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Asset custodians & custody chain

The person holding your generator does not have a login.

Most asset registers assign things to user accounts. Which quietly means the drivers, the site labourers, the contractors, the departments and the visiting auditor cannot hold anything — so the register becomes a record of what the office staff have, and the assets that actually go missing are the ones it was never able to describe. A custodian here is a person or a place in its own right, with or without an account.

Start free The six custodian types

The mistake almost everybody makes

A custody register built on user accounts is a register of your office.

This sounds like a modelling detail and it is the whole feature. Think about who physically holds your equipment: a driver with a vehicle, a fitter with a torque wrench, a site team with a compactor, a contractor with a generator, a department with a projector, an auditor with a borrowed laptop for a fortnight. Now count how many of them have a login to your operations system.

Custodian = user account

What happens when the register can only name logins.

  • Assets held by non-login staff are assigned to their supervisor, so the register says the supervisor has eleven drills. It is wrong on purpose, and everybody knows it is wrong, which is worse than it being wrong by accident.
  • Contractors and vendors cannot be custodians at all, so tools out with a subcontractor are either invisible or logged against whoever signed the work order.
  • A department cannot hold anything, so shared equipment — the meeting-room projector, the site compactor — has a fictional individual owner who leaves in eighteen months.
  • Creating a login for a driver so that he can appear in the register means paying for a seat, granting permissions nobody wants him to have, and running a password reset for somebody who will never sign in.
  • When somebody leaves, deactivating their account either orphans everything they held or blocks the deactivation. Both outcomes are bad and neither is a decision anybody wanted to make at that moment.
Custodian = its own record

What changes when a custodian is a first-class thing.

  • A driver, a labourer, a contractor or a whole department can hold an asset by name, with a code, a phone number and a job title — and no account, no seat and no permissions.
  • The link to a login is optional. Where a custodian does have an account, the two are joined so the person sees what they hold; where they do not, nothing is missing.
  • The link to an HR employee record is optional too and separate. A custodian can be an employee, or reference an employee number from a system that is not this one, or be neither.
  • A custodian carries a warehouse, a location and a department, so “who holds it” and “where is it” are answered by the same record.
  • Somebody leaving becomes an exited custodian rather than a deleted one, so the history of what they held stays readable — which is the whole reason you keep a register.

Six types

Because “employee” and “the maintenance department” are not the same kind of holder.

The type is not decoration. It changes what a chase looks like, what recovery means, and which report the asset belongs in. An overdue laptop with an employee is a conversation; an overdue generator with a vendor is a contract question; an item held by a department has no individual to ring at all, and knowing that in advance is the point.

Employee

employee

Your own staff. Optionally linked to an HR employee record and optionally to a login, and neither is required for them to hold something. The common case, and the one most systems handle.

Contractor

contractor

Somebody working for you who is not on your payroll. They hold real equipment, they are frequently the reason an asset is on a site at all, and in a login-based register they simply cannot exist.

Department

department

A holder with no individual. The meeting-room projector, the site compactor, the shared vehicle. Custody sits with the department, which does not leave, does not go on annual leave, and does not need a seat.

Vendor

vendor

Equipment out with a supplier — a machine away for service, a tool lent to an installer, a container with a haulier. The custody record is what turns "the supplier still has it" into a dated, named fact.

Visitor

visitor

The auditor with a borrowed laptop, the consultant with a badge and a tablet, the trainer with a projector for a week. Short-term, real, and exactly the custody nobody records.

Other

other

The honest escape hatch. Every organisation has one category the five above do not describe, and forcing it into "employee" corrupts the register more than admitting it does not fit.

Four statuses, and one of them is the interesting one

Deleting the person who left destroys the only record of what they had.

This is the most common way a custody register dies. Somebody leaves, an administrator tidies up, and eleven months of custody history becomes a set of movements pointing at a name that is no longer there. The fix is not clever — it is a status.

Status
What it means operationally
active

Available to receive custody. The default, and the only status from which a new handover can be made.

inactive

A holder who is not currently in the rotation — seconded elsewhere, on extended leave, a department stood down. Not available for new handovers, but everything they still hold remains theirs and remains visible. The distinction from "exited" matters because inactive is reversible.

suspended

Custody withheld deliberately. Somebody under investigation, a contractor mid-dispute, a vendor whose account is on hold. The status is the record of a decision rather than an administrative state, which is why it is separate from inactive.

exited

Gone, and kept. The person has left, the contract has ended, the department has been dissolved. They can receive nothing further, and every movement they were ever part of still names them and still reads correctly. This is what a deletion would have destroyed, and it is why the register can answer questions about people who no longer work for you.

And where a custodian record genuinely has to go, it goes to the recovery centre rather than out of existence — with a ninety-day retention default and a permanent delete that is refused while custody, movement or pooled balance history still points at it. That is the same discipline applied one layer down: the register is only worth having if its history cannot quietly evaporate.

What a custodian record carries

Enough to find the person, and enough to find them again in two years.

A custody register is used twice: today, to ring somebody about a missing drill, and eventually, to answer a question about a handover from a year ago. The fields are chosen for both.

Custodian code The stable identifier you choose — CTR-0114, EMP-001. Referenced by the asset import template, printed on handover notes, and the thing that survives a name change or a marriage.
Name The one required field alongside the type. Everything else is optional, because a register that refuses a record until eleven fields are filled is a register nobody keeps up to date.
Custodian type One of the six. Required, because it changes what a chase looks like.
Status Active, inactive, suspended or exited — availability and history in one field.
Email & phone How you reach them. The phone number matters more than the email for exactly the custodians a login-based register cannot hold.
Employee number A reference into your HR system or payroll, whether or not that system is this one. Useful precisely when the two are separate.
Job title Context for whoever reads the record later and does not know the person.
Department Which part of the organisation this custody belongs to, for cost attribution and for reporting by team.
Warehouse The site or store they are attached to, so custody and location are answered together.
Location The finer position within the site, where you use one.
External reference An identifier from another system — a contract number, a supplier code, a badge number — kept as itself rather than crammed into the notes.
Notes The sentence that explains the record. "Seconded to the Kisumu depot until March" is worth more than four structured fields.

Plus two optional links that are deliberately separate from each other: a linked user, so a custodian who does have an account can see what they hold, and a linked employee, so a custodian who is on the HR register is joined to it. Neither is required, and neither implies the other — a contractor can have a login without being an employee, and an employee can be a custodian without ever signing in.

How custody actually moves

Nine movement actions, each with its own permission, because these are not the same decision.

Handing a laptop to somebody, moving a compactor between sites, and declaring a generator stolen are three completely different acts with three different consequences and three different people who should be allowed to do them. So they are nine separate actions with nine separate permissions rather than one “update asset” that covers everything.

Check out

Custody passes to a named custodian, with the condition recorded, photographs where you want them, and an expected return date so the asset can become overdue rather than merely absent.

checkout_assets

Check in

It comes back. Condition is recorded again at this end, which is what makes damage attributable to a period of custody rather than to nobody.

checkin_assets

Transfer

Custody moves from one holder to another without passing through the store. The record names both ends, which is the only way a three-way dispute has two named parties in it.

transfer_assets

Relocate

The asset moves between warehouses or locations without changing who is responsible for it. Kept distinct from transfer on purpose: place and person are different facts.

relocate_assets

Verify

Somebody has physically laid eyes on it and confirms it is where the system says. This is the movement that turns a register into a verified register, and it is the one most often skipped.

move_assets

Mark damaged

A condition change with consequences — it affects availability, and it belongs to whoever held it at the time. A separate permission, because reporting damage and authorising a write-off are different jobs.

mark_assets_damaged

Mark lost

The honest action. Recording that something cannot be found, when and by whom, is worth far more than leaving it showing as available forever. It also raises a risk notification.

mark_assets_lost

Retire

End of life. The asset leaves service with a record of when and who decided, rather than quietly disappearing from a list.

retire_assets

Adjust

For pooled assets: correcting a quantity that has drifted, as an explicit adjustment with a reason rather than an edit to a number.

edit_assets

Every movement additionally records what a dispute would need: the custodian it left and the custodian it reached, the department, warehouse and location at both ends, the condition before and after, who performed it, when it occurred, and where it came from — a manual entry, a barcode scan, a QR scan, the mobile app, an import or the API. Where you require it, a GPS position with its accuracy and the moment it was taken can be captured too, and required for checkout, check-in, transfer or verification independently.

When a handover needs a second person

Approving every handover is how an approval control gets switched off.

A policy that requires a manager's approval to lend a stapler will be abandoned within a month, and then the generator goes out unapproved too. So there are three modes, the default is the middle one, and which actions it covers is your decision rather than ours.

none

Nothing is held

Movements complete as they are recorded. Appropriate for a small team where the person recording the movement is the person accountable for it, and where an approval step would only add delay.

high_risk_only

Only what you class as risky

The shipped default. A movement is held for approval when the asset itself is flagged as requiring approval, or when it matches your high-risk policy — a value above a threshold you set, a category on your list, or an asset type on your list. Everything else completes immediately.

all_movements

Every covered action

For environments where custody is genuinely controlled — regulated equipment, donor-funded assets under a grant condition, anything where the audit expects a second name on every handover.

And separately, which actions the mode applies to. Out of the box it covers check-out, transfer, relocate and retire — the four that change who is responsible or take an asset out of service. Check-in is deliberately not on that list: making somebody wait for approval to return equipment is how assets end up staying in a van. You can add it, and you can remove any of the four, and an asset can additionally be flagged individually as requiring approval regardless of the mode.

A held movement is genuinely held: the pooled balance does not move and the asset's state does not change until somebody with the approving permission decides. Rejecting records the reason. And approving is a different permission from recording — signing a handover is part of recording it, not part of approving it, which is why the signature route is gated on movement rather than on approval.

The straight answer

What a custody record proves, and what it does not.

Custody is an operational control with real evidential weight and it is not a legal instrument. Being clear about which is which is worth more to you than a stronger claim would be.

The rest of the register

Custody is one axis. Quantity, condition and evidence are the others.

Asset Tracking & Movement

The register itself — individual assets, their states, their movement history and the reports over it.

Open feature

Pooled Asset Movements

The other tracking mode: assets counted rather than identified, and balances held per holder and place.

Open feature

Signature Capture

What a mark on a handover is and is not, and why the pad sits on movements rather than on approvals.

Open feature

Mobile & Offline Operations

Recording a handover at a gate with no signal, and the queue that carries it back.

Open feature

Departments, Locations & Reason Codes

The dimensions a custodian is filed against, and why deciding them early pays off.

Open feature

Bulk Import & Data Onboarding

Loading the custodian register before the assets, so assets arrive already assigned.

Open feature

What changes

“Who has the generator?” becomes a lookup rather than a group message.

And when the answer is a contractor who finished a fortnight ago, you have his phone number, the date he signed for it, the condition it was in and a photograph. That is a short conversation instead of a written-off asset.

Get started free Talk about your custody

The register describes reality

Drivers, labourers, contractors and departments can hold things, so the register stops being a record of the office.

No seats for people who never sign in

A custodian needs a name and a type. A login is optional and costs you nothing when it is absent.

History survives staff turnover

Exited rather than deleted, so what somebody held two years ago is still answerable.

Overdue is a state, not a feeling

An expected return date turns absent equipment into a dated, chaseable exception.

Damage has a period and a holder

Condition recorded at both ends of every handover, so a dent belongs to a custody rather than to nobody.

Approval where it earns its place

High-risk only by default, four covered actions, check-in excluded, and a per-asset override.

'What happens to custody history when somebody leaves?', 'a' => 'They become an exited custodian rather than a deleted record. They can receive nothing further, and every movement they were ever part of still names them and still reads correctly. This is the most common way a custody register dies — an administrator tidies up after a leaver and eleven months of history becomes movements pointing at a name that is no longer there. There are four statuses in all: active, inactive (temporarily out of the rotation but still holding what they hold), suspended (custody withheld as a decision, for an investigation or a dispute) and exited. Where a custodian record genuinely has to go it goes to the recovery centre, with a ninety-day retention default and permanent delete refused while custody or movement history still references it.'], ['q' => 'What does a handover record?', 'a' => 'Both ends and the condition at each. Specifically: the custodian, department, warehouse and location it left and the ones it reached, the condition before and after, who performed it, when it occurred, and the source it came from — manual entry, a barcode scan, a QR scan, the mobile app, an import or the API. An expected return date can be set so the asset becomes overdue rather than merely absent, with a configurable reminder lead time. Photographs can be attached, served through a permission-gated route rather than a public URL. Where you require it, a GPS position with its accuracy and capture time is recorded too, and can be made mandatory for checkout, check-in, transfer and verification independently of each other.'], ['q' => 'How many movement actions are there, and are they separately controlled?', 'a' => 'Nine, each with its own permission: check out, check in, transfer, relocate, verify, mark damaged, mark lost, retire and adjust. They are separate rather than one "update asset" permission because they are genuinely different decisions — handing somebody a laptop, moving a compactor between sites and declaring a generator stolen have three different consequences and three different sets of people who should be allowed to do them. Relocate is deliberately distinct from transfer: place and person are different facts, and an asset can change site without changing who is responsible for it.'], ['q' => 'Does every handover need approval?', 'a' => 'That is your choice, and the default is deliberately not "yes". There are three modes: none, high-risk only, and all movements. High-risk only is the shipped default — a movement is held when the asset is individually flagged as requiring approval, or when it matches your high-risk policy by value threshold, category or asset type. You also choose which actions the mode applies to; out of the box it covers check-out, transfer, relocate and retire, the four that change responsibility or take an asset out of service. Check-in is deliberately excluded, because making somebody wait for permission to return equipment is how equipment stays in a van. A policy requiring approval to lend a stapler gets abandoned within a month, and then the generator goes out unapproved too.'], ['q' => 'Is a held movement really held?', 'a' => 'Yes. Nothing moves while a movement is pending: the pooled balance does not change and the asset\'s state does not change until somebody holding the approving permission decides. A rejection records its reason. Approving is a different permission from recording, and signing is deliberately part of recording rather than part of approving — the signature route is gated on the movement permission, because the person taking the mark at the gate is not the person authorising the handover from an office.'], ['q' => 'Can a signature on a handover be used as legal proof?', 'a' => 'It is strong operational evidence and a weak legal instrument, and those are different things. What you get is a mark taken from somebody physically present, with their printed name and the moment recorded, locked once the record is decided, working with no network connection and riding the offline queue. What you do not get is a cryptographic digital signature, a certificate, or any eIDAS, ESIGN or UETA claim — and you should not accept one from us. In practice most custody disputes are settled by showing a person their own mark and the date, which is the job this does well.'], ]" />

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