A charity’s equipment arrives from every direction except a normal procurement process: fourteen retired laptops from a corporate supporter, a projector bought on a restricted grant, a van funded by a legacy, a box of cameras someone left after a campaign. None of it comes with an invoice trail, most of it will be loaned onward to staff, volunteers, or service users, and all of it is something trustees are answerable for. This guide covers how charities take equipment in, loan it out, and keep an audit trail that holds up.
What you will learn
- Donations arrive without paperwork
- Loans to staff, volunteers, and service users
- What trustees and auditors will ask
- What belongs on a charity’s register
- The first month, one shelf at a time
- Keeping the cost at zero
- FAQ
Donations arrive without paperwork
Bought equipment brings its own records - an invoice, a warranty, a known age. Donated equipment brings a cardboard box. That difference is why charity registers decay faster than commercial ones: half the estate has no origin story, so nobody is sure what should be on the list in the first place.
The fix is an intake habit, applied the day items arrive:
- Describe and serial-number each item - “laptop” is not a record; “ThinkPad, serial on the base, charger included” is.
- Photograph the condition. Donated kit is used kit; the intake photo dates every scratch.
- Record the donor and the date. This is relationship management as much as record keeping - a corporate supporter who hears exactly where their laptops went gives again.
- Estimate a value. Imperfect is fine; absent is not. The accounts and the insurance schedule both need a number.
- Label it before it reaches the shelf. An unlabelled item is a future mystery.
Tip: photograph donated equipment on the day it arrives. The intake photo dates the condition, settles later disputes, and doubles as the insurance record.
Loans to staff, volunteers, and service users
Most charity equipment spends its life on loan, which makes chain of custody the core discipline: at any moment, every item should have exactly one named custodian. The loans differ by borrower:
| Borrower | Typical loan | Return trigger |
|---|---|---|
| Staff | laptop and phone, open-ended | role change or offboarding |
| Volunteer | event kit, collection equipment, for days | end of the event |
| Service user | loan Chromebook or tablet, fixed term | programme end, or formal renewal |
| Partner organisation | shared projectors or display kit | agreed return date |
Service-user loans deserve particular care, both for dignity and for clarity: condition recorded at issue and at return, a due date tied to the programme rather than left open, and renewal handled as a positive decision instead of a lapse into silence. An open-ended device loan is, in practice, a slow-motion disposal.
What trustees and auditors will ask
Trustees are answerable for the charity’s resources, and the questions arrive on a cycle: at the annual accounts, at the asset audit or spot check, and whenever a funder reviews a restricted grant. The register answers them only if two disciplines hold. First, retire items properly - record the date, method, and proceeds of every disposal rather than deleting the row, so the history survives the item. Second, hunt zombie assets: equipment still on the books that physically left years ago, overstating what the charity owns and quietly inflating the insurance premium. An annual walk-through comparing shelves to register, with discrepancies resolved rather than ignored, is the entire method. If the register currently lives in a shared spreadsheet, this is where it breaks down - spreadsheets hold a list, but they cannot hold a history.
What belongs on a charity's register
- Loan devices - laptops, Chromebooks, tablets, phones. Highest scrutiny, because they carry beneficiary data as well as value.
- Fundraising and campaign kit - video equipment for appeals, banner stands and exhibition kit, card readers, collection equipment.
- Event equipment - the PA, lighting, and DJ kit that fundraisers run on, plus gazebos and tables.
- Programme equipment - whatever services actually use, from kitchen appliances to sports kit.
- Vehicles - with insurance and inspection documents attached to the record.
Leave consumables off. The line is simple: if a specific item disappearing would need explaining - to a trustee, a funder, or a donor - it gets a record.
The first month, one shelf at a time
- Week one: start the intake habit today. Everything arriving from now on gets described, photographed, valued, and labelled. Do not wait for the backlog.
- Week two: register the loan devices. The highest-scrutiny category, and usually the smallest - an afternoon’s work.
- Week three: the events cupboard. Photograph, serial, label; check out anything already on loan to where it actually is.
- Week four: reconcile with the accounts. Compare the register to the fixed asset list in the accounts, retire the zombies, and hand trustees a list that matches reality.
From then on, the running cost is minutes: scan at issue, scan at return, and a monthly look at the overdue list.
Keeping the cost at zero
AMPthilly’s free plan - 3 users, 25 assets, no card - covers the loan devices and events cupboard at many small charities outright. QR labels print from the office printer and are scanned with a phone camera in the browser, so volunteers need no app and the charity buys no hardware. Checkouts, returns with condition notes, and a permanent audit history per item come included. The Starter tier adds client access for external borrowers - they see only their own loans - and CSV export to keep the treasurer and the examiner happy. Larger charities grow into the paid tiers; see pricing, or get in touch if the estate is bigger than the cupboard.
FAQ
How should a charity record donated equipment? At intake, same day: description, serial, condition photo, donor, date, estimated value, and a label - it is the only paperwork the item will ever have.
Who needs to see a charity’s asset register? Trustees, the auditor or examiner, funders, insurers, and staff - one maintained register serves all of them.
How do charities track devices loaned to service users? Fixed-term checkouts with condition recorded at issue and return, and renewal as a decision rather than a lapse.
What should happen when a charity disposes of equipment? Retire, never delete: date, method, proceeds, and a wipe note for data-bearing devices.
How can a small charity afford asset tracking software? Often free - small-register free plans plus printer-printed QR labels mean the only real cost is the setup afternoon.
The takeaway
Charity equipment starts without paperwork and spends its life on loan - so the register has to be built at intake and maintained at handover. Photograph and label donations the day they arrive, give every item exactly one custodian, put due dates on service-user loans, and retire assets formally instead of deleting them. Do that, and the trustee question, the funder question, and the “where is the spare Chromebook” question all have the same one-line answer.