Asset management is the method that a company
uses to track fixed assets. It is the process of controlling
assets throughout their lifecycle - from procurement, through
daily operations, and finally disposal. Factory equipment, desks,
chairs, computers, and property are some examples of such assets.
Broadly speaking, asset management involves tracking the physical
location of assets, managing demand for scarce resources, and
accounting tasks such as amortization. Issues that are part of
asset management include asset value and depreciation; purchasing
requests, orders, and asset receipts; licenses, leases,
maintenance, and other contracts; vendor performance, service
levels, and warranties; departmental and user data; and physical
asset attributes. One of the purposes of going all these lengths
and putting in effort to organize all this information is to keep
track of important information such as how much the asset costs,
whom it was purchased from, who is using it, where it is
physically located, which department code the cost should be
assigned to, which vendor should be called for support, when the
lease expires, when it should be retired, what the depreciation
rate is, etc. This, in turn, provides the basis for managing and
optimizing an organization’s entire asset portfolio.
When we speak of property management as part of
asset management, it includes property selection, implementation
of policies and performance standards for that property, and
monitoring of its performance in relation to the owner’s
objectives.
Asset
Management 101