Build Your Own Application: QR Codes "Lighten the Load" for SME Asset Management

Original: https://cli.im/article/detail/2106

Every mid-year and year-end, Wang Meng spends several days manually counting the company's fixed assets. Even though she is very familiar with the business processes, the inventory process remains chaotic.

"Especially around April and May each year, when staff turnover is typically high—ensuring computers are returned by departing employees and registering assets for new hires. The Excel file already has thousands of rows, yet unexpected issues still arise. Sometimes, just to find a single monitor, I have to check multiple offices floor by floor."

Wang Meng, responsible for recruitment, isn't the only one feeling overwhelmed. The finance department also needs to recount everything during budget planning—what supplies need purchasing, which equipment requires repairs. Unclear answers to these questions can cause the company's procurement costs to skyrocket.

How to adjust internal asset management models and use digital tools to "lighten the load" is a question every company manager must consider.

Three Pain Points in Fixed Asset Management

Many large enterprises have a complete asset management system, with dedicated personnel handling procurement, warehousing, usage, disposal, and strict review, approval, and processing systems. Annual investment in asset management systems can run into hundreds of thousands.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are generally price-sensitive, prioritizing talent and cash flow, often overlooking fixed asset management. This frequently leads to unclear asset records, unassigned responsibility, and discrepancies between records and physical counts. Even if a company has adopted collaborative office tools, asset management might still rely on paper lists, manual daily counts, and assets often "disappearing"—stuck in a primitive stage.

Fixed assets are directly tied to costs and expenditures, making them a crucial area for corporate "cost reduction." Many managers recognize the problems but are constrained by three inherent pain points:

1. The Complexity of Asset Management.

Due to long life cycles, dispersed usage scenarios, and numerous equipment types, asset management relying primarily on manual labor faces significant challenges. For example, low-value consumables, warehouse supplies, and assets under individual employees often lack standardized information entry. Coupled with multiple departments and frequent personnel changes in many companies, assigning clear responsibility for assets is difficult. This leads to low asset utilization efficiency, incomplete or unclear asset ledgers, and issues like duplicate purchases and loss of physical assets.

2. The Dispersity of Asset Management.

Although SMEs don't have the vast personnel or multiple locations of large corporations, untimely information updates and inaccurate records are common. This prevents companies from seeing the "big picture" of their assets—understanding equipment usage at each stage or what needs adding next. Consequently, they lack intuitive data reports and rational procurement plans. The result is an unclear fixed asset inventory, hindering managers from quickly performing budget approvals, business approvals, etc., inadvertently increasing management costs.

3. The Variability of Asset Management.

Initially, records might match at the time of dispatch, but over time, it becomes hard to track asset quantity, storage location, user unit/department, responsible person, and usage status promptly. Each asset count then requires participation from operations, finance, product, and other departments, involving re-photographing equipment and re-entering information. If data errors occur at any stage, rework might take a week or two. This not only overburdens staff but also keeps companies trapped in inefficient asset management.

It's not that SMEs are unwilling to solve these problems. A digital asset management solution often costs tens to hundreds of thousands, with very high customization costs. A simple asset repair reporting feature might require input from product, technical, operations, and other teams, going through multiple review rounds.

Even if SMEs want to switch to a digital asset management model, the high system procurement, customization, and time costs can be prohibitive, forcing them to stick with manual methods. Data collection, entry, and maintenance rely on manual operations, perpetuating inefficiency and high error rates.

"Build Your Own Asset Management Application"

The crux for SMEs in fixed asset management isn't a lack of digital thinking or weak management awareness, but finding tools suitable for SMEs—low-cost, lightweight, and easy to implement—to further lower the barrier to digitalization.

"While visiting a partner's factory, I noticed QR codes on their equipment. I learned they were used for equipment checks. Scanning the code with WeChat showed parameters, inspection records, operating instructions, and maintenance info," Wang Meng recalled. She learned about CaoLiao QR Code from her partner and conceived the idea of using QR codes for fixed asset management.

"Initially, I thought we had to buy their solution. Turns out, it's a cloud service platform where you can build your own business applications. It's not just for equipment inspection; they have templates for fixed asset tags, item checkout registration, vehicle management, inbound/outbound management, fixed asset repair reporting, inventory management, and more. You can modify the templates slightly for immediate use, covering almost all my usual needs. And it's free to use. Even managing hundreds of devices only requires purchasing a paid version costing around 1000 RMB," Wang Meng explained.

After familiarizing herself with CaoLiao's code creation process, Wang Meng created her own template based on the official ones. She then compiled information for over 300 devices into an Excel sheet and used the bulk templates feature to generate a unique QR code for each device at once. Besides displaying device info, responsible person, asset status, and storage location on the QR code, she also linked a fault repair form to it. In less than a day, she built a lightweight fixed asset management system.

When a new employee joins, Wang Meng scans the QR code on the computer, simply fills out a form, and updates the computer's usage status and responsible person. When someone leaves, she updates the status during handover. If a computer malfunctions, scanning its QR code allows for repair reporting. Wang Meng receives a notification, assigns someone to handle it, and tracks the repair progress via the QR code.

What surprised Wang Meng was adding a "status" module to the QR code. This allows real-time viewing of asset statuses—which are in use, idle, damaged, need scrapping, etc.—in the status dashboard within the CaoLiao QR Code Mini Program workbench. What used to take one or two days for a simple inventory now takes just minutes. With help from the IT department, Wang Meng also used the data API provided by CaoLiao QR Code to connect with third-party BI tools, creating detailed data reports.

Now, Wang Meng's company uses QR codes in every aspect of asset management. When colleagues need office supplies, they scan the QR code on the cabinet to quickly register the recipient and quantity taken. For bulk inbound materials, Wang Meng habitually uses the continuous scan feature to batch add intake records. Even company delivery vehicles have "one vehicle, one code," allowing quick viewing of usage records, refueling, maintenance, and traffic violations via the Mini Program.

The key to solving SME asset management dilemmas lies in turning users into developers—enabling business personnel to build the applications they need themselves for rapid deployment, rather than routing requests up the hierarchy. Cloud service platforms like CaoLiao QR Code essentially promote the concept of "citizen development," empowering everyone to solve their own problems with tools, especially for temporary, fragmented, and personalized needs.

Final Thoughts

According to market research firm IDC, applying asset management solutions can help enterprises reduce audit costs by 75%, lower spare parts inventory by 40%, cut redundant test equipment by 20%, decrease equipment "disappearances" by 45%, and increase asset utilization rates by 30%.

Addressing the various issues in SME fixed asset management, cloud service platforms like CaoLiao QR Code offer a new approach: after brief training, business personnel can build applications themselves. This enables full-process digital management—from asset acquisition, checkout, change, repair, transfer, depreciation, to disposal—at minimal cost, accelerating enterprise digital transformation through citizen development.

Article sourced from China Daily report: "How Should We Solve the Asset Management Dilemma for SMEs?"