How to create an equipment inventory list

Managing equipment without an equipment inventory list is like a broken pencil, it’s pointless. But no worries, in this blog we will show you how to create a proper equipment inventory list.

Are you the kind of person who would rather watch the movie than read the book? Then this video will be more your thing:

As already stated, an equipment inventory list is crucial for managing equipment. We will show you how to create one in Excel, Google Sheets, or Numbers. The first step is obvious, create a new document and add the full list of your equipment.

Once you have added all your equipment, add the title “Name” to the column. Then create columns like “Brand”, “Model” and “Category”. The latter will come in handy when you have different categories of items, such as laptops, phones, cameras, etc. This will make it easy to search for some items with the filter option.

If you’re still keeping up, your equipment inventory list should look something like this:

Furthermore, you can add columns for the “Purchase price” and the “Purchase date”. You can also add a warranty date, this will come in handy when an item is broken. If you completed these first steps, congratulations 🎉, you have created a basic equipment inventory list.

To take your equipment management to the next level ⬆️, we recommend the use of barcodes. For us at Cheqroom, equipment without barcodes is like Facebook without friends, youtube without videos, and google without results – did I make it clear that it is very important to us? For example, imagine your company is moving from one office to another, and you have 40 identical iMacs. How will you know which one was yours? Well, you won’t. To solve this problem, you can label them with asset tags. Then all you have to do is scan the code to see which laptop belongs to whom. It’s best to add a “Barcode” column in your equipment inventory list too.

If you have several locations where your equipment is stored, you should add a column for this as well. By using the filter, you can easily see which location holds what equipment – no more ending up in the wrong equipment room, thank goodness. Lastly, you should add a column for description because some items might require extra information. For example, you could write down how to use a specific lens.

Now your equipment inventory list is complete, yay 🙌🏾! But of course, it is very important that you always add to the list when new equipment is purchased. If you have a rapidly growing inventory, this might seem like a never-ending story. In addition, this equipment inventory list contains limited information. You cannot see who has the equipment or how much your equipment is worth given that it has already been in use. What if I told you that there is software to solve all these problems? This is what your equipment inventory list would look like in Cheqroom.

Cheqroom automatically generates pictures of all your equipment, calculates the deprecation, shows you the history of the equipment, gives you reports, and shows you who reserved the equipment or has the equipment now. Sounds good, right? You can check it out and sign up for a free trial. If you want more tips and tricks about equipment management from beginner to pro, subscribe to our YouTube channel here to learn more.