What is the difference between asset management and inventory management?

Asset management tracks identified items over their life: this specific unit, at this address, with this history. Inventory management tracks quantities of interchangeable stock: how many of a part you hold and where. One is about identity, the other about count.

Do I need serial numbers?

For anything you will service more than once, yes. Without a serial number you cannot tell two identical units apart, and the service history becomes a site-level guess rather than an item-level record. It is the field that makes the whole register work.

Can technicians see asset history on site?

In Omni Field, yes. Customer assets carry model, serial, warranty and maintenance history, and are linked to the customer and their jobs, so the technician app can show what was done before. QR labelling lets an item be pulled up directly.

Asset management

Asset management in field service is keeping a register of equipment and the service history attached to each item. An asset is a specific machine at a specific place, identified by make, model and serial number. The register answers what is installed, when it was last serviced, and what was done to it.

What an asset register holds

An asset register holds the identity of each item and its history. Identity means make, model, serial number, location and installation date. History means every visit, every part replaced, and every reading taken.

The serial number is what makes the record useful. Without it, a register of eight identical air conditioners at one site tells you nothing about which one keeps failing.

Customer assets and your own assets

Both belong in a register, for different reasons. Customer assets drive service history, warranty claims and maintenance contracts. Your own assets, meaning tools, test instruments and vehicles, drive calibration dates, replacement planning and accountability.

The two share the same shape of record: an identified item, a place, and a history of what happened to it.

What it enables

A register turns a maintenance contract from a promise into a record, gives a technician the history before they walk in, and gives a customer an evidence-based answer at renewal time. It also shows which equipment is costing more to keep alive than to replace.

Omni Field tracks customer appliances and company assets with model numbers, serial numbers, warranty dates and maintenance history, links them to the customer and the jobs that serviced them, and supports QR labelling so a technician can pull up an item's history on site.

Common questions

See it in the product

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