A label turns a database row into something a person can find on a shelf. Once equipment is labeled, an inventory count that used to take a week becomes an afternoon walk with a phone.
Choose a label format
Eze IT prints to Avery sheet templates for a standard office printer, and to continuous rolls on Brother and Zebra label printers. Sheets are fine for a one off run of a few hundred. If you are labeling more than that, or you will be labeling new equipment every month, a roll printer pays for itself quickly.
Pick a label that carries both the QR code and the human readable asset tag. People need to read a tag over the phone to a colleague, and a code alone makes that impossible. For laptops and monitors a 50 by 25 millimetre label is the usual choice, and small equipment takes a 38 by 19.
Print in bulk
Filter the register down to the assets you are labeling, select all, and choose Print labels. Eze IT lays them out in the order of your filter, so if you sort by location before printing, the sheet comes out in the same order you will walk the building.
Print a single test sheet first and check the code scans from about thirty centimetres away. If it does not, the scale is usually too small rather than the printer being at fault.
Apply labels consistently
Agree one position per asset type and stick to it. Laptops go on the underside near the hinge, monitors on the back beside the stand mount, and network equipment on the front where it can be scanned in a rack without pulling the unit out.
Consistency is what makes a stocktake fast. If a technician has to hunt for the label on every third device, the count takes twice as long and people start guessing instead of scanning.
- Laptops: underside, near the hinge, clear of vents
- Monitors and docks: rear, beside the stand mount
- Network and rack equipment: front face, readable in place
- Phones and tablets: on the case rather than the device itself
Scan to verify
Open the camera on any phone and point it at the code. The asset record opens in the browser, with no application to install and nothing for a technician to sign into beyond their normal account.
From that screen they can assign the asset to a person, move it to another location, mark it for repair, or confirm it as verified in the current audit cycle. If the phone has no signal, scans queue on the device and sync as soon as it is back on the network.
Run your first stocktake
Start a stocktake for one site and walk it, scanning as you go. The screen shows a live count of what has been verified and what is still outstanding, so you always know how much of the building is left.
What matters is the list at the end: equipment expected at that site that nobody scanned. That list is the real value of the exercise. Work through it before closing the count, because those are the assets that were about to quietly disappear from your books.
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