How to Keep Track of Company Tools (and Who Has Them)

Ask three managers who has the company’s spare impact driver and you’ll often get three different answers - or three shrugs. Tools are the assets that move the most and get recorded the least: they’re shared, borrowed, taken home “just for tonight,” and left in vans and on job sites. This is a practical system for keeping track of company tools - who has what, where it is, and when it’s due back - that works whether you have 30 tools or 3,000.

What you will learn

1. Why company tools go missing
2. What “keeping track” actually means
3. The 6-step system to track company tools
4. What to record for each tool
5. Spreadsheet or app? When each makes sense
6. Rolling it out without the eye-rolls
7. Tools that make this easier
8. FAQ

Why company tools go missing

Tools rarely disappear in one dramatic event. They leak, slowly, through gaps in the process:

• No owner at any given moment. When a tool belongs to “the company” rather than to a named person right now, nobody feels responsible for it.
• Handovers happen verbally. “Can I borrow the SDS drill?” “Yeah, it’s in the van.” That exchange leaves no record, so the next time anyone looks, the trail is already cold.
• Identical tools, no labels. Three of the same cordless drill and no way to tell them apart means you can’t reconcile what’s out against what’s back.
• No return step. Checking a tool out is easy to remember; checking it back in is the step that quietly gets skipped - so the register says “out” forever.
• The “too small to track” pile. Blades, bits, small hand tools, and chargers fall below the line where anyone bothers - and collectively they’re a big annual cost.

And then there’s theft. Tools are high-value, easy to resell, and rarely recovered - and recovery is far less likely without anything on record to prove a tool is yours: industry estimates put the recovery rate for stolen tools in the single digits when there’s no serial number or mark on file (as low as 7%). The single biggest factor in whether you ever see a stolen tool again is whether you documented it before it went missing.

What "keeping track" actually means

Most companies have a list of tools they bought. That’s not the same as tracking them. A purchase list tells you what you own. A tracking system tells you four things, at any moment:

1. Who has it - the person, crew, or job it’s assigned to right now.
2. Where it is - office, van, site, workshop, or storage.
3. What condition it’s in - working, damaged, in for repair.
4. When it’s due back - so “out” doesn’t quietly become “gone.”

The difference is ownership in time plus history. A good system doesn’t just show the current state; it shows how you got there - every handover, return, and condition note - so when something’s missing you can see who had it last, and when audits or insurance claims come up, you have proof instead of a guess.

The 6-step system to track company tools

This works at any scale. Run the six steps in order; don’t try to be comprehensive on day one.

1. Build a simple tool register

Create one list that everyone trusts as the source of truth. Resist the urge to catalogue everything at once - start with the tools that cost the most or go missing the most (power tools, test equipment, specialist gear). Record the minimum field set below for each.

• One row per tool (or per assignable kit)
• Start with high-value and high-loss categories
• Give every item a unique ID
• Agree who is allowed to add and edit records

2. Decide what to track individually vs as kits

Not everything deserves its own record. Track high-value items individually, by serial number. Group low-value consumables and small items into kits or quantities so the system stays practical instead of becoming a second job.

• Individual: power tools, test instruments, anything with a serial number worth more than a tank of fuel
• By kit: “first-fix kit,” “van 3 standard set” - track the kit, not every screwdriver
• By quantity: consumables (blades, bits) - track stock levels, not individual units

3. Label every tool

A label is what makes updating the record faster than not updating it. Give each tracked tool a unique ID and attach a durable QR or barcode tag - foil or polyester labels survive workshops and weather far better than paper. Scanning the tag should open that tool’s record so anyone can check it in or out from a phone in seconds.

• Durable QR/barcode label on each tracked tool
• Scanning opens the record (who has it, status, history)
• Engrave or permanently mark high-value tools with the company name for theft deterrence
• Record the serial number - it’s what police and insurers need to return a recovered tool

4. Check tools out to a person, crew, or job

This is the step that creates accountability. Every time a tool changes hands, record it: assign it to a named person, crew, or job, with a due date. A tool checked out to “Maya, due Friday” is treated very differently from gear pulled off an anonymous shelf.

• Assign to a person, crew, department, or job
• Set a due/return date for anything borrowed or sent to site
• Capture condition at checkout (a photo settles disputes later)
• Allow direct hand-offs (person to person) without a trip back to base

5. Make returns and due dates routine

The return is the step that’s easiest to skip and most important to keep. Scan tools back in, and keep a short overdue list that someone actually reviews - chasing a missing tool on day three is easy; on day thirty it’s gone.

• Scan-to-return updates status and ownership instantly
• An “overdue / still out” view, reviewed weekly
• A clear owner for chasing overdue items

6. Audit on a schedule and keep the history

Even a good register drifts without a periodic check. Run a quick scan-based count on a set cadence (monthly for high-value, quarterly for the rest), reconcile against the register, and - crucially - keep the full history of checkouts, returns, and condition notes. That history is what turns next quarter’s audit into a 20-minute confirmation instead of a hunt. (For a repeatable audit method, see our IT asset inventory checklist - the same process applies to tools.)

What to record for each tool

You don’t need 30 fields. This is the minimum that makes a register genuinely useful, plus a few that earn their place for high-value gear.

Spreadsheet or app? When each makes sense

A spreadsheet is a perfectly reasonable place to start. It’s free, everyone knows how to use it, and for a small, stable set of tools managed by one person, it’s enough.

It stops being enough at a predictable point: when more than one person needs to update it, when tools move between people and sites, or when you pass roughly 25-50 items. Past there, the cracks are always the same - no real-time updates (so two people record conflicting information), no scan-to-check-out (so logging a handover is slower than skipping it), and no audit trail (so when a tool goes missing, you can’t see who had it last). We go deeper on exactly where this breaks in why spreadsheets fail for asset tracking.

The practical rule: start in a spreadsheet if you must, but the moment logging a handover feels like a chore people skip, move to a tool that makes scanning faster than not scanning.

Rolling it out without the eye-rolls

A tool-tracking system only works if people use it. A few things make adoption stick:

• Start narrow. Tag and track your 20 most expensive or most-lost tools first. A quick win beats a six-month “catalogue everything” project that never finishes.
• Make the right thing the easy thing. If checking a tool out is a five-second phone scan, people do it. If it’s a form, they don’t.
• Give the system one owner. Someone who keeps labels printed, reviews the overdue list, and runs the audit. Shared ownership means no ownership.
• Be clear it’s not about blame. The point is fewer delays and less money wasted on re-buying gear you already own - not catching people out. Frame it that way.

Tools that make this easier

You can run this whole system on a spreadsheet and a label printer. You can also run it in a dedicated asset-tracking platform that holds the register, prints the QR labels, captures every check-out and return, and keeps the history automatically.

AMPthilly is built for exactly this: one register for tools and everything else you own, printable QR labels you scan from any phone (no special scanner, no separate app), check-out/return that assigns clear responsibility to people, crews, or jobs, and a full audit-ready history of every movement. There’s a free plan to pilot it on your highest-loss tools first.

If you’re in the trades, tools live in vans, move between job sites, and get shared across crews - which adds a few wrinkles to the system above. We cover those specifically in tool tracking for electricians, plumbers & HVAC contractors.

FAQ

How do you keep track of company tools?

Keep one register of every tool worth tracking, give each a unique ID and a scannable label, and check tools out to a named person, crew, or job so there’s always a record of who has what. Make returns routine and audit on a schedule. The shift that matters is from a static “what we bought” list to a live record of who holds each item now and when it’s due back.

What is the best way to inventory tools?

Start with the tools that cost or go missing the most, not the whole toolroom. Record a minimum field set (ID, name, category, serial, status, assigned person, location), label each with a QR or barcode tag, and add a photo. Expand to lower-value items and kits once the habit sticks.

How do you stop employees from losing tools?

Make accountability visible and returns easy. A tool checked out to a specific person with a due date is treated differently than gear from an anonymous pile. Add fast scanning, clear labels, and an overdue list someone reviews - so logging the handover is faster than skipping it.

Should you track tools in a spreadsheet or an app?

A spreadsheet works for a small, stable set managed by one person. Once multiple people update it, tools move between people or sites, or you pass ~25-50 items, switch to an app - you’ll want real-time updates, scan-to-check-out, and an audit trail that a spreadsheet can’t provide.

How do you label tools for tracking?

Give each tool a unique ID and a durable QR or barcode label (foil or polyester, not paper) that opens its record when scanned. For high-value tools, also engrave the company name and record the serial number for theft deterrence and recovery.

What is a tool register?

The single source of truth for the tools you own - one row per tool or kit, with ID, details, current status, who holds it, and location. Unlike a purchase list, a good register also tracks movement and history over time.

The takeaway

Keeping track of company tools isn’t about a perfect catalogue - it’s about a habit the team will actually keep. Give every tool worth tracking an owner, a label, and a return date, make logging a handover a five-second scan, and keep the history so a missing tool is a question you can answer instead of a shrug.

Start with the tools you lose most often, get the check-out habit working on those, then widen it. The first audit will surface gaps you didn’t know you had; by the third, it’ll be boring - which is exactly the point.

Mathias Olsson

Writes about IT asset management, operations, and the unglamorous work of keeping track of physical things at scale. He works at AMPthilly.

LinkedIn · mathias@ampthilly.com