You already know you need one. The Academy Trust Handbook says a trust must maintain a fixed asset register; the Charity Commission's own guidance says a charity should hold a list of its assets with enough detail to identify each one and where it is; your grant conditions say the equipment must be kept safely and insured; and your churchwardens have been producing an inventory to the PCC every year since long before any of it.
None of that is the hard part. Keeping it true is the hard part.
Start Your Free Forever Plan (No Credit Card)
A record that answers the questions actually asked
Guidance on school assets is refreshingly concrete: record them all, including where they are, who is responsible for them and what condition they are in, and check them once a year. Every one of those is a field here, not an appendix:
- Photographs on every item — see Asset Photos & Image Gallery. One photograph settles more insurance questions than a page of description.
- Make, model and serial number — Manufacturer, Model & Serial Numbers.
- Purchase price, purchase date, supplier and warranty — Financial & Purchase Records.
- Location, down to the room, the store or the minibus — Track Assets by Location.
- Condition and status, in your own words — Custom Statuses.
- Anything else your funder or insurer asks for, as your own fields — grant reference, funding source, PO number, replacement value, next inspection date. See Custom Fields.
Building it without losing a fortnight
Nobody has ever failed to keep an asset register because they did not want one. They failed because the first version took three weeks.
- Photograph it. Point a phone at an item and AI photo identification writes the name, make, model, category and specifications. Or type a make and model and let it fill in the rest.
- Import it. If it is already in a spreadsheet, bring it straight in — Import from a Spreadsheet.
- Do it in the holidays, with a phone. No laptop, no trolley, no borrowed barcode gun.
The annual check, in an afternoon
The inspection everybody is told to do once a year is a stocktake: walk the store scanning labels, and anything you did not scan is flagged. See Stocktakes & Inventory Audits. Do the PE store on Monday, the science prep room on Tuesday, and by Friday you have a dated record of what genuinely exists — which is a very different document from a list of what was bought.
Grant money comes with a paper trail
If the kit was funded, someone will want evidence — often for years afterwards, often including receipts above a threshold, and usually with a condition that the equipment is kept in good repair, insured, and not disposed of without permission. Attach the invoice, the grant letter and the insurance schedule to the item itself with Document & File Attachments, tag it with the funding source as a custom field, and the whole grant's worth of kit is one filter away when the report is due.
Getting it out again
A register is only useful if you can produce it. Export to PDF or spreadsheet, filtered to whatever the person asking actually wants — everything over a value, everything in one building, everything bought under one grant. See Export Your Inventory, and Powerful Search & Filters for getting to the right subset first.
And it is your data whenever you want it, on any plan: Your Data Is Never Held Hostage.
Ready to have one that is actually true?
Start on the Free Forever plan — no card, and the summer is a very good time to do this.
Create your free account
Free forever for up to 100 assets. No card required, no trial countdown.
By creating an account you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Already have an account? Log in.