With each passing year, technology becomes even more prominent in our lives - especially in the daily operations of a modern company. It's commonly expected that each employee receives a technology package once onboarded, from a laptop and monitor to a keyboard and mouse. As a company's headcount grows, so does it's hardware requirements.

Although managing these hardware assets may seem like a job solely for the IT department, there are also implications for the Finance & Accounting team with each hardware acquisition, as well as each individual department that plan on hiring future employees at some point.

While an array of hardware asset management ("HAM") systems exists, they often over-complicate, are a bit steep in price, have too many overlapping functions with existing systems, or a combination of all three. As we faced this issue at Trace firsthand, we decided to build an internal fixed asset management and depreciation model to help us track our hardware assets, forecast our depreciation expense schedule and have visibility into future hardware needs. In a nutshell, the model can:

• Track all hardware assets by type, department and cost.
• Track reserves (assets not in use and available for new hires).
• Forecast hardware needs based on new hires.
• Forecast CapEx based on the forecasted hardware needs.
• Forecast a depreciation expense schedule (as well as indicate the % of depreciation expensed).

In addition to the above, this model will allow you to have visibility into where the bulk of your hardware assets are being used.

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