Why Are Asset Tags Useful?

Published on September 23, 2021 • 3 min read

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.

Setting Up Asset Tags

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?

Automated Location Tracking

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.

Speed Up Asset Data Management

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.

itemit's Asset Tracking Software

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!