Help convince CTO desktop peripheral are consumables and not assets to be tagged

[u/No-Barber964]

Our company has been asset tagging everything at a desk to ensure that we can control the full lifecycle of hardware from procurement to disposal.

I’m trying to shift our process for the desk level hardware to only tag monitors as an asset and make keyboards/mouse, webcam, docking stations as consumables that we wouldn’t asset tag and only classify as consumables to track inventory levels

Our cto is consented we will loose visibility into where things are going and why we have to continually purchase more hardware when the firm isn’t growing

Any advice ?

Edit.. to add more context on the dollar amount of each model as many are saying to set a $ threshold

Monitor - $350 Headset - $250 Webcam- $160 Docking station - $100 Keyboard/mouse - $60

[u/notospez]

Agree with him on some basic principles:

• Always tag anything that may contain data, you don't want to lose track of that!
• Define a dollar amount above which it's worth tracking - e.g. anything over $50 gets tagged. Boss wants new AirPods? Stick a tag on them!
• And also define a life expectancy - let's say anything with an expected life span below a year never gets a tag regardless of value.

I'm sure your boss can agree with you on the basic principle that tagging ballpoint pens worths a couple of cents is insanity, so this way you only need to talk about the cutoff value to use.

[u/No-Barber964 → u/notospez]

His stance is any IT hardware at the desk should be tagged, from the $50 keyboard up to the $500 monitor

[u/ADynes → u/No-Barber964]

That seems like a waste of everyone's time. Our company standard is a Logitech mk540 keyboard and mouse combo, the ones with the unifying receivers. I buy them 5 or 10 at a time when I get them at a good price. Like 30 dollars a set. I can't imagine asset tagging something that cheap.

We don't even tag monitors although we probably should, for us it's really just computers and printers on the user side and then pretty much everything on the infrastructure side (switches, routers, servers, firewalls, etc).

[u/No-Barber964 → u/ADynes]

Correct . But saying “it’s a waste of time” isn’t enough of an argument for him . I need more data to back up why these should be consumables

[u/ADynes → u/No-Barber964]

Argue that the Manpower it takes to log that asset and track where it's at and create labels doesn't justify the cost of the asset. At least not for keyboards and mice. You might not be able to make that argument for your monitors and docks but anything sub $100 you should be able to

[u/pmormr → u/ADynes]

Shipping person to receive it, put it in the system, IT person to tag it, accountants to go through the list of assets and classify them, IT person to decom it, IT person to hunt for missing inventory, accountants and tax lawyers figuring out how to depreciate and write everything off, management following up on reports, auditors going through reports... with follow up questions that will need to be answered.

It's not impossible to track, but there's the reason big companies say duck it and count the peanuts as consumables.

I'd also try the absurdist argument. What about a $75 SD card for a camera? What about SIM cards in phones? $200 SFPs for switches? What about hard drives? Memory upgrades for Susan? Where exactly is the line, because all of those things are more valuable than a keyboard, and it doesn't sound like you have those covered.

[u/KnowledgeTransfer23 → u/[deleted]]

Your corp doesn't employ Ripperdocs yet? Get with the times!!

[u/daolemah → u/No-Barber964]

Id explain if its asset tag,it comes under his umbrella to account for them. Vp of sales loses a portable keyboard during 6 day blitz closing 6m dollar deals. Management is not going to hold vp responsible, but failure to account for each asset is your bosses responsibility. So he has to harass said vp for explanation and confirmation. Its under his purview. It enters a ledger with a dollar value, it needs to be explained why its taken off the ledger. Audits are painful. If there is an asset tag, its part of the audit. Hence even mncs classify them as consumables. And he cant dispose of them easily if they are asset tagged. He also needs to inform finance that he intends to dispose a keyboard missing keycaps because its an asset. And let him get the approvals a few times. Everyone will be pissed wasting time on accounting for keyboards…. And also put laptop bags as consumable as well, ever tried to explain why you had to buy new laptop bags because the 10 you had in inventory have the plastic peeling off after 1year being kept in the storeroom are not fit to issue to the new salesman in charge of key clients? Its not the time its how stupid he will look. Honestly a quick and way to show inexperience at asset management.

[u/yrogerg123 → u/No-Barber964]

Because they're cheap, they break often, and the overhead of tracking the replacement in an asset management system is not worth the replacement cost?

Also, wouldn't an asset tag limit the functionality of a mouse? Where would you even put it?

That doesn't even go into the need to track and log the order, receipt, and destruction.

You'd also need to train employees that mouse and keyboard are bound to a desk and cannot be removed as needed. I know that I often grab stuff like that from unused desks to use as needed. You'd need to develop a system to quickly remove these items when desks go out of use. Otherwise they'll just drift away from where they started and you'll lose track. You'll end up with very misleading stats on these items.

That's a long way of saying that they are office supplies and not IT inventory.

[u/cats_are_the_devil → u/No-Barber964]

"Waste of time" should be traslated into a cost benefit analysis with manpower x hourly rate. It's pretty easy to justify that if it's saving over what the manpower and rate is... Show them it's not. Or move on.

[u/ThatCheesyPotato → u/No-Barber964]

Regarding Keyboards and espically mice, asset tags will wear off really quickly from human grease, rubbing against the desk daily, making them useless. Futhermore, does he have a USB stick or some small device, try tagging that and see how he reacts!

[u/Doublestack00 → u/ADynes]

I solved the monitors moving by ALWAYS putting dual monitors on a bulky stand and throwing away the provided monitor stands.

No one is moving a dual monitor setup esp if it is mounted to the desk.

[u/occasional_cynic → u/ADynes]

That seems like a waste of everyone's time

Welcome to random management edicts based on their random feelings of accomplishment.

[u/Zedilt → u/ADynes]

This is also how we do it.

[u/notospez → u/No-Barber964]

Great. Now refuse to buy keyboards over $49!

[u/Unethical3514 → u/notospez]

Or conversely, refuse to buy keyboards cheaper than $250. After all, you want to make them worth tracking. Perhaps there’s even a minimum price for trackable non-IT items… use that value as your minimum per-keyboard and per-mouse purchase price. Just following policy, after all.

[u/djgizmo → u/No-Barber964]

Your CTO needs bigger fish to fish. Worrying about a $50 keyboard means your org is that broken that $50 keyboards has weight on the scale. It doesn’t. Not in any org that has a CTO.

IMO, it should be pcs/laptops, docking stations, monitors larger than 20”, and anything marketing asks for that isn’t standard.
Keyboards, mice, headphones, adapters, cables, are virtually disposable.

Printers, copiers, and the like are also tagged l (but I always recommend leasing them)

[u/vdragonmpc → u/No-Barber964]

I bet you real money he never reviews or looks at the reports.

I was dealing with PCI compliance and our Cyber security insurance and the useless CFO rolled his overweight ass into a meeting. He had no idea why we had PCI complaince to have a merchant account. He was not running the audits or anything. His solution? We no longer have a merchant account.

Cyber insurance? Fuck it we dont need that... We are in the cloud. I still have flashbacks to dealing with him. They made us scan the reciepts into the 'credit card portal'. We were ordering from our business account and had the orders saved in a pdf in a folder. No one ever EVER looked at those. Not once.

How do I know no one reviews them? I have been gone 7 years and no one ever got access to the folder after the AP guy left. Its on a storage array and you have to either map to it or know where it is. The software only dumps the images to a folder. Same with the reports.

Thats how the employee they didnt catch until he had embezzled 285k wasnt caught until a recycling center employee got curious and asked why we were recycling new material so much.

[u/patmorgan235 → u/No-Barber964]

Ask him WHY he wants everything tagged. If he just wants cost information you can still get that from consumables and tracking how many are issued without tacking and tracking each individual item.

[u/No-Barber964 → u/patmorgan235]

To prevent us from over ordering hardware , he has suspicions we aren’t properly managing inventory and letting things walk out the door

[u/flunky_the_majestic → u/No-Barber964]

Consumables can be inventoried for loss without asset tags. Even bottles of soda in vending machines are inventoried. Doesn't mean you have to care which bottle of soda goes where. They're commodities. Nobody cares which bottles get stocked in which machines. Asset tags are for tracking SPECIFIC devices.

Would it matter if two people swapped desktop computers? Yes. It would screw lots of tracking and controls up.

Would it matter if two people swapped mice? No. Nobody would ever notice or care.

If you order 100 keyboards, distribute 90, and have 10 in inventory, tracking goals are met. If one goes bad, and he's worried about theft, there should be a practice of documenting in a ticket when a replacement is made. Something as simple as taking a photo of the bad one, and a photo of the new one. Maybe with a serial number in the photo.

So, after that service call, 100 keyboards are ordered, now 90 have been distributed, 1 has been marked in a ticket as destroyed. When they check inventory, they find 9 in stock. The numbers still add up. If there are 2 in stock, someone is stealing keyboards are failing to document.

[u/patmorgan235 → u/No-Barber964]

Well you don't need asset tags/serial numbers for proper inventory control. Just # of unit in, # of units out, and regular inventory counts. Then regularly reconcile the numbers.

Do you still track consumables in your asset tracking system?

Show him evidence that you still have controls on consumables and that they are operating.

[u/MorpH2k → u/No-Barber964]

You can still track which users are ordering stuff like keyboards and mice even if they are counted as consumables, either on a per user basis, or probably more reasonably, on a department level. If one specific department orders a lot more than the others, you make that department head or whoever is in charge or approvals explain why they order so much hardware. Asset tagging stuff like keyboards and mice would mean you'd have to train everyone to turn them in when they want to replace something so it can be retired from Inventory. And what would you even do with a nasty 3 year old keyboard from someone who quit? It's just going in the bin anyways...

[u/Unethical3514 → u/No-Barber964]

A company I used to work for hired an ego-driven power-hungry operations manager to replace one who retired. The office supply closet used to stay unlocked but the jackass locked it and devised an “office supply request form” to keep employees from draining the company dry, as if we were even having that problem. Only two people had a key — Jackass and his “yes sir” secretary who was too afraid of him to not follow his policies to the letter. One day, the president/CEO walked into the Operations suite and tried to go into the supply room to get a pen as he was accustomed to doing. Just one 15¢ disposable pen. Finding the supply room locked, he told the secretary that he needed a pen. She said she would be happy to get a pen for him as soon as he provided her with an approved office supply request form for it. When he said “yeah, we’re not doing that,” she had the gall to tell him to take it up with Jackass. They had both left the company’s employ within two months of that interaction — her voluntarily, him involuntarily. For the amount of the CEO’s time it took to get that one pen, the company could have bought a whole shipping pallet of the pens. Tracking $30 keyboards and $10 mice as if they were capital assets is just as dumb.

[u/ncc74656m → u/No-Barber964]

The CTO is an idiot, then. First off, nobody should have a $50 keyboard unless it's an accommodation and you have to get a Microsoft Natural KB when those were still $139, or some asinine exec who demands a high end bells and whistles wireless keyboard and mouse. And even so, good f'ing luck figuring out where to tag the wireless mouse. Lots of wired mice don't have much space to put a tag.

[u/CARLEtheCamry → u/No-Barber964]

I have a more in depth reply below, but if the CTO is worried about accountability for every single peripheral, he should look more at your ordering system and procurement than IT Asset Management.

If you're just ordering and throwing them in a pile for people to take, I wouldn't be surprised if it is being abused. We had "free concessions" at a hockey arena we sponsor the team at with a company meeting and I saw someone walking away with eight italian ice's, and so many hot dogs shoved into their pockets they were falling out.

[u/mrlinkwii → u/No-Barber964]

i mean he has a point , re:$50 keyboard up to the $500 monitor

if it was like a 10$ keyboard and mouse sure dont tage tghat , but a 50$ plus keybaord sure

[u/fUnderdog → u/notospez]

We started tagging anything over $100 and the entire process makes so much more sense now.

[u/ImpossibleParfait → u/notospez]

Once upon a time, my boss wanted to tag keyboards. So I gave him a used one one time and that was the end of that. I find reusing keyboards to be gross.

[u/Candid_Ad5642]

Not sure Docking stations should be considered consumables though

[u/allegedrc4 → u/Candid_Ad5642]

A crappy $50 USB-C? Meh. One of those Thunderbolt behemoths that costs 1/3 as much as the laptop itself? You bet your ass that should be tracked lol

[u/svogon → u/allegedrc4]

Us. Exactly. Dell Docking stations are tagged. The USB-C *ADAPTERS* - that's what we call them, even with multiple ports, are still just that. Not the same league.

[u/digitaltransmutation → u/svogon]

idk if they have changed, but back in the wd-15 days the service tags on docks could not be searched in any system and I couldnt get prosupport to do anything with them. left that gig with a drawer full of dead ones that couldnt be exchanged or fixed.

[u/svogon → u/digitaltransmutation]

We've had a few UD22's fail and those do show up. We've had no real issues getting them replaced. One, Dell never recorded the sale of, but that's it.

[u/maitremanta → u/digitaltransmutation]

We still have some WD15 at work in our warehouse. Some do have a Service Tag, others don't.

[u/jake04-20 → u/maitremanta]

IIRC I think it depends on how they were purchased. If you quoted them through your dell rep or bought them with laptops, they usually had service tags. If you got them through 3rd party retailers, they don't. Also our replacement docks direct from Dell didn't either.

[u/RememberCitadel → u/digitaltransmutation]

We always called in and replaced them on the laptops' service tag.

[u/deemey → u/digitaltransmutation]

We had so many wd-15s die, our dell rep apologized for selling them to us.

[u/AtarukA → u/svogon]

We give them as part of the package, but we also expect for it to be given back at the end even if dead.
Just like we expect our users to tell us when they're dead, so we can provide them a new one so they don't complain when they actually need it.
But you are right in that we do not put them into inventory (except in storage).

[u/GuyOnTheInterweb → u/allegedrc4]

It's weird that these are almost equivalent in turns of functionality, like maybe there is double the amount of ports on the dock, it can do two screens rather than 1, 4 USBs instead of 2, but it is still so much more expensive than the little dongles!

[u/Ziggy_the_third → u/GuyOnTheInterweb]

You're literally describing wastly different product and not "almost equivalent".

[u/torbar203 → u/Ziggy_the_third]

It's weird how similar a Mitsubishi Mirage is to a Ford Explorer. Like, maybe the Explorer has a bigger engine, more room, more comfortable seats, better sound system, a better safety rating, but it's still so much more expensive than the Mirage!

[u/Papfox → u/Ziggy_the_third]

They may well be equivalent to the user. If they need one monitor and 3 USB ports and only use the computer for Office then the fact that one kind of device has 2 monitor ports, 6 USB and a much more powerful graphics engine is irrelevant to them.

They may even consider the more powerful device to be inferior as it's larger, heavier and they have to lug a power brick around in their bag for it

[u/ghjm → u/GuyOnTheInterweb]

The real difference is that the Dell ones can do the proprietary Dell power delivery. Dell laptops also don't recognize 100W or 140W USB-PD. So they charge a lot more for the Dell branded docking stations, because they can.

[u/allegedrc4 → u/GuyOnTheInterweb]

Thunderbolt bandwidth is like 40Gbps+? USB-C tops out at 10 or so. If you're just hooking up a standard 1080p/60Hz monitor, 24 bit color or whatever, gigabit Ethernet and a keyboard and mouse they're functionally equivalent. But if you want anything higher end, you need Thunderbolt and the crazy signal processing stuff that goes into it (which is why it's so expensive).

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/thunderbolt/thunderbolt-4-vs-usb-c.html

[u/night_filter → u/allegedrc4]

To be a little pedantic, it doesn't quite make sense to contrast Thunderbolt and USB-C. USB-C is the adapter format that both USB and Thunderbolt use.

You probably want to be comparing USB3 or USB4 to Thunderbolt 4. I believe USB 4 can provide comparable transfer speeds to Thunderbolt 4, but IIRC the real difference between Thunderbolt and USB is that Thunderbolt can effectively hook devices directly into the system bus, so that plugging a device in via Thunderbolt is kind of like plugging it directly into a PCI slot on the motherboard.

[u/JudgeCastle → u/Candid_Ad5642]

Agreed. The dock stays on the desk regardless the person. The keyboard and mouse is new with every user. Could even do the cameras into.

IMO anything that gets replaced with new user isn’t an asset. It’s a consumable.

[u/Geno0wl → u/JudgeCastle]

...you replace keyboard and mice when people change positions? we just like...clean them.

[u/ozzie286 → u/Geno0wl]

You clean them?

[u/Randalldeflagg → u/ozzie286]

This how we clean them: 1) Into the IT recycle pile that gets picked up once a quarter. 2) Issue new unused keyboard, mouse, headphones. 3) Profit/Loss?

I've seen me eat at my desk, Yeah, no. user get new equipment for the things they will touch daily.

[u/LOLBaltSS → u/Randalldeflagg]

I worked at a place that let people chew tobacco, so many spit cups.

[u/Geno0wl → u/LOLBaltSS]

My previous boss used to use chewing tobacco constantly. He also used to drink multiple cups of coffee every day from this certain local place. That is relevant because he used to use his empty cups for the spit while also drinking a fresh cup, frequently right next to his spit cup. And yes if you guessed he would accidentally "drink" from the spit cup occasionally then take a prize. Somehow that gross thing didn't deter his daily routine though....

[u/paradox183 → u/ozzie286]

You give them keyboards and mice??

[u/Geno0wl → u/paradox183]

yeah we just moved to Apple Vision Pro for everybody

[u/nikomo → u/Geno0wl]

Encourage them to use them while driving to work, you'll get way less tech support requests after the first week.

[u/FaulteredReality → u/paradox183]

You guys are getting computers?

[u/MalletNGrease → u/FaulteredReality]

You guys get desks?

[u/saltysomadmin → u/MalletNGrease]

We give our new-hires a rock and a chisel.

[u/TinyNiceWolf → u/saltysomadmin]

A chisel? Don't they have fingernails?

[u/KAugsburger → u/Geno0wl]

A cheap keyboard is ~$10. The savings to clean the keyboard versus replacing it aren't dramatic unless you are using some relatively pricey keyboards. Maybe it is worth reusuing if you have relatively high turnover and it is still pretty clean. You also cut down on complaints if you just always replace them.

[u/Torisen → u/KAugsburger]

It's the mountains of e-waste garbage we're trying to cut down on, they're not that hard to clean.

[u/teksean → u/Geno0wl]

Oh I just flashed back to when I had to clean mouse balls back in the 90s to get them working again. So freaking gross. As soon as the newer optical mice came out I tossed every one of those things in the trash and cut the cords to keep the users from bringing them back.

[u/rcp9ty → u/teksean]

Why didn't you keep the mouse balls for cube warfare... there may or may not be some holes in drywall that were the result of mice ... XD Also, I cut the cables on anything that doesn't work so its not confused with "used" working equipment.

[u/netburnr2 → u/Geno0wl]

A new kb is cheaper than the labor rate to clean them store them and retrieve them.

[u/Saritiel → u/netburnr2]

And the companies demanding this are always the ones who provide thin little membrane things made out of the cheapest plastic known to man that come with pre-stuck keys out of the box so you don't have to spill soda on them yourself.

[u/netburnr2 → u/Saritiel]

We have piles of Dell ones, I think they multiply when you put them in the closet together.

[u/Geno0wl → u/netburnr2]

I mean I get that. But also we don't want to put even more plastic trash out into the world unless we have to

[u/Taikunman → u/Geno0wl]

We've got a whole shelf stacked to the ceiling with those cheap keyboards that come with Dell workstations. Not worth my time to clean old ones so they just go in the garbage.

I sure as hell wouldn't want to use someone else's old peripherals.

[u/WhiskyEchoTango → u/Geno0wl]

I have seen some of my user keyboards. I'm allergic to most hand sanitizers, and I sanitize and wash after touching them. You cannot pay me enough not to replace a keyboard. I'm not paying people to spend an hour cleaning a keyboard when we have many more importanter jobs.

[u/af_cheddarhead → u/WhiskyEchoTango]

This is why I purchase my own keyboard and mouse, not to mention that the work procured ones are the cheapest, crappiest ones ever made.

Mine aren't even the most expensive out there, just a Logitech Wave Keys and MX Master S mouse.

[u/Geno0wl → u/WhiskyEchoTango]

it doesn't take an hour to clean a keyboard and mouse with a Cloxor wipe. If something was THAT dirty we would just pitch it.

[u/Johnny_BigHacker → u/Geno0wl]

I like to spitshine them with my toungue

[u/Legionof1 → u/Geno0wl]

hurk

[u/SergioSF → u/JudgeCastle]

Yes! Anything under $50.00 usually is the golden rule.

[u/Fuzzmiester → u/SergioSF]

Price is normally the way to go with this stuff. or maybe 'does it have a serial number'.

[u/OutsidePerson5 → u/Candid_Ad5642]

Considering many cost >$300 I definitely agree. A cheap mouse/keyboard combo maybe but not docks.

[u/shubhaprabhatam → u/Candid_Ad5642]

Especially when a Thunderbolt dock from Dell is like $300.

[u/Jeffbx → u/Candid_Ad5642]

100% they should be. Laptops are consumables, too.

It's basic CAPEX vs OPEX. We only track things because way back in the day of the $3000 laptops & $2000 PCs, they were capital expenditures. We were required to track them as depreciable assets for accounting.

Today, $1000 laptops are not "assets" from an accounting standpoint. They should be tracked from a technical standpoint because they contain company data, they're a high-theft item, and a handful of other reasons. But from an accounting standpoint, they're consumables.

IMHO it's important to track computers (and printers) to make it easier for IT to know who has what, and where it is. Everything else is disposable - monitors, docks, mice, keyboards, cables, etc, and you may spend more money tracking them than they're actually worth.

[u/Clovis69 → u/Jeffbx]

But from an accounting standpoint, they're consumables.

Laptops are assets - if the IRS has a depreciation table and there are tax reasons for something, it's an asset

[u/MProoveIt → u/Clovis69]

That's US tax, not accounting. Yes, the IRS is stupid. But, of course there are adequate other reasons to track laptops.

[u/ProfessionalITShark → u/Jeffbx]

Wait why are laptops not assets for accounting?

[u/Eisenstein → u/ProfessionalITShark]

CAPEX vs OPEX means (to my knowledge) something that a company buys that has value for their business (gets put on their balance sheet) vs something they buy that is a expense that gets used and isn't able to be resold. Furniture, buildings and infrastructure, etc would be CAPEX as, if the company went bankrupt tomorrow and had zero income it would still be worth some money because of those things. Whereas no one would count the number of pencils they have in that equation. I assume laptops count with pencils in this case because no one is going to bother getting them back, they aren't worth it. In day to day operations they probably just care about the data on the device as a reason to get it back from employees and send them to be destroyed instead of trying to resell them or reissue them.

[u/rheureddit → u/Eisenstein]

Pretty much. Anything considered "recyclable" or "trash" at EOL would be opex.

[u/hasthisusernamegone → u/rheureddit]

That's not how opex and capex work. If it has a value that you can transfer at any point in its lifecycle then it's an asset and goes in capex. Opex is for expenditure that has no intrinsic value - buying services rather than stuff.

[u/GEC-JG → u/Eisenstein]

In day to day operations they probably just care about the data on the device as a reason to get it back from employees and send them to be destroyed instead of trying to resell them or reissue them.

This depends on the company.

I work for a small nonprofit and if an employee relationship is terminated (by us or them), we absolutely want the device back and will reissue (after a wipe) or resell.

I think it's mostly only larger companies with money to burn that don't care about getting laptops back.

[u/rheureddit → u/ProfessionalITShark]

Because they're operating expenditures vs capital expenditures.

[u/GEC-JG → u/Jeffbx]

I disagree that laptops—regardless of price—are not considered assets from an accounting standpoint. I also don't understand why you consider hardware purchases as OPEX instead of CAPEX; OPEX isn't just a measure of low versus high cost.

[u/Jeffbx → u/GEC-JG]

No, it's whether it's capitalized as an asset. And that probably varies from company to company, but the last couple places I worked at do not - the threshold is too low, and they're expensed.

[u/GEC-JG → u/Jeffbx]

Per generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), CapEx is recorded on the balance sheet as a capitalized asset which is depreciated (if tangible) or amortized (if intangible) over a longer period of time. OpEx is recorded on the income statement and is expensed when incurred because the benefits of having the asset are realized in a shorter period, typically within a year. So, even if the laptops are inexpensive, I highly doubt the benefits are realized within a year, unless these companies are (wastefully) replacing laptops every year.

When looking at CapEx versus OpEx, there are generally 3 key considerations:

• Ownership - If the business takes ownership and retains the asset, it is generally considered CapEx. With OpEx, the business does not retain ownership.

• Time period - CapEx investments are made upfront and provide value over an extended period, usually several years. OpEx is an ongoing operating expense tied to short-term operations.

• Purpose - CapEx aims to upgrade capabilities or infrastructure for long-term productivity gains. OpEx maintains short-term operations.

In the case of laptops and PCs, most businesses will capitalize these purchases as CapEx since they retain ownership of the equipment, expect to use them for more than one accounting period (usually over 3 years), and aim to enhance productivity.

Again, this is just in general, and everything I'm reading does say most, so clearly some businesses do legitimately consider them as OpEx. That said, I know you don't control their accounting practices—and I'm no accountant by any means myself, though I have previous experience in basic small business accounting—but I feel like they are treating laptops incorrectly as OpEx, even if they are inexpensive.

[u/af_cheddarhead → u/Jeffbx]

Even the DoD has given up tracking anything that doesn't contain writable storage.

[u/imnotaero → u/Jeffbx]

The term that this informative discussion is missing, for the US anyway, is a "Section 179 deduction." https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/section-179-deduction

Businesses can just take the full deduction in the first year for things like laptops and furniture, up to a limit of $1.22 million. This saves businesses a lot of effort tracking depreciation on assets that mostly won't have any value at the time of their disposal, anyway.

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/section-179-deduction

[u/AnomalyNexus → u/Candid_Ad5642]

There is also the middle ground option. Maybe some employee loses it and orders two. So be it. Cost of doing business.

...but 100% untracked and some employee orders 100s...thats and ugly conversation as to why that slipped past IT

So truth as always is somewhere in the middle

[u/amberoze → u/Candid_Ad5642]

Docking station? No. Mouse, keyboard, monitor, absolutely. Anything under $100 is usually easier to replace than it is to repair or warranty.

[u/zipcad]

I disagree with you.

Printers need a sticker. You want to track every cent spent on them fuckers so you can eventually get rid of them in favor of pull printing on MFCs.

[u/Aperture_Kubi → u/zipcad]

Eh, I mean yes fuck printers but network connect them and use something like Papercut to track usage.

[u/insaneturbo132 → u/Aperture_Kubi]

Papercut is pretty useful. We’ve been using it for a year and the data is incredible for making cases.

[u/TheBlueKingLP → u/insaneturbo132]

Agree, I even have the free version of PaperCut at home, it can convert my usb only old printer to a networked one. I dump cheap toner into that thing to print disposable things. Now I can even print to it from my phone.

[u/No-Barber964 → u/zipcad]

Printers aren’t an issue as we lease them

[u/MSgtGunny → u/No-Barber964]

If they are leased you definitely want to tag them since you don't actually own them.

[u/jmbpiano → u/MSgtGunny]

Every leased printer I've ever used had an asset tag from the company that leased them. We didn't put our own on.

[u/GEC-JG → u/jmbpiano]

You should still be tracking it—even if you're not using your own tag. The leasing company isn't going to track that Jim had this printer, then passed it to Dwight, who rolled it over to Pam.

But you're going to want to know that for when it comes time to end the lease and return the printer. Otherwise, as far as you know, it's still with Jim.

Not tracking leased assets is how you lose leased assets and end up having to pay a replacement fee to the leasing company.

[u/Geno0wl → u/GEC-JG]

We have no personal printers leased, they are all MFPs that sit in central locations(much to the chagrin of certain lazy people). Also our central management software audits everything so it is easy to see which person is printing the most and how much exactly they are spending. Caught a couple people printing large personal things using the reporting tools.

[u/af_cheddarhead → u/Geno0wl]

I was going to say, Who leases personal printers?

All our office printer are big boys with network connectivity.

[u/jmbpiano → u/GEC-JG]

Yes, obviously as a company you need to track that stuff, but for us tracking leased equipment is a different system than tracking our own inventory.

IT assists with it, but it mainly falls under Accounting's purview.

[u/Kamwind]

The way to remove that is to show that the cost of the tracking is more time and money then is gained from the tracking. So you need to figure out how much time is with the initial labeling, the disposal costs added the labels, and the tracking of them.

[u/ComeAndGetYourPug → u/Kamwind]

Also include end-of-life overhead/processing in that time calc.

Our stupid inventory website requires manual input 1 by 1 during the recycling process. If I was forced to input serials and tags for crap like mice and keyboards, I think I'd just chuck that shit in to the ceiling void space instead.

[u/vCanuckIO]

Our rule is if it interacts with the network, we need a few things: - an asset tag paired to documentation so any tech can find it and know what it does - MAC address needs to be on record so if it does funny stuff on network we can look it up and know what it is - Location must be documented to match MAC address and Asset tag - An employee is assigned the device. User devices are assigned the device. Infrastructure is assigned to the site manager.

Exceptions are things that have liability- external drives get tagged and we have tools to monitor and log drives connected to company hardware.

If it’s not a liability and it doesn’t interact with the network it’s not something we are going to track.

[u/kerosene31]

I work public sector and for years we had to sticker and track everything. They had no concept of depreciation, so that 10 year old server still needs to be found (even if it is in 100 parts in a box).

Quite simply, even the public sector realized that the cost to track all this stuff was easily far more than any inventory losses. We used to drop everything we were doing and have "inventory month". It is insane.

Tracking a mouse is insane, I don't think even we ever had to do that.

Your inventory will walk, but what I find mostly is it is someone sticking an extra mouse in a laptop bag and forgetting about it. I sold my last car and was cleaning it out and found 10 differnet laptop chargers in my trunk. They just need to deal with it.

[u/chillzatl]

Anything that wears out from use is a consumable. Computers and monitors fail, but nobody would really call that "wearing out".

Keyboards, mice, batteries, headsets, etc all wear out from use and there's no consistent, definable timeline for that.

It's simple capex vs. opex.

[u/gregcantspell → u/chillzatl]

This right here. Can you assign the consumable to an individual? That might solve the desire to track these without asset tagging.

Take the analog version of pens and notepads. We’re not tagging those, the overhead to track it costs more than the benefit. If we suddenly start ordering 30x more pens we’re going to look into it and can the idiot who’s stealing to sell them on amazon.

Same thing applies here. Things that wear out are consumables. Keyboards break, they fail, people spill sugary coffee into them. If you can assign the consumable to an individual, and you can see one employee has consumed more than others then you have a person problem, not a technology problem.

[u/MorpH2k → u/gregcantspell]

Exactly this. Tracking them as consumables achieves the same thing for this purpose but without the extra work of it being an asset.

[u/Rentun → u/chillzatl]

Everything wears out from use. That's not really the defining characteristic of whether you should track something or not.

You should track stuff if it's worth the effort, which generally means a dollar amount threshold.

If you install an LED lightbulb, it will generally outlive the most expensive servers you'd ever buy. You're not going to track that lightbulb though, because it costs like five bucks, and it'll cost you more then five bucks to track it.

[u/Captainpatch]

Keyboard is easy.

Keyboards are unsanitary and time consuming to clean. The man-hours to disassemble and clean a keyboard are worth more than the keyboard unless it's particularly nice. Unless you're satisfied with handing new users a keyboard full of Dorito crumbs it just doesn't make financial sense to ask for it back.

[u/a60v → u/Captainpatch]

This. Show your boss an old nasty keyboard. Ask if he would feel comfortable using it himself. Explain that keyboards and mice are gross and that usable replacements are maybe $10 each.

[u/kremlingrasso → u/Captainpatch]

Yeah mouse, keyboard and headset should be disposed after every person. They are consumables and unsanitary.

[u/not-at-all-unique]

Sounds like they are concerned about theft? Meet the CTO half way.

You want a new mouse, Log a ticket.

When asked says why are we buying X, you can search the resolved tickets and let them figure out what has been happening to the wireless mice issued.

The individual assets don’t need to have stickers or stock numbers.

[u/jmnugent]

I've seen both sides of this:

In my previous job,. we did NOT track small things. (all we asset-tracked was computers and monitors). But we did (mentally) keep track of "repeat Helpdesk tickets". So if "Jane" down in HR kept repeatedly putting in ticket after ticket after ticket about "replacement keyboards".. we would at some point start asking questions why she's replacing so many keyboards. Some Users and some Departments were "frequent flyers" (very high number of Helpdesk tickets). Some were for legitimate reasons (seasonal workers). Some were just people who were careless or just rough on equipment.

In the new job I'm in,. they basically lock down everything. You get 1 power-supply, 1 Keyboard, 1 mouse, 1 monitor, 1 dock... any thing after that you have to justify to your Manager why you want a 2nd one. They also don't stock any "loaner" items. When the Crowdstrike disaster happened, a lot of us were called into work. Many of us forgot our Laptop Powercords. But since we keep 0 in stock,.. many of us basically had to either go back home or hijack a conference room or etc. I basically used my own personal money (I work from home) to buy all the extra stuff I need, because it was like pulling bureaucratic teeth just trying to get something small like a Mouse or an extra AC cord. ;

I prefer the more "loose" model myself. The previous job (I mentioned above) we had a "Lab Stock" type supply / workroom where we built all the new computers and had shelves and shelves and shelves of properly organized gear and adapters and Keyboards and external DVD drives or USB sticks .. basically any thing you could possibly need. If someone needed something, they just asked. (lots of times the hallway door was open and people would just walk in and ask). It was a much more productive system (gets people back up and running faster). If C-level execs or Vendors or say someone external was in a Meeting across the Hallway and needed to borrow a MacBook power adapter, .I had 5 or 6 of all years of Apple power adapters, So I easily had what they needed. I felt like it was much more "customer support friendly".

[u/natefrogg1 → u/jmnugent]

This sort of thing makes me very glad that so many laptops are moving to usbc for charging

[u/jmnugent → u/natefrogg1]

That helps a little for sure. Unfortunately the environment I worked in was a small city gov,. and we had over 100 buildings scattered around roughly 60 square miles of city. We also had a wide variety of Laptops (some DELLS came with a "standard 65w charger".. some of the Precisions or etc required a beefier 130w charger).

We also had a variety of Docking Stations (USB-C only,.. TB4, etc).. and the combination of Laptop, Docking Station and then how many external monitors that combination of things would support.. was also a constant battle (especially with Employees constantly moving around and swapping equipment,. then calling into Helpdesk crying things didn't work)

I had at one point bought some big duffel bags as "PC Move Bags". that basically had "2 of everything" .. so if a myself or a tech needed to drive 30min across town to a site,. we'd just grab a duffel bag and whatever Docks or Monitors we thought we'd need (overkill better than underkill) .. just so we could be close to 100% assured we'd only have to make 1 trip.

I used to get in long arguments with other people on my team because when they'd order to replace things,. they'd always go to Amazon and just find the cheapest price they could find ("Amazon Basics" or some no name Chinese brand) .. where I would always buy Apple or Anker or something quality. I finally just gave up and just kept all my own supplies in my own cubicle, .and kept them under lock and key. So when other teams exasperated themselves with cheap solutions, they'd come to me. ;p

[u/Fuzzmiester → u/natefrogg1]

It's now part of my requirements for laptops for the business. If it's not USB C to charge it, you'd better have a damn good reason for requesting a variance.

usb c power. usb c docking station.

never keeping a stock of a half dozen different chargers again.

[u/NightMgr]

I worked for the State of Texas for a while where I had to do $50 worth of paperwork to deduct fifty cents from your last check if you failed to return the “lanyard” string holding a stylus to a tablet.

[u/Kwuahh → u/NightMgr]

Think of the tens of dollars you ripped from final paychecks over the years!

[u/betasp]

Use spare parts as an analogy.

Keyboards and mice and spare parts for the computers. You don’t asset tag spare parts. You tag the main asset.

You’re obviously not a manufacturing company.

[u/notHooptieJ]

another disagree here.

Mice, keyboards, cables sure - in a bin in the IT closet.

Docks, headsets other $100+ items - Nah fam those need to be tracked.

Decent docking stations are $200+ , good headsets more than that. You track those, and you enforce policy.

[u/frac6969]

Are your asset tags aligned with Accounting and Purchase? We only tag assets that are not consumables as defined by Accounting.

[u/No-Barber964 → u/frac6969]

Currently today , all IT hardware is depreciated (except laptops) and all hardware + laptops are asset tagged

[u/upnorth77 → u/No-Barber964]

Holy crap, my accounting team would hate me if I made them track depreciation on keyboards.

The only equipment I track depreciation on is infrastructure. Switches, big UPSs, firewalls, etc. Even PCs/laptops are considered "minor equipment", and we don't track depreciation on minor equipment. I tag PCs and laptops more to keep track of the data on the devices, rather than the devices themselves. It also helps in keeping up with a replacement schedule for devices.

[u/Clear_Key5135 → u/upnorth77]

It's completely insane to try to capex a fucking keyboard lol. I'm pretty sure our accountants would toss me off the roof if I suggested that.

[u/andrea_ci]

docking stations > sticker. they're expensive and won't be "consumed".

webcam > sticker.

keyboards/mouse > tracked, but without sticker. that means "given keyboard to user X today", not the whole serial/tag

[u/ganaraska → u/andrea_ci]

Boy was my boss shocked after I started keeping a list of laptop charger / lightning cord / headphone dongle handouts

[u/sccmjd]

It's their circus, their rules. Is it worth fighting over?

I'd tag it all except for things that are plentiful and cheap, like cheap keyboards, mice, and cables. If anyone put any time into something as a special purchase, tag it. Then collect inventory info on it initially. After that it might not need to be tracked as closely. Update inventory on everything for a set up being deployed.

It also creates an atmosphere where users are aware you're monitoring things like that. I know I've had wireless mice and special cables returned just because I added an extra tag on them. That alone pays for the cost of time for tagging and the time for inventory work. Over time it means an extra computer can be purchased instead of resupplying special mice that have disappeared.

There have been situations where a user asks for a purchase on the same thing over and over, like they want yet another webcam. If you've got that inventoried, you can ask them why they need three webcams. Then they say they a webcam is too heavy to carry around and they want one at work, one at home, one to keep in their car.... And the purchase request is denied. But maybe they need a bigger laptop bag instead.

[u/VA_Network_Nerd]

The decision isn't up to you or the CTO.

It's up to the CFO and/or the designated Lead Tax Officer to decide how they want to play the game.

[u/sadisticamichaels]

are these items considered capex or opex at your company? If it's opex then, "this is just kind of the cost of doing business and it's something we budget for and feel like it takes more resources to track these items than they are worth." If it's capex then "these items have no strategic value to the company, they don't have any company data on them, they are cheap and will be fully capitalized over the next few years. we feel like it takes more resources to track them than they are worth. "

I like to make sure my people have good things, but when budgets are tight then it's the cheap keyboard, mouse, and webcam. If someone wants something nicer they know where the amazon is.

[u/210Matt]

You as a department need to find out how much time you are spending on tagging and tracking. If you are spending 30k in labor on tracking to make sure you don't loose 10k in product that does not make much sense.

[u/Significant-One-1608]

i believe things that are in close proximity to people like head sets should be consumables, as you aint gonna want to wear a heavily used headset. but things like mice keyboards are semi consumable, if they break, replace/fix them, if stolen, its no real Biggy

but items like docking stations should be tagged as they can cost several hundred £/$. but i think it really depends on costs.

[u/speaksoftly_bigstick]

Our baseline is that key boards and mice are generally "recyclable." We don't change them out with each new user or desk move (all equipment stays at the desk it's at, unless it's a mouse, KB, or combo that the user specifically requested or needed as accomodation), but we happily swap them if the user needs and requests it with the generic dime a dozen we get when we order new units.

In our system, desks are numbered assets as well (assigned to users along with their other inventoried equipment). This helps us to maintain an updated seating chart for our own purposes and track down isolated connectivity issues if they occur.

The majority of desks are powered sit/stand units so that's the other reason we track them as assets (we usually get the first "help" ticket if it malfunctions).

Docking stations are not common, but are not disposable either. They are not inexpensive (for a proper "docking station vs USB c port replicator), have their own firmware and drivers to manage, etc. they are trackable assets same as the other trackable assets.

Generally, keyboards and mice is "too much." Too easy for it to get messed up and cause confusion if not kept up with. It's not a good investment of HD tech time running around trying to find out why keyboard asset 997 is on desk 384 when it was assigned to desk 256 originally. 🙄

[u/RykerFuchs]

My approach is that personal disposable peripherals are not tagged. AirPods? They have a life of less than 5 years, they are disposable. They are not tracked. Keyboards are not tracked, mice are not tracked.

[u/PixelSpy]

We don't track mouse and keyboards, monitor setups are standard across the board at every station so we don't bother with those either.

Docks, laptops, desktops, printers, special equipment are pretty much the only things we track.

Mouse and keyboard are basically the cheapest shit we can find. Maybe 20 bucks per station. We allow end users to bring in their own as well, so most of the time, they end up stuck in drawers.

We also don't reissue M&K because people trash them. They're unsanitary, and we're not cleaning them. Which is a huge part of why we buy them cheap. We view them as disposable goods.

[u/thenebular]

I wouldn't put actual docking stations on consumables though.

Honestly, I would asset tag based on cost. Find the price point where it costs more to asset track than the device is worth and tag anything higher than that.

[u/totmacher12000]

If it’s over $500 it’s getting an asset tag.

[u/Dry_Inspection_4583]

If he's really concerned, provide everyone with an expense account for a mouse/keyboard/webcam/headset, cost it out based on your ordering and provide staff with either one of each with a written contract that they are responsible if they're lost/stolen/broken, or an expense account for x amount to cover the entire cost of them and allow users to purchase what they want.

It sounds as though he may have some experience he's not shared, I would ask why he believes that to be true, and ask him to estimate the time cost in comparison to the savings in order to track these things. I'm willing to bet he's just going based on personal experience and hasn't actually put much thought before the feeling. Worst case you can do the costing against those two things to present.

good luck

[u/SkyeC123]

Our minimum is $1000 for fixed assets. Follows accounting and lifecycle principles from business navigators at my company.

Tagging and tracking below that is more trouble than it’s worth in time and resources. Interesting CTO you have— they should talk to the CFO. ;)

[u/svtscottie]

We obviously keep an eye on inventory for kb/m but to us they are toothbrushes. Once you use it, it’s yours. It’s a sanitary thing for us and makes new users feel like they’re getting a new computer.

[u/himji]

Start sticking asset tags on each individual piece of printer paper. That'll learn them

[u/Neratyr]

I see lots of excellent comments. Just to chime in some of my thoughts for the heck of it - - -

So i don't speak accountant but I know that ideally they want to track all the things and it lets them do their special tax math stuff. Giving them metrics over time helps the company, as well as additionally helping the IT dept do cost estimates and budgeting. So I interpret your CTO as wanting to achieve those goals but being a liiiitttttlllleee bit over zealous.

I see both of you as being very well intentioned here. In cases like this ya gotta game things out and think them through step by step logically.

What is Problem To Solve? or... What is the Goal To Achieve? In this case, best empowering accounting and giving highly accurate cost predictions to IT dept.

Most orgs do this:

Anything with data is tracked and tagged thoroughly.
Anything over a predetermined cost is tracked and tagged.
Anything else has its purchases tracked and has its current levels approximated via highly educated guesstimates. ( Consumables )
Anything else is either due to Compliance or Preference.
- Slight chance Im forgetting a bullet point here off top of mind, but you get the idea!

Of course, you'll have to 'account' ( no pun intended ) for any mouse related IT policies such as letting folks pick their own or something. I'm sure you can imagine if everyone gets 100-200 dollar mice then you wanna think that through carefully as compared to 30 dollar mice.

So what I'm saying is that you are right, consumables can result in practically the same actionable data. The best case is to have all of this driven by policy. The policy of what is the dollar cost that we begin tracking these things? Maybe your dev team has custom mouse and keyboard purchases, top dollar shit? Maybe your accounting team has the 30 dollar standard stuff? A dollar threshold helps realistically cover both of those. A blanket policy of "tag it all!" doesn't, and it increases labor even for the accounting team who have 30 dollar mice they use til they break.. so they don't need that level of monitoring.

Possible changes to my logic? Sometimes 'loss' is an issue. If people are swiping stuff then you'll wanna expend extra labor. Or swapping. Sometimes staff get petty and will swap peripherals when no one is looking. Obviously as I said above Compliance can be a factor in some situations of course for example docks or webcams might be impacted. Stuff like that.

Hope that helps!

[u/19610taw3]

That's something I struggled with at my last job. Wired keyboards and mice were consumables and not tagged or tracked. We had $50 sets of Logitech / Amazon wireless keyboards and Mice that were not tracked either. But a $70 set of bluetooth mouse/keyboard were tracked individually with the serial number.

Where I am now, anything less than a printer is considered a consumable and not tracked other than keeping a set minimum on hand for replacement purposes. New org is in much better financial shape than old org. I think at old org they were really trying to get an understanding of costs because the ship was sinking.

[u/MrCertainly]

Yeah, here's some advice.

Make your case. If you're overruled, stay in your lane. Do what you're told by those above you. You're collecting a paycheck, and you don't own the company. Your name isn't above the door.

[u/LuckyMan85]

We set a monetary value of £50 and ask does it store data. If either are true it gets tagged.

[u/GFBIII]

Asset tagging was based on price where I worked. Anything more than $250 got tagged.

[u/ThimMerrilyn]

In my company even monitors are consumables. If it doesn’t have a cpu and hdd in it, it’s not an asset

[u/Fairfacts]

I didn’t even have monitors as assets. They just aren’t that expensive and in themselves are not a security risk. Anything with an identity we tracked. I did push for new hire as a package so everything a new hire needed was issued as a package. Replacement requests were either manager approved work from home additions eg a second monitor or justify why we had to replace it (but still accounted for as a consumable)

[u/Loki-L]

Considering the price of a basic mouse vs a printer ink cartridge it seems sill to try to keep track of them beyond ordering more when your supply runs low.

The cost of tracking them as assets is in no sensible relation to the cost of the items themselves.

If there some more expensive mice that is another story. Track luxury peripherals, but the basic stuff is just not cost effective to track.

[u/snowign]

Docks can be pretty expensive. You may want to tag those in the long run. But keyboards, mice, and webcam. That's a bit silly.

[u/MrJingleJangle]

This isn’t really a CTO thing, it’s a CFO thing. There are tax implications when things become “assets” vs “consumables”. Many organisations ave rules on the minimum spend of a thing able to be an asset, and hence have book value and depreciation, and these rules are often reflections of tax law.

[u/xintonic]

The only thing you should be tracking are computers and anything that can hold company data.

Monitors, Docking Stations, Peripherals are consumables.

Let's say you buy a $200 monitor with a 4 year life cycle. By the time you factor in procurement, tracking, support, decommissioning...etc. you've cost the company more money than what the monitor is worth.

What if someone steals it? After you've factored in the depreciation value of the monitor and then get HR and Legal involved you've definitely cost the company more money than what's worth.

The only caveat here is if you buy something super fancy that's expensive, otherwise you're tracking a fancy lightbulb.

[u/engageant]

Our finance department issued us an asset tag for an SFP module because the cost exceeded $1000. Not really sure where they expected us to put it, but I told them I was throwing it away.

[u/Starfireaw11]

Typically it's tied to tax law. Talk to your finance department about what the value thresholds are for depreciation, and have your asset management policy tied to that. If they're still pushing the point, have your finance department do a cost/benefit analysis of asset managing low value items.

[u/djaybe]

Asset tagging & billing thresholds are based on cost. What is the threshold?

[u/ZeroInfluence]

I think docks make sense to track if youre gonna track monitors. Decent ones are not cheap and can break pretty easily if youre rough. $20 mouse or kb though yeah waste of time and effort

[u/LetzGetz]

Docking stations no way... Unless they aren't thunderbolt 3/4.

[u/sprtpilot2]

Until you are the CTO, simply do what he asks.

[u/nkriz]

Everything in a business must show return on investment. Ask them to demonstrate how putting an asset tag on everything demonstrates return on investment.

Every keyboard and mouse you deploy takes an extra three minutes to deploy because you are tagging and logging it. Staff time costs about a dollar per minute (as an assumption, put your own value here). So it costs an extra three dollars to deploy a $50 piece of hardware, or about a 6% increase in cost.

So how are you making that back? Is it reducing theft? Is it creating a culture of shame that forces people to take care of their equipment? Or is it something your boss heard at a convention or read in a trade magazine and now does without actually being able to justify?

Personally, I consider most of these things "consumable" in my budgeting and process. I spend a few thousand per year on them. Tracking all of it would cost me labor. It's not worth a few thousand to track things that are worth a few thousand. Most businesses spend about a third of their annual budget on staff, so why would we waste our most expensive and difficult to procure resource on easily available and cheap resources?

Anyway, not sure what will work for you, but these are the things a CTO needs to hear because that's the language spoken at that level.

[u/Bright_Arm8782]

Your accounts department will have a value at which something becomes an asset on the balance sheet rather than a consumable.

Use that value as the threshold for what gets a tag.

[u/Fitz_2112b]

Every company I've ever worked for has set a dollar amount at which you start tracking assets. Usually things above $200 or so. Webcams, keyboards and mice would fall under that threshold

[u/Valdaraak]

Tagging and tracking a keyboard costs more money in the time spent doing that than the item is worth. They're effectively disposable/consumable items.

we will loose visibility into where things are going

That will happen regardless. People will "borrow" things from open desks. It's been an issue everywhere I've worked.

[u/cashew929]

An asset is something that you depreciate for tax purposes. Your accounting team should be able to set that value for you. After all, they aren't considering a pen an asset. Most orgs are going to depreciate laptops, servers, desktops etc and consider them an asset. Peripherals no one does. Opinion will be split on monitors. We recently stopped considering them an asset because the unit price has dropped below the threshold. Accounting should set the threshold. btw, your CTO is an idiot.

[u/mr_data_lore]

I would not consider docks and cameras to be consumables. Keyboards and mice I would.

[u/irrision]

Monitors really shouldn't be tagged either. They don't cost enough to be depreciated as an asset on a company's books if we're being accurate about things.

[u/dustojnikhummer]

Mice and keyboards yes. Webcams, docks and monitors hell no.

[u/TinderSubThrowAway]

You can track employee equipment it without needing an asset tag on everything.

[u/insufficient_funds]

I feel like most orgs track items as assets when their price is past a specific threshhold, rather than just due to what it is.

For instance, an item over $100 would be tagged and tracked; but stuff under that like keyboard/mouse/webcam wouldn't be.

My org doesn't even track monitors, they come and go stupid often at my org (which doesn't make a ton of sense, but whatever).

[u/EEU884]

We usually go with a value over £X so regular keyboard and mouse would be consumables, my trackball would be asset tracked.

[u/PappaFrost]

Calculate how much staff time and therefore money is invested in tracking all of these peripherals as assets. If it is 30 minutes a day, that is 1/16 of your salary spent on this project. The business may be spending more money than they are saving due to the increased overhead. If it's cheaper to spend your time tracking all of this, than replacing them, they will probably have you keep tracking all of this.

You could also make a case based on the opportunity cost. What IT projects are slowed down or not started because you are tied up tracking inventory on mice?

[u/The_Wkwied]

Your CTO is misguided. You need them to set a dollar amount on assets that you track.

If it is something that you can reasonable give to a new employee (computer, dock, monitors, printer, speakers, webcam), put a sticker on it.

If it is something very personal that you wouldn't be giving to a new employee, or even an existing one as a device replacement (mouse, keyboard, microphone)... no, you don't give those out. Those are filthy. Those are consumables and disposable.

[u/1996Primera]

Many places I  worked had a $$ cutoff for asset tags

Basically any it equipment over 50$ would get a asset tag

[u/Math_comp-sci]

Set a minimum value threshold for asset tagging. It won't eliminate the docking stations but it should let you do away with webcams, keyboards, and mice unless they are particularly expensive.

[u/netsysllc]

Depending on where you live the county or state could consider all items 'personal property' and it has to be accounted for for property tax reasons.

[u/TheFumingatzor]

They are not.

[u/Erok2112]

Keyboards and mice are consumables. Everything else is usually an extra cost so they would need to be tagged. I've never been in any company that doesnt have a thousand keyboards in boxes just hanging out.

[u/Outrageous-Insect703]

Well if this is something the CTO wants and there's Executive and Finance backing then you're most likely in a position to asset tag. Seems a bit much IMO, as IT Manager the only items I asset tag are company laptops, company workstations/servers, company iPads, and company printers. For company phones I don't tag those with a sticker as they are traceable in the carriers’ mobile portal. Everything else monitors, keyboard, docking, etc. I consider replaceable/consumable and don't worry about them. Additionally, my Finance side only askes about laptops/servers/workstation for depreciation purposes.

[u/dracotrapnet]

Asset tracking is for depreciation tax purposes and insurance purposes. Though if you can't track a serial from PO, to packing list, to invoice, to storage location, to user, back to storage, and to recycle it's pointless. Asset inventory count cycles are busy work and not worth the time spent hunting for an object that costs less than the accountant's hourly pay or mine or the 2 departments.

[u/Big_Statistician2566]

In the company I owned it was all based on price, not function.

I don’t care if it is a mouse or a monitor. If it was over $300, it was tagged.

[u/blk55]

I only tag and track things over $500. Anything less than that is not worth the hassle and can easily be replaced.

[u/Squeezer999]

you need a policy on asset tagging, anything of de minimus value, like under $250 doesn't get a tag.

[u/Doublestack00]

We've stopped tracking:

- Docking stations

- Chromebooks below $200

- Keyboards/mice

- Monitors

If you look at home much time it takes, how much the tags cost and the added expense of more assets in the system.

We kept having to expanded our assets count so we were paying more and more for tracking. Just was not worth it. Also, who wants back a used keyboard/mouse or to pay to have 2-4 year old monitors shipped back?

[u/wcdunn]

Only tag hardware valued over a certain dollar amount. Your finance team probably has that number. I've typically used $500.

Monitors, keyboard, headsets, etc mostly likely aren't going to be above the threshold.

Tracking mice/keyboards will cost more in labor than simply replacing a few from time to time.

[u/gumbrilla]

Assets are assets. They are on the Asset registry. This is a finance document used as part of the value of the company.

Assets are bought with CAPEX. When bought they have value, they depreciate over time. This is all tracked by finance, and are part of the annual statements/valuation of the company.

Asset Tags go on Assets. They have a number that reflects the number of the item in the Asset Registry.

Your finance dept will have a cutoff point where they don't count asset value, a dollar value, where it's just not material enough to warrant tracking those assets.

Everyone seems to conflate this with some IT CMDB shite. Not the same.

edit: to complete.

1. Go talk to Finance and find out what is on the asset registry. Make sure those procedures are correct, with procurement.

2. Asset tag your assets.

3. Create a slush fund for buying worn our crap. Incidentals is the budget line. Give it a reasonable amount

4. As needed replenish. Track the requests for replacement. Take that to finance once a month, to review all those buys, and discuss any issues, or weirdness for visibility and accountability. If little Johnny has requested 5 keyboards in the last month, it gets brought up here.

That way, finance is happy, assets are tracked, and you maintain some accountability for your slush (incidental) fund without pissing around tracking $10 dollar spends.

[u/dickydotexe]

I put asset tags on mouse, keyboards and even door cards. Ok im kidding

[u/Whyd0Iboth3r]

We don't tag anything that costs less than $1k.

[u/RevLoveJoy]

Numbers. Use numbers. Since you're asset tagging and tracking all the proposed consumables now, how much are we talking about. What is the per annum spend on proposed consumables vs. desk devices to continue being tracked? I suspect that ratio is pretty low. Now try and put together some people hour numbers for tracking all the desk gear. How much time is spent on inventory management with each new hire? Term? Gear request? I imagine one turns over keyboards and mice A LOT more often than monitors and docking stations. If you can put together the "hours saved" vs. "total spend on proposed consumables" numbers those are the ones to use with your CTO to make the argument.

In essence you want those numbers to say, "We are spending a ton of time tracking throw away gear."

I'm also with others who argue that printers and docks need tracking. FWIW. But mice and keyboards, oh hell no.

[u/WhiskyEchoTango]

Docking stations, CPU, monitor, printer, any desktop accessory over $150.

[u/mrlinkwii]

you had me agreeing till you said docking stations , docking stations arent consumables

[u/DeltaSierra426]

Keyboards, mice, and webcams (assuming you aren't using ~$150-$200 4K ones) are consumables. It's going to cost the company more money to track every peripheral than not being able to explain why some grow legs and walk off. Asset tagging them also adds that layer of IT bureaucracy just to replace them.

Docking stations are track-worthy assets, also assuming not $50 cheapo ones.

[u/Visible_Spare2251]

I track those as accessories. So I don't tag them or record serials but we have a set number in Snipe IT and I assign one to the person when I hand it over.

[u/Miserygut]

Keyboards, Mice are consumables. Webcams are in a grey area. Monitors and Docking stations are static and should be tagged in an office environment.

Fwiw we don't track anything except laptops but we don't have an office space, everyone is remote. It's too much time, effort and cost to ship monitors around and nobody asks for a docking station at home.

[u/Obvious-Water569]

Keyboards, mice and cables should not be tracked as assets in the same way that PCs should.

You may want to maintain a stock sheet for those things and note down when you issue them and who to. That will satisfy your CTO's need to know where they're going but won't muddy your asset management system and create a labelling nightmare.

[u/f0gax]

My advice is to really look at what is being purchased and how long it is lasting.

Yes things like KB/Mouse are going to break fairly often. Log a ticket for each one. And then if someone asks why you're spending $500 a year on HIDs, you can pull that a report and show the reasons why each was replaced.

Do the same for other peripherals. And maybe set a price threshold to determine what is a consumable and what is an asset. This allows you to know for sure what is what. And also accounts for special cases.

For example: A $200 docking station should be an asset, imo. While a $5 mouse is a consumable.