Hardware asset register for a small IT firm: Excel vs dedicated software

Your IT firm has 15 people. You started with one Google Sheet — laptop, monitor, licence, employee name. It worked. In year two you added company phones, more SaaS licences, more remote workers with two monitors at home and a second laptop at a client site. The spreadsheet now has 4 tabs, every manager reminds people weekly to update it, and at your next ISO 27001 A.5.9 audit the question "show me the asset register" will trigger a panic.

This article is for owners and CTOs of small IT firms, MSPs and consulting agencies outgrowing Excel and trying to work out when exactly to switch. We show 8 signals that Excel has stopped working, a concrete cost comparison Excel vs a dedicated register, and what exactly you lose in each scenario.

When Excel is fine for an IT firm

Honestly — not every IT firm needs a dedicated hardware register. Excel works if:

Fewer than 5 people

Everyone works from the office with one laptop

No cyber insurance, no ISO 27001 or SOC 2 plans

Clients do not ask about your asset-management procedures

Low turnover (a year with no team changes)

For that firm, a well-maintained spreadsheet with one person keeping it up will serve for years. The moment any of those conditions changes, Excel starts costing.

8 signals you have outgrown Excel

1. Team is above 10 people

10+ people means 40+ items to track (laptop + monitor + phone + several SaaS licences each). Excel with 40 rows works. With 100 rows and weekly changes — not really.

2. Remote or hybrid work

Equipment moves between office, home, and client sites. Without multi-location tracking with movement history, you lose visibility of where things physically are.

3. You bought cyber insurance

Broker asks for "a full IT asset register" as a condition of the policy or a discount. Excel with 4 tabs is not that register — it needs a change audit trail, owner assignment, and disposal documentation.

4. A client requires security procedures

Enterprise client sends a security questionnaire. One question: "How do you manage the inventory of information assets?" and "Do you keep an audit trail of changes?". Answering "Excel in Google Drive" hurts the score.

5. You are preparing for ISO 27001 / SOC 2

Without a register that satisfies A.5.9 you will not pass certification. Excel with no change log, no owner assignment, no confidentiality classification = does not meet the requirement.

6. Onboarding a new employee takes 2 days

Jan Nowak starts Monday. You need to: find a spare laptop, provision 5-10 SaaS licences, hand over a phone, update the spreadsheet. Without a workflow-driven system, this is a sequence of emails between IT, HR and the manager that takes 2 days. With one — 30 minutes and a checklist.

7. An employee leaving triggers panic

Anna Kowalska leaves Friday. You need to: collect laptop, phone, access card, expire SaaS licences, transfer work. Without a register showing exactly what she had, part of that gets forgotten. Cost: paying for unused licences, security risk (access still active).

8. You do not know how much you pay for unused SaaS

A typical 20-person IT firm pays 3,000-8,000 zł per month for unused SaaS subscriptions — licences assigned to people who left, licences duplicated after a tool migration, licences bought "just in case". Excel will not surface this because nobody has time to audit it manually.

Excel vs dedicated register — cost comparison

For a typical 15-person IT firm, annually:

| Item | Excel | Asseto Pro |

|---|---|---|

| Direct software cost | 0 zł | 468 zł (39 zł × 12) |

| Manager time on updates (2h/week × 4 people × 50 zł/h) | 20,800 zł | 5,200 zł (75% reduction) |

| Onboarding time (3 new hires/yr × 2 days × 500 zł) | 3,000 zł | 500 zł (30 min each) |

| Unused SaaS licences (annual "leakage" without tracking) | 40,000 zł | 8,000 zł (quarterly audit) |

| Cyber insurance / contract risk (rough estimate) | 5,000 zł | 0 zł |

| **Annual total** | **68,800 zł** | **14,168 zł** |

Each line is an estimate and varies per firm. The direction is unambiguous — the "free" cost of Excel for an IT firm above 15 people is easily over 60,000 zł a year, mostly in hidden time and unaudited licences.

What exactly you lose in Excel

**Change audit log** — who changed what, when, why. Excel shows the last change, not history. ISO 27001 A.5.9 requires it.

**Owner assignment** — Excel does not enforce filling the "owner" field. People leave it blank. Auditor asks "who is responsible for this item?" — you cannot say.

**Automatic alerts** — warranty ending in 30 days, SaaS subscription expiring, quarterly review due. Excel needs manual checking.

**Roles and permissions** — Excel shared in Google Drive = anyone with the link edits everything. A register needs: IT admins add, owners verify, auditor reads only.

**Retirement trail** — a deleted row in Excel = no trail. A retired-tag system keeps the item in the register with status, date and disposal method.

**Multi-location** — equipment moves between office, home, client. Excel does not track location history per asset.

When to switch — the trigger

Our recommendation: switch when any one of these three triggers is met:

**Team > 10 people** — the math on manager time alone makes the case

**Preparing for a security audit** (ISO 27001, SOC 2, client questionnaire, cyber insurance) — Excel will not meet requirements

**Hybrid / remote work** — without multi-location tracking you lose control of equipment

Below these triggers Excel is fine and not worth paying for a register. Above them — no reason to delay.

How [Asseto](/for/it-companies) solves this for IT firms

Hardware register with every ISO 27001 A.5.9 field. Owner required, confidentiality classification, change audit log on every edit, alerts for warranty end and SaaS subscription expiry.

Onboarding workflow: a template like "laptop + monitor + phone + 5 core SaaS licences" assigned to a new hire in one click. Offboarding — a checklist shows everything assigned to the departing employee and generates the disposal log for access revocation.

SaaS licence audit — quarterly report showing licences not assigned to an active employee (typical finding: 15-30% of subscriptions to cut).

Roles: owner = full access; IT admin = add/edit; employee = view own assets; ISO 27001 auditor = read-only (optional).

PDF export in A.5.9 format for the certification auditor: full asset register with owner, classification, status and change history. Timestamped.

What to do this week

If any of the 8 signals applies, start with the migration:

Export current Excel to CSV

Clean data — remove duplicates, standardise model names, check field completeness

Import into Asseto via CSV bulk (5 min for 100+ items)

Fill missing fields — owner, classification, warranty end (30 min for 50 items)

Invite your team — IT admins + managers + employees

Run the first quarterly review to catch drift from Excel

Migration total: half a day of one person's work for a 15-30 person firm. Returns in the first month from lower licence-management costs.

[Start free](/signup) — free plan handles 50 items and one user, Pro (39 zł/mo) handles unlimited items, users and PDF exports for ISO 27001 audits.