IT Asset Management & Licence Tracking
Every device and every licence gets one record with an owner, a cost centre and its dates – and speaks up before warranties and contracts run out. Assignment, return and renewal come out of the systems you already run, not out of a spreadsheet somebody has to keep up to date.
Why the inventory list is always out of date
Almost every company already has a list. A spreadsheet left over from the last laptop rollout, a folder of purchase invoices, perhaps an asset module in the ticketing tool. On the day it is created it is correct. Then a device is swapped in support, a colleague moves department, five licences are added for a project, a monitor wanders into the meeting room. Each of those changes happens in a different system, at a different moment, through a different person. Nobody neglects the list on purpose – it simply falls behind.
The real difficulty is not the recording, it is the reconciliation. One laptop exists in four truths at once: Intune knows the device and its patch level but not the cost centre. Finance knows the invoice but not the serial number. The licence portal knows the subscription but not which machine it is used on. And the lease sits as a PDF in a folder two people know about. Turning that into a single record needs a shared key – serial number or device ID – and a rule about which system wins when two of them disagree.
Then comes the second difficulty: a deadline only helps if it reaches somebody early enough, somebody who is allowed to decide, and if it arrives with everything the decision needs. A note saying a licence expires, sent three days before auto-renewal, is not information; it is an invoice. So we do not build an inventory, we build a lifecycle: every asset has a status, an accountable person and date fields that generate tasks – with the lead time each decision actually requires.
What belongs in the inventory
We start with the device class that changes hands most often. Licences, contracts and accessories later hang off the same deadline logic.
Laptops, monitors, phones
The most common starting point: hardware with serial number, owner, location and cost centre – from goods receipt to documented disposal.
Software licences and subscriptions
Who holds which licence, since when, on whose budget – and which seat has had no sign-in for months.
Warranties and service contracts
Purchase date plus service term produces the one date nobody carries in their head: the day a repair starts costing you money.
Joiners and leavers
A joiner produces the equipment list, a leaver one return task per device. The asset closes only once receipt has been confirmed.
Procurement and replacement
Order, goods receipt and replacement write into the same record – a new machine does not appear as a second row.
Evidence for audit and insurance
Which devices are encrypted, which licences are properly covered, and where the disposal certificate is filed.
One device across its working life
A laptop from the inventory: to the left what has happened, to the right what is coming. The amber station with the exclamation mark needs a decision next month.
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Purchase
Invoice 2023-0417 posted, serial number and cost centre set at goods receipt.
✓ done -
Handover
Handover record signed, disk encryption and Intune enrolment verified.
✓ done - today
29 Jul 2026 -
next month
Licence renewal
Microsoft 365 E3, 30 days notice. The seat has had no sign-in for four months.
! decide by 1 Aug -
Warranty ends
36 months of on-site service run out; repairs then land on the cost centre.
· noted -
Replacement
Order the successor, wipe the drive, move the licence to the new device.
· planned
Conflict: three months sit between the end of warranty and the planned replacement, with no manufacturer cover. Either bring the swap forward or extend the service contract.
Next due: 1 Aug NB-0142 licence decision · 30 Sep MOB-0088 mobile contract · 12 Nov NB-0203 warranty ends
The interesting part is the gap between the end of warranty and the planned replacement. It does not come from carelessness but from the two dates living in different systems and never appearing side by side.
The purchase date comes from the invoice, the warranty end from purchase date plus service term, the licence deadline from the contract. Only together do they produce a date early enough to still change something.
From goods receipt to disposal
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Bring the sources together
Intune or Entra ID, procurement, the licence portal and your existing list are merged into one record per asset. The key is the serial number or device ID; anything that cannot be matched lands on a clarification list instead of quietly disappearing.
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Set owner and cost centre
Every asset gets an accountable person, a cost centre and a status – in use, in stock, in repair, written off. Without a named person there is no deadline later that reaches anyone.
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Pull the dates out of the paperwork
Purchase date, service term, contract end and notice period are taken from the invoice, the lease and the licence agreement and stored as date fields on the asset. Where a document is missing, the field stays visibly empty rather than estimated.
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Keep changes flowing in
Onboarding, device swaps in support, department moves and leavers all write into the same record. A return stays an open task until receipt has been confirmed.
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Flag it before it costs money
With the lead time the decision needs: 60 days before a notice period, 90 days before warranty expiry. The task carries the device, the contract, the amount and a suggestion – renew, reduce or replace.
What changes day to day
Today
- The inventory list is out of date a week after cleanup
- Nobody is quite sure who currently has which laptop
- Licences renew themselves although nobody uses them
- Warranty expiry surfaces at the breakdown, not before
- After somebody leaves, one device is always missing
With a maintained inventory
- The inventory updates itself from the source systems
- Every device shows its owner, location and cost centre
- Unused seats surface before the renewal date, not after
- Warranty end and replacement announce themselves early
- A leaver produces one return task for each device held
What a well-kept inventory will not do
Four points we settle before quoting, because they decide whether the project pays for itself at all:
- The initial stocktake stays manual. Anything not recorded digitally today – the laptop in someone's home office, the monitor in the store room, the phone in the second drawer – no interface will find it. We supply the import template, the stocktake list and a comparison against Intune; walking the rooms and reading off serial numbers is your team's job. For around 80 devices that is one to two days, and it is not in the fixed price.
- Below roughly 40 devices it is not worth it. If you also have no licence agreements with notice periods, a well-kept spreadsheet and two calendar reminders will do the same job at a fraction of the cost. We tell you that in the intro call, not after you have signed a quote.
- We do not read devices nobody manages. Patch level, last sign-in and encryption status come from Intune, Entra ID or your MDM. Machines not enrolled there – older equipment on the shop floor, routers, personal phones – remain records maintained by hand. We do not install additional software on your computers to close that gap.
- A deadline does not replace a decision. The system reports that a licence renews in 30 days and that the seat has had no sign-in for four months. Whether you cancel, reduce or reassign is a human call. If that task belongs to nobody in particular, it will sit there exactly as it did before – a question of ownership, not of technology.
Fits your IT landscape
Scope and price
The entry price covers one merged inventory with deadline logic and one connected management system. What moves the price, we say before the quote.
- Your sources merged into one record per asset
- Data model for hardware and licences with owner and cost centre
- One management system connected, for example Intune or Entra ID
- Deadline logic for warranty, contract and planned replacement
- Tasks and reminders to a named role, not to a shared mailbox
- Overview filtered by status, location, cost centre and due date
- Documentation, handover session and 30 days of support
What increases the price
- Several source systems without a shared key
- Licence portals with their own billing and contract logic
- Connection to ERP or finance for fixed assets and depreciation
- Several sites or legal entities with separate inventories
- Approval steps before procurement, renewal and disposal
Several sites, an ERP connection for fixed assets and approval steps typically land in the range of our Workflow Advanced package from €2,490. We quote the binding fixed price after the intro call.
All prices excl. VAT · operation and further development optionally via a support package
What you get
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Production asset inventory
Devices and licences merged, with owner, cost centre and dates, signed off against a sample check
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Documented data model
Which field comes from which system, who may change it and which system wins when two disagree
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Deadline and task logic
Lead times, recipients and escalation – changeable without anyone rebuilding the workflow
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Handover for IT and purchasing
How new arrivals are recorded, assignments changed and devices written off cleanly at the end
Frequently asked questions about IT asset management
These solutions fit alongside
Automated Employee Onboarding
A joiner produces the equipment list – and with it the first clean record per device.
Automated Employee Offboarding
Return, licence reclaim and access removal as tasks with deadlines instead of memory.
Contract Management Automation
The same deadline logic for contracts outside IT: maintenance, rental, insurance.
Internal Ticketing System
When a device is swapped, the change happens in the ticket – not in a second list.
Do you know which licence renews next month?
In the free intro call we walk through your sources – procurement, Intune, licence portal, lease agreements – and estimate how many devices can be matched automatically from them. Afterwards you know whether a maintained inventory pays off at your size or whether a spreadsheet is enough.
Book a free intro callWhere automated IT asset management creates value in everyday work
Devices, licences, owners and lifecycles from procurement, onboarding, support and return are consolidated into a reliable inventory.
Three concrete operating scenarios to compare with your own process.Assign devices automatically
Procurement and onboarding update owner, location, cost centre and status.
Monitor licences
Expiry, usage and available seats become visible before unnecessary renewals.
Protect asset returns
Offboarding creates return tasks and closes assets only after confirmed receipt.
A strong fit when …
Systems provide structured data or signals and technical exceptions should escalate with logs, context and clear ownership.
- You handle recurring asset changes using repeatable rules.
- The intake, target system and accountable business role can be named clearly.
- Exceptions are allowed to remain visible and move to people deliberately.
Deliberate automation boundary
Security-related blocking, disposal, licence assessment and unclear ownership require an authorised decision.
Explore the technical approach and platformsEstimate time savings with your own volume
The calculator uses 9 minutes today and 2 minutes after automation as fixed example assumptions. It does not replace process analysis.
Illustrative estimate based on the visible assumptions — not a guarantee.