How do Asset Audits work?

Auditing an asset is essentially verifying that the asset does indeed still exist and is in working order. It's generally recommended to do an audit of all your assets at least once annually, to prevent ghost assets - assets that are accounted for in your inventory, but don't actually exist (broken, stolen, etc.)

You can find audits under Assets -> Audits in the top navigation bar, or from the Audits tab on the Show Asset page.

Audits are split into these four main categories:

Audits in BlueTally have three statuses:

By default, all scheduled audits will get the status of Pending, and will appear under the Pending Audits list. Any pending audits that are overdue will appear in the Overdue Audits list.

To perform an audit and set the result of the audit to either passed or failed, please refer to the Self Auditing and Performing an Audit sections below.

To get started with auditing your assets, start by clicking on the Schedule Audits button.

Start by picking how you'd like to select the assets you want to audit:

Once you've selected the assets you want to audit, you need to set a due date for the audit. You can add notes as well.

By default, audits need to be performed by a user with a Manager permission level or higher. To save time and effort, you can enable Self Auditing - this lets employees assigned to assets perform the audit themselves (only applies to assets currently checked out) from their My Items & Direct Reports Items view.

If you enable this option, the employees to whom the assets are checked out will receive an email requesting them to perform the audit. The email will contain the Product Name, Asset ID, and Asset Serial Number. You can also add a message to this email under the Email Notes field.

If the employee has more than one asset checked out to them that's part of the audit, they'll receive a single email that lists all the assets, ensuring no employee will receive multiple emails.

You can also enable repeat reminders, which will send a reminder email every X days until the audit has been performed. There's also an option to make the reminders expire after X days.

The Complete audit now button links to the My Items & Direct Reports Items page (the user will need to sign in first), where they'll see the full list of all assets assigned to them, and two buttons for each asset with a pending audit:

If they click on I have this asset, the audit's status will change to Passed, and it will appear under Passed Audits on the Audits page.

If they click on I don't have this asset, the user will be given the option to write a short explanation. The audit's status will change to Failed, and it will appear under Failed Audits on the Audits page.

You can also make the audits recurring - enabling this will generate new audit entries according to the schedule you set. For example, according to the setup in the screenshot below, audits will be created for the assets you've selected every 3 months.

You can manage your recurring audits under the Recurring Audits tab on the Asset Audits page.

Once you've completed configuring the scheduled audits, click on Save. This will generate audit entries for each asset, and they'll all appear under the Pending Audits tab.

Once an audit has been scheduled, you can perform the audit and set the result of the audit to either Passed or Failed. If you enabled self-auditing for the audit, and the asset is checked out to an employee, they are able to perform the audit themselves from their My Items & Direct Reports Items page.

If self-auditing is disabled for an audit, or if you want to complete it on behalf of the assigned employee, click the green Perform button. If self-auditing is enabled, the Perform button will appear grey, but you can still proceed with the audit.

Start by selecting which user performed the audit, as well as which location the audit took place at, and what date the audit took place. Then, select if the audit result was passed or failed. You can also schedule the next audit from here, add notes to the audit, and attach any type of file to the audit.

If you set the Audit Result to be Failed, an additional text box will appear underneath the status field, where you can add the audit fail reason if you'd like.

Once you click on Save, the audit will be completed and will appear under Passed or Failed audits, depending on your selection.

Self-audits can also be performed by the employee to whom the asset is currently checked out. They'll need to sign into their BlueTally account, and from their My Items & Direct Reports Items page, they'll see a list of their assets and have the ability to complete the audit by either clicking on "I have this asset" or "I don't have this asset".

You can also create and perform audits in one go by using the Perform Audits button. This won't schedule any audits, but will create the audit entries and mark them as completed in one go. For example, this works well if you've already audited all the assets at a certain location and just want to log the completed audits.

Can recurring audits be self-auditable?

Unfortunately not. If you schedule an audit and enable self-auditing and make it recurring, only the first audit entries will be self-audited. The new recurring audit entries won't be self-auditable.