The Laptop Nobody Had Seen Since March
An asset register records who was handed each thing. It cannot tell you whether they still have it. The answer is to ask them, all at once, with a label scan and a location as proof, including the contractors who were never given a login. Here is how an asset check campaign works, and what it does when somebody says no.
The register said the laptop was with the field coordinator in the western office. The coordinator had left in June. The laptop had last been scanned in March, at a workshop two hundred kilometres away, and nobody could say who had carried it home afterwards. The register was not wrong when it was written. It became wrong one handover at a time, each one too small to record, and nobody asked the one question that would have caught it: do you still have this?
Most organizations answer that question once a year with a stocktake that walks the building. That finds what is in the building. The assets that go missing are the ones that are not: the motorbikes with field staff, the tablets with enumerators, the tools on a construction site, the generator lent to another project. For those, the only practical check is the person holding them, and a register that only describes office staff will never ask them. We made the same point in asset custody for a workforce that keeps changing; this is the mechanism that acts on it.
A campaign, not a reminder
An asset check is a campaign. You decide which assets it covers, by category, warehouse, location, custodian or risk score, and a preview tells you how many that is before you save it. Only individually tracked assets held by a custodian, and not already lost or retired, are taken in: there is nobody to ask about stock in a store. You set a due date, how many days past it before managers are told, and what each answer must carry.
| Rule on the campaign | What it proves | What it costs the custodian |
|---|---|---|
| Label scan | They had this asset in hand, not a photo of the register | One scan per asset |
| GPS within a set accuracy | Where it was when they answered | Location switched on |
| Photo | Its condition today | One photo per asset |
| None of the above | That they said so | A tap |
Launching takes a snapshot: every asset in scope, with whoever held it at that moment, one row each. After launch only the instructions and dates can change, never the list. That matters for the evidence. A campaign whose scope can grow after people have answered cannot later tell an auditor what it set out to check.
The people with no login
The custodians most likely to be holding something you have lost track of are the ones least likely to have an account: contractors, casual staff, a partner organization’s driver. Their reminder email carries a signed link to a page where they answer for their own assets, under exactly the same rules as everyone else — the scan has to match the asset’s label, the GPS fix has to be within the accuracy you set. The link lasts until thirty days after the due date, and never less than a week. A link that has been tampered with or has expired simply shows as not found, so a forwarded email reveals nothing about what exists.
A yes leaves a trace; a no moves nothing
Confirmed records a verified movement on the asset, so its last-verified date and its history agree. Not held and Damaged need a note — where the asset is, or what the damage is — and go to a manager. They never move the asset on their own: marking something lost is a decision with its own permission, made by someone who has looked into it.
When nobody answers
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The day it opens
Each custodian gets one message listing every asset they are asked about.
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Two days before it is due
Those who have not answered are reminded.
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The day after it is due
One more reminder, still listing only what is open.
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After the escalation days
Each silent custodian’s line manager, from their employee record, is told who has not answered, then weekly while the campaign stays open.
Exceptions do not wait for the deadline. Whoever runs the checks hears about every Not held and Damaged answer the morning after it comes in. A manager standing with a custodian can record a witnessed answer, and a row that should not be there — an asset already reported stolen, or one that has changed hands since launch — is waived with a reason, so the campaign closes with every row accounted for.
A register is a record of handovers. A campaign is a record of answers. Only the second one tells you what is true today.
Deciding what to check first
Checking everything every quarter is thorough and tiring, and a campaign people learn to ignore is worse than none. Every asset carries a score from 0 to 100, built from its book value, its category and the risk level you set, how many places it has been in six months, overdue custody, how often it moves, and how long since it was last verified. The score is recalculated after every movement and answer, and every night, because a laptop past its return date gets riskier with nothing happening at all. Scope a campaign to the high band and the people asked are the ones whose answers matter. Labels matter too: a scan only proves anything if the label is the asset’s own, which is why replacing one is governed — see the label a camera has to read.
One campaign, 170 assets
The figures are illustrative. What changes is the size of the problem: a register of 170 assets nobody had looked at becomes eleven named assets with a named person to ask about each.
What AWRA OpsHub does today
- Asset check campaigns scoped by category, warehouse, location, custodian, risk level or risk score, with a preview of the count, a due date and escalation days.
- A label scan, GPS within an accuracy limit and a photo as optional rules on every answer, held the same way on the web, in the app and on the no-login page.
- A no-login page for custodians without an account, reached from a signed link in their reminder email.
- Reminders at opening, two days before and the day after, escalation to line managers, and exceptions to whoever runs the checks the next morning.
- Witnessed answers and waivers with a reason, and an export of the campaign for your auditor.
- A 0–100 risk score on every asset, recalculated on every movement and answer and nightly, with its breakdown on the asset page.
More we can add to your workspace
- The check link sent by SMS or WhatsApp as well as email, for custodians whose only reliable channel is a phone number.
- A campaign that repeats on a schedule, so a quarterly check of high-risk assets launches itself.
- Pooled assets in a check, confirming a quantity held rather than one tracked asset at a time.
Where we point you to a specialist
- We will not mark an asset lost because a custodian said they do not have it. Lost is a decision about money and accountability, and it belongs to a person who has looked into it.
The SMS link is the one most organizations with field staff ask for first, and it reuses the signed link that already works by email.
Anything above that you need, we can build for you
Everything listed above as something we can add describes what ships in the standard product today — it is a starting point, not a limit on what AWRA OpsHub can do for your organisation. Kenya's eTIMS integration and its maintained payroll engine are both in the product because clients needed them and commissioned them; neither appeared by itself, and the same door is open for whatever you just read about. One qualification so this is worth what it claims: a small number of things on this blog we deliberately leave to a specialist rather than build — a statutory ledger we will not sign our name to, a rule that would decide a tax question for you, a clinical or member-funds record that belongs in a regulated system — and where that is true the post says so in those words. Everything else is a scope, a timeline and a price.
The operational work, which is what most commissions actually are
An extra approval stage in a chain that does not match the standard one, a custom field set on employees or assets that only your sector needs, an expiry that has to block an order rather than send an email, a report your board asks for in a shape nothing produces, or a scanner or weighbridge feeding the goods-in door. These are the commissions we are asked for most often and the smallest ones we quote — and unlike a revenue-authority pipeline, none of them waits on a regulator.
The module-shaped additions, which are the ones readers ask for most often
A price list with real discount authority, a customer-facing quotation that expires, a bill of materials or recipe costing, a staff advance that is issued, acquitted and chased, a member or unit ledger, a matching rule that holds a payment. Each of these is a build rather than a setting, and each has been quoted before — a bigger piece of work than a custom field, with a written spec and a date instead of a roadmap slide.
The report, document or pack nothing currently produces
The board pack in the shape your board actually asks for, a donor or funder layout, an invoice or receipt template carrying what your regulator or your customer expects, a dataset the report builder cannot reach yet. Usually the fastest thing on this list to deliver, because the data is already in the system.
Systems, rails and hardware you already run
The accounting package, CRM, online store, core banking or custom database you intend to keep — connected through our API so a fact is entered once and appears everywhere it is needed. Plus the physical edge: a scanner, a scale, a weighbridge or a till peripheral feeding the door it belongs to.
How it works: you describe the requirement, we return a written scope, timeline and cost, and once agreed it is built into your environment and maintained as part of the product. Nothing here waits on a regulator or a published specification, which is why operational builds are the ones we quote fastest. Tell us the requirement that would otherwise rule us out — that is a better first conversation than a demo.
Tell us what your operation needsOur position
Ask the people holding your assets, all at once, with proof you choose, and make it as easy for a contractor with no login as for anyone else. A yes is recorded as a verification; a no goes to a person and moves nothing until they decide. Use the risk score to choose who to ask, and the campaign closes as a record of answers rather than a register of assumptions. If your custody sits mostly in the office, a stocktake may be enough — read asset tracking and custody for that side.
Three questions for your asset register
When was each asset last confirmed by the person holding it?
What you will probably hear
At the last stocktake.
How to read it
Then everything outside the building has never been confirmed. Those are the assets that go missing.
How does a contractor tell you they still have the tools?
What you will probably hear
Someone phones them.
How to read it
A phone call leaves no evidence and depends on someone remembering to make it. A link with a scan does neither.
What happens when someone says they no longer have an asset?
What you will probably hear
It is marked lost.
How to read it
Then a misunderstanding becomes a write-off. Keep the answer and the decision apart.
See custody and asset checks
Custodians who need no login, every handover recorded at both ends, and campaigns that ask them all whether the register is still true.
Explore asset custodyFrequently asked questions
Can a contractor without an account confirm the assets they hold?
Yes. Their reminder email carries a signed link to a page where they answer for their own assets, with the same scan, GPS and photo rules as everyone else. The link lasts until thirty days after the campaign is due, and never less than seven days.
Does answering Not held mark the asset as lost?
No. Not held and Damaged need a note and go to a manager as exceptions. Marking an asset lost is a separate movement with its own permission.
What if an asset changes hands during the campaign?
Its row can no longer be answered, because the person it was issued to no longer holds it. A manager waives the row with a reason, and the new custodian answers for it in the next campaign.
Who is told when a custodian does not answer?
The custodian is reminded when the campaign opens, two days before it is due and the day after. Once the escalation days have passed, their line manager is told, then weekly while the campaign stays open.
How is the asset risk score calculated?
From six factors, each with a ceiling: book value, category and the risk level you set, how many places the asset has been in 180 days, overdue custody, how often it has moved in 90 days, and how recently it was verified. It is recalculated after movements and answers, and nightly.
