Keeping an Inventory - Print it Out!

Just having an inventory is a huge step in the right direction for the small to mid-size organization, however if your network or workstations are down, and you only have a soft copy of your inventory, it won't do you much good. Especially if you need the information to get things back up correctly.

This is why it's very important to keep a hard copy of your inventory up to date, organized, and close at hand. If you print out your inventory database whether it's in a spreadsheet, database, or just a word processor, throw it in a binder, and lock it in your desk, I guarantee you that there will come a day where that binder will be worth its weight in gold!

I would get in the habit of updating the hard copy of your inventory at least once a week, it's usually the last thing I do on Friday. This way you know that at any given time your hard copy is no more than 5 working days (well, 7 if your working days are like mine) off from reality. Of course if you do major deployments or upgrades you should be sure to make an exception to this rule and update early... when big changes happen there is a greater chance of something going wrong, and taking a few minutes to update your inventory could save you a lot of time if this happens.