A carpentry and joinery business runs two inventories that pretend to be one. The workshop holds the heavy, stationary money - panel saw, planer thicknesser, spindle moulder, bandsaw, dust extraction - while the site side is a swarm of track saws, routers, nailers, and cordless kit that leaves every morning in boxes and vans. Most firms know the workshop machines to the bolt and lose the site tools by the season. This guide covers how to run both worlds on one register: what to track, how site kits keep portable tools together, and the maintenance records that keep machines cutting.
What you will learn
- Two inventories, one business
- What belongs on the register
- Site boxes and kits
- Machines earn their history
- A weekend setup
- AMPthilly for carpentry firms
- FAQ
Two inventories, one business
The workshop and the sites lose things differently:
- Workshop machines do not vanish - their history does. Nobody steals a spindle moulder. But when it goes down mid-batch, the questions are all about records: warranty status, last service, whether the bearing failed before. Firms that keep no machine history pay for the same diagnosis twice.
- Site tools vanish in the gap between worlds. The router that went out for second fix in autumn is the classic case - it is in someone’s van, on a finished site, or genuinely gone, and a register that only says “router x4” cannot tell you which.
- The cordless platform multiplies quietly. Bodies, batteries, and chargers accumulate across vans until no one can say how many the firm owns - they are the textbook movable assets.
- Borrowing is cultural. Carpentry crews lend kit freely between jobs, which is healthy - until the lending replaces the record entirely.
The fix is not two systems; it is one register where the workshop door acts as a checkpoint.
What belongs on the register
| Category | Examples | How to track |
|---|---|---|
| Workshop machines | Panel saws, planer thicknessers, spindle moulders, bandsaws, extraction | Per item, fixed location, full service history |
| Portable power tools | Track saws, routers, nailers, sanders, laser levels | Per item with serials |
| Site boxes | First-fix and second-fix kits | One kit record with contents listed |
| Cordless platform | Tool bodies, batteries, chargers | Bodies per item; batteries and chargers per kit |
| Safety kit | Fall protection for site work, lockout-tagout devices for machine servicing | Per item, with inspection dates |
| Consumables | Blades, cutters, abrasives, fixings, glue, finish | Stock with reorder points |
Give every per-item asset a permanent asset number alongside its label - the number survives a destroyed label and ties the physical tool to its record and history.
Site boxes and kits
Carpenters already work in kits - the first-fix box, the second-fix box, the hanging kit. Tracking should follow the grain of that habit rather than fight it:
- The box is the asset; the contents are the list. One scan checks the whole second-fix kit out to a carpenter or a job. This is a small asset hierarchy: the kit is the parent, and high-value items inside it keep their own child records.
- Returns are contents checks. The box comes back, gets scanned in, and a thirty-second check against its list catches the missing nailer the same day, not next quarter.
- Loans between sites are transfers. When another crew borrows the beam saw, the receiving carpenter scans it over - the lending culture survives; the silence does not.
- The workshop is the home location. Anything not checked out should physically be in the shop - which makes a walk-around audit a one-hour job, not a forensic project.
Tip: place labels away from blade paths, fences, and the surfaces boards slide across. Dust wipes off a label; a board dragged over one a hundred times sands it blank. Near the serial plate is usually the safest real estate on any machine.
Machines earn their history
Workshop machines justify a register on paperwork alone:
- Purchase and warranty records attached to the machine - the invoice and warranty card live on the record, not in a drawer.
- Service log on the asset. Bearing changes, belt swaps, calibration of fences and stops - dated entries that turn “it has been making that noise for a while” into an actual timeline.
- Blades and knives as stock, with changes logged against the machine when cut quality needs diagnosing.
- Servicing done safely - lockout-tagout during blade changes and repairs, with the devices themselves tracked and findable.
The habit-building advice in our guide to keeping track of company tools applies directly to the site fleet.
A weekend setup
- Saturday morning: the machines. List, photograph, and label every workshop machine; dig out invoices and warranty documents while you are at it.
- Saturday afternoon: the boxes. Define your kits, list their contents, label the boxes and the high-value items inside.
- Sunday: the vans. One van at a time - label, photograph serials, note batteries and chargers.
- Check everything out to reality - kits to carpenters, loose tools to vans or jobs, machines to the shop.
- Monday onward, one rule: nothing crosses the workshop door without a scan.
AMPthilly for carpentry firms
AMPthilly handles both halves of the business in one register. Workshop machines get records with serials, purchase details, warranty dates, and attached documents; site tools and kits are checked out to a carpenter, a job, or a van, with due dates and an overdue list; and printable QR labels scanned by any phone camera open the asset in the browser - no app install for the crew. Issues reported from a scan stay on the machine’s history permanently, and custom fields per asset type let a bandsaw’s record and a battery kit’s record each carry what matters. CSV import gets an existing spreadsheet in quickly, and the free plan - 3 users, 25 assets, no credit card - covers a small shop’s machines and serious site tools while you decide. Details on the pricing page.
FAQ
How do carpentry and joinery businesses keep track of tools? One register, two rules: machines are fixed assets with histories; site tools travel in labelled kits, and the workshop door is a scan checkpoint.
Should fixed workshop machines be on the asset register too? Yes - for warranty documents, service history, and insurance value, even though they never move.
How do you track tools that travel to job sites? As kits: the box is one checkout, valuable items inside keep their own records, and returns include a contents check.
What counts as a consumable in a joinery workshop? Blades, knives, cutters, abrasives, fixings, glue, finish - stock with reorder points, off the per-item register.
Will QR labels survive a dusty workshop? Yes, if placed away from blade paths and sliding boards. Dust wipes off; abrasion is the real enemy.
The takeaway
Carpentry and joinery firms do not have a tracking problem so much as a border problem - the gap between a workshop everyone knows and a site fleet nobody quite does. Put both on one register, let kits carry the site tools the way crews already do, give machines their paperwork and service history, and make the workshop door the place where the record updates. AMPthilly’s free plan covers a small shop’s worth of kit to start, and the rule it enforces is the one that matters: nothing leaves without a scan.