Choosing the right asset management software will impact your organisation, and with so many options available, it can often be overwhelming. Whether you are tracking machinery, IT equipment, vehicles, or tools, the right platform can reduce costs, lower risk, and give you better visibility into how your assets are being used.
Without a robust asset management system you are exposed to risk. That could be from downtime due to a missed maintenance procedure, failing an audit as the data was scattered across duplicate spreadsheets and was impossible to find, or budgets being wasted through a lack of understanding of what you have.
Every company is unique, and therefore has unique needs for asset management software. This guide provides a practical checklist of things to consider when choosing your solution. Our recommendation, from 20+ years in asset management, is to go through each section, decide what makes sense for your business, and engage with your vendor shortlist to ensure each one can be achieved.
- Understand your asset landscape
- Core functionality
- Security and compliance
- Do you need to track work on assets too?
- Who will use your asset management software?
- Vendor reputation and cost
- Trial and evaluation phase
- Checklist
1. Understand your asset landscape
The first step is to understand what assets you need to store now and in the future. Do you manage a straightforward list, or do you have complex parent-child relationships, such as a vehicle with replaceable components or a production line with subsystems? You need to ensure your tool can reflect your assets' structure without forcing you into a rigid model.
Equally important is how assets connect with other information. Do you need to link them to vendor contracts, service records, customer information, or compliance documents? Can you add your own fields (without having them appear on every asset) and workflows so the tool mirrors how your business actually runs? A good platform is both flexible and scalable, adapting as your asset landscape grows or changes.
2. Core functionality
Modern asset management goes beyond simple registers. Understand what you need to help speed up your team. It could be barcodes/QR tags to make tracking fast and accurate or real-time location and condition data, which can be critical for industrial industries where downtime is costly.
The best tools also provide more than just a database. They provide dashboards, reports, and alerts that show where assets are, how they are being used, and what needs attention. Automated notifications can prevent renewals and maintenance tasks from slipping through the cracks.
Make a list of what you need and what you would like and compare with your shortlisted vendors.
3. Security and compliance
How important are security and compliance activities to your business? You need to assess whether your asset management software meets your business's criteria (e.g., being SOC 2 Type 2 compliant or having the correct level of access controls) and ensure it can support your business's compliance activities if you have them.
What would you need to see to meet your compliance responsibilities? Do you need to view all the history of changes to an asset quickly? Add approvals to key actions (such as relocating an asset)? Roll back to see how an asset looked at a specific point in time? Search past changes? These features do not just help during audits; they help you foster discipline in following procedures correctly. Different asset management software provide different levels of historical reporting so you need to decide how deep you need to go.
4. Do you need to track work on assets too?
Assets are not static. They need maintenance, renewals, and ad-hoc requests. Decide whether you need your asset management tool to handle these work items or if it should integrate with an existing ticketing system.
Either way, linking asset data with service history builds a richer record that helps you analyse performance, costs, and lifecycle trends. You need to decide which route to take and if the offered integrations or task tracking features will meet your requirements.
5. Who will use your asset management software?
The best tool in the world is useless if only a handful of technical people can operate it. Check whether non-technical staff can easily add or update records, and whether mobile access or simple dashboards are available.
Also, think about access control. Can you set permissions so that different teams, such as maintenance, finance, and compliance, see only what they need? Adoption depends on usability, so user experience and support should be part of your evaluation. Asset management software can vary significantly in regard to user experience which can help you whittle down your shortlist quite easily.
6. Vendor reputation and cost
Look for a provider with proven reliability, regular updates, and a strong support record. Speak to existing customers if you can, most vendors will put you in touch with existing customers if you ask them.
Cost of course is a critical factor too. There are many different approaches to pricing asset management software. Some charge per user, some charge per asset type, some charge per amount of data stored. Some lock extra features behind more expensive pricing plans, others don't.
7. Trial and evaluation phase
Never buy blind. Run a pilot with real data, a couple of real users, and a real workflow. The goal is not just to test features, it is to see how the software fits into your daily operations. Almost every asset management software vendor will provide a free trial or work with you to get started with a quick proof-of-concept.
You will quickly see whether it is intuitive, flexible, and reliable enough for the long term. If it does not pass the pilot, it will not work in production.
Checklist for selecting asset management software
When comparing options, use a structured checklist:
-
Can the tool reflect your asset hierarchy, including any child components?
-
Can you link assets to supporting data like contracts, vendors, and customers if needed?
-
Is it flexible enough to adapt to your processes and scale as you grow?
-
Does it support tracking of maintenance, renewals, and requests if needed?
-
Is it usable by both technical and non-technical staff?
-
Does it offer automation, reporting, and proactive alerts?
-
Are security and compliance features strong, with full history and approvals?
-
Is the vendor reliable, and is the total cost transparent?
-
Did the pilot prove adoption and fit for your organisation?
Choosing asset management software is not about ticking a few feature boxes. It is about finding a solution that reflects how your business operates, supports compliance, and reduces risks. The right choice will give you clarity, control, and confidence in how your assets are managed. If you would like to discuss your needs with us, get in touch. We are here to help you assess whether Starhive's asset management capabilities can work for you or not.
.png?height=218&name=Data%20(1).png)