to get the most out of your asset tracking.

Because of this, within your asset profiles, you’ll get a range of different features that you can use. This will include maintenance features, such as reminders and issues management, bookings features, information features, the ability to attach files and more.

These features contribute to your overall asset tracking effort as it means different teams can interact with the same asset in different ways. In other words, one team can track that asset’s depreciation while another tracks its maintenance history.

Whenever you update, change, or add an asset, it is automatically added, updated or changed to your fixed asset register. This will sit in a dedicated reports section for you to isolate, monitor, edit and filter data and export it.

Overall, asset tracking software works by allowing you to update data on your assets onsite, then manage, view, and update them remotely. You can mix and match these functionalities, but with automated reporting features, you save as much time and money as possible.

Your fixed asset register is useful for monitoring how your assets are behaving, where they are and who has them, meaning your audit trail is tighter than ever, much more controlled and infinitely more transparent.

To find out more about how itemit’s asset tracking software can help your business, you can fill in the form below to try the system out for yourself with a 14-day free trial. You can also contact the friendly team at team@itemit.com for more details.

Instant access. No credit card details required.

or, download the itemit app to get started

In this guide:

1. Space Location Tracking
2. Overcoming Space Tracking Difficulties
3. Using Asset Management Features In Space
4. Lab Equipment, Healthcare Equipment, And Other Space-Bound Assets
5. itemit’s Down To Earth Asset Tracking Software

In this guide:

1. Space Location Tracking
2. Overcoming Space Tracking Difficulties
3. Using Asset Management Features In Space
4. Lab Equipment, Healthcare Equipment, And Other Space-Bound Assets
5. itemit’s Down To Earth Asset Tracking Software

Asset tracking has developed in leaps and bounds in recent years. Now, finding where your fixed assets are, who has them and how they’re behaving is easy… On Earth.

How would asset tracking work in the final frontier, space? While difficult, tracking location and running audits in space actually isn’t impossible.

This isn’t to say the capabilities would be like-for-like as they are on Earth. For example, the lack of smartphones may cause difficulties. However, smartphones are still usable in space, as are laptops, radioactive interference merely shortens the lifespan.

So, how would asset tracking work in space?

For space location tracking to work in a similar way to the way it does on Earth, celestial objects or any man-made space tech need to be tracked relative to an object. This becomes much simpler when what you’re tracking is in the orbit of said object.

In other words, there is no x, y or z axes in space where there are on Earth. Any object on Earth has a latitude, a longitude and an altitude. This is how conventional GPS asset management works – it gives you where an asset is in terms of x,y,z or latitude, longitude and altitude.

Therefore, to track an object in space, we can use the same logic where if something is 65 miles above sea level above the white house, the coordinates are 38.8977º North, 77.0365º West, and 65 miles upwards. In other words, this tracking still works relative to Earth.

However, this creates a world of difficulties as the White House will move at the same rate as the Earth’s spin and the Earth’s orbit around the sun, where these two factors will affect how easy it is to track things in space. In other words, if the White House is “still”, the x,y,z coordinates do not change, where they do for a space-craft.

You’ll have likely heard that there’s more technology in your smartphone than put us on the moon. Therefore, how is it that your smartphone can track your IT assets but find difficulty in tracking space objects?

The answer is simple: Maths. The way you overcome location tracking difficulties within anything tracking space objects, from your smartphone to your laptops to your own imagination is with maths.

As you can still bounce signals to and from space objects, you can track them mathematically at a given moment. What does this involve? A lot of factors.

The most simple part is when you’re closer to the answer, you can bounce a signal off a space object to get a hypotenuse. Then, if you know that object’s altitude you can use Pythagoras’ theorem to find out x,y. The difficulty here is that you need to position multiple signal trackers so that none of them need to pass a signal through Earth. The signal also needs to be sent and bounce at the correct angle, as it must be a straight line to and from the tracker.

Yet, to get more specific and granular you need to do the more complex maths including the speed and direction of travel, the current velocity of the ship, the angle of the orbit, the shape of the orbit to find out the altitude of the ship. Once you know all of this, you’ve calculated the position anyway.

Therefore, it’s essentially “find x”, “find y”, “find z” and, using tracking technologies, you can fill in the gaps to reduce the number of unknown variables.

This can still present difficulties. For example, as the ISS was built in space, there were a lot of unknowns based on whether or not the GPS receivers they built will work. It is still the best way to fill in the gaps as now, instead of having pages and pages and pages of formulae to track every element involved in space travel (including pitch, yaw, velocity, etc.), we can use technology to feed us that information.

So, we’ve established how to track the where of the objects. Now, how do general asset management features work in space?

First and foremost, you won’t be able to use last seen location tracking or 4G as, if you’re using a phone in space, it isn’t communicating with any cell towers. Satellite phones are possible to use, but they may not offer you as much as smartphones.

There are two things to establish, though. First of all, you can use WiFi in space. Second of all, you can use smartphones in space. The caveats are that the WiFi is going to be slower than at that “never again” budget hotel and your phone’s usable life will be lessened by radioactive interference.

However, what this means is that asset tracking apps are usable in space, as well as web portals, provided your spacecraft has WiFi. If they have offline capabilities, even better, as dodgy wifi is mitigated by a more complete workflow from scanning a tag to reporting an issue.

There is still no word on whether alien spacecraft use WiFi, however, so should you get abducted, there are two main reasons why you wouldn’t be able to use what3words.

So, what kind of assets would you need to track in space? The answer could be anything, as it is on Earth. For example, on the ISS many plant-based experiments are happening as they are on Earth.

So what would you need to track? Asset data, such as success rates, who is in charge of which assets, where they’ve been and where they are. Any IT asset management may be needed, or, any fixed asset management.

The fact that you can’t track specific, GPS locations is mitigated by the fact that it’s much more difficult (but still entirely possible) to lose something in a confined space, but GPS tracking of the ship itself is still possible.

So, much like on Earth, asset management software is still helpful at building an audit trail, accountability trail and for indicating who is using what, when, and where.

itemit’s asset tracking software prides itself on being simple, usable and effective at tracking and managing your asset data. This is why it’s used by hundreds worldwide tracking anything from fixed assets to IT assets to tools and equipment.

The app was created and is owned by RedBite Solutions where our motto is that we solve the world’s most challenging asset tracking problems.

Therefore, if you think you have a challenge that can’t be overcome by anyone on Earth or in space then send it to us and we’ll consult with you on the best ways to bring your vision to life.

We’re experts in asset tracking, including RFID asset management, GPS tracking and barcode and QR code asset management. The itemit app allows you to use all of these technologies, off-the-shelf, and couple them with a suite of helpful features that work on Earth and in space.

To find out more, or if you have any out of this world asset tracking problems to solve, send them our way at team@itemit.com. We’ll be happy to help you bring your vision to life.

Instant access. No credit card details required.

or, download the itemit app to get started

Asset tags are physical tags that you can use to track and manage your kit. As you can purchase customised tags, you can get metal asset labels, tiny tags, standard tags and more, meaning that they’re suitable for almost all of your tools and equipment.

Then, asset tags work by linking your assets to corresponding digital profiles. In other words, they link your physical assets with digital twins of them, meaning that every time you scan an asset’s tag, the corresponding profile is retrieved.

First of all, you need to set up your asset tags. You do this by using an asset management system with an integrated asset tracking app. Each tag needs an asset, so you will need to set up your asset register.

There should be some speed improvements and benefits with your asset tracking app. For example, with itemit, you can bulk add tags to multiple assets or you can create an asset by scanning an unassigned asset tag.

Once the tag and asset have been linked, you can start tracking your asset with QR code asset management processes. Barcodes are also usable, the only thing is that your codes need to be unique. Therefore, you can use product barcodes if you have multiple of the same product as the codes will be identical.

But what is the benefit of using asset tags and are they essential?

With asset tags, you can automate your asset location tracking. This is as every time you scan an asset’s tag, the last seen location automatically updates using your phone’s GPS data.

When this happens, the user who scanned the tag and the time of the scan is logged also, giving you the most visibility possible over your assets’ audit trails.

This is a system you don’t get without using asset tags. You can manually update an asset’s location without using tags, but then to create a full audit trail, you will also need to add the time of the scan and who scanned it. Asset tags simply do this process for you with every scan.

Asset tags also allow you to update asset data, such as manually added locations, in bulk. This means that if twenty assets are added to storage, you need only scan the tags in bulk to reflect this.

Every time you scan an asset’s tag, the asset’s corresponding digital profile will open. This helps you for a number of different reasons. 

If you discover a lost, tagged asset, all you need to do is scan that asset’s tag to retrieve relevant and up-to-date data on it. This means that instead of a lost laptop passing through several hands before it gets back to where it belongs, who it belongs to is visible within the asset’s profile.

This also means that if you need to report an issue or fault with an asset, you don’t need to search for that asset in a list. Scan the tag, report the issue, it’s that simple!

Asset tags, therefore, give you many accountability benefits, increase your visibility and save you time and money in the process.

As last seen location and asset profiles open up in tandem, you get both of these benefits simultaneously. However, you still need effective asset tracking software behind all of your tagging operations. This is where itemit comes in.

itemit lets you track and manage any asset and save time and money in the process. You can customise how you track your assets to take your asset management operations as far as possible.

In this sense, you can get the benefits of asset tagging on the assets that require tags, and have the freedom of not being tied down to tags for assets that don’t necessarily need them, such as vehicles.

itemit lets you mix and match asset tagging technology, too, meaning you can track your assets with RFID asset tracking operations, GPS trackers and QR codes and barcodes, all at the same time.

To find out more about how itemit can help you, contact the team at team@itemit.com. You can also fill in the form below to start your 14-day free trial. If you’d like a sample of free tags, let us know!

Instant access. No credit card details required.

or, download the itemit app to get started

In this guide:

1. How Does itemit Work?
2. Using Asset Tags
3. Mixing And Matching Asset Tracking Software Technologies

In this guide:

1. How Does itemit Work?
2. Using Asset Tags
3. Mixing And Matching Asset Tracking Software Technologies

itemit’s asset tracking software provides you with a huge return on investment. This is as you can track any different type of asset in multiple different ways.

For example, itemit supports fixed asset tracking, IT asset management, tools and equipment tracking, fleet management, healthcare asset management and more.

This is as, with itemit, you can log any type of asset and customise what data you add to this asset, allowing you to track it in a myriad of ways. All the while, you save time because of the simplicity inherent to itemit.

itemit lets you log unique, digital asset profiles and add data to them. Each of your assets can have its own profile and you can build an automated fixed asset register this way.

Then, once you’ve logged your laptops, for example, you can add warranty dates, user information, attachments, images and more to your assets.

All of your data contributes to exportable, manageable, and customisable reports. From here you can:

• Export your fixed asset register for audits
• Pinpoint asset information, such as which assets are assigned to Joe Bloggs
• Track asset depreciation
• Pinpoint how long assets have been in locations for
• Find gaps in your audit trails
• And more!

Asset tags aren’t essential to itemit but can save you a lot of time. Asset tags are physical tags that you stick onto your assets and link to their corresponding digital profiles.

Then, every time you scan an asset’s tag, the asset’s profile opens and the last seen location is logged. This means that if you need to retrieve asset data, all you need to do is scan that asset’s tag. Then, if you’re identifying a lost asset, all you need to do is scan the tag to see who is in charge of that asset.

Tagging & tracking also unlocks a lot of speed optimisations as, with asset tags, you can bulk edit information using itemit’s app. This includes the ability to bulk change assets from one location to another if you’re logging that twenty assets are entering into storage for example.

itemit is unique as the system allows you to mix and match your tracking technologies. So, with itemit, you can create the most accountability and automation possible through using GPS trackers, RFID tags, QR codes and barcodes.

Mixing & matching capabilities is always best when you’re trying to find a route towards the most accountability possible. One system will work for IT asset management but won’t necessarily work for high-value assets.

With this as an example, if you’re fully automating your asset tracking with off-the-shelf fixed RFID asset management, a system only available with itemit, you have to buy different RFID tags for your high-value assets and for your laptops. This is as RFID tags can interact with metal or conductive materials.

With this alone, you need a flexible system that allows you to track your assets the way that’s best for your business, with minimal restrictions. Then, when you add GPS trackers, handheld RFID and QR code asset management into the mix, the results appear impossible.

itemit, however, allows you to customise your asset tracking capabilities in a way that works for you and your business. The system is built to save you time and money and that’s why it’s used the world over by all industries.

The app is asset-agnostic. This means that when you’re tracking your assets, they can be anything from movie props to cameras to spanners to laptops. All the same, the system will save you time and money.

To find out more about how itemit’s asset tracking software can save your business time and money, you can contact the friendly team at team@itemit.com. You can also fill in the form below to start your 14-day free trial.

Instant access. No credit card details required.

or, download the itemit app to get started