Assignment, Location and Check-Out — When to Use Each

Assignment, location and check-out

Three different mechanisms answer "where is this asset and who has it?". Confusing them is the most common modelling mistake in asset management, which is why UniAsset keeps them as separate records.

The three mechanisms

There is also assignment to a department, which answers "which cost centre owns it?". See Categories, locations and departments.

Assignment is durable

Assignment is the long-term answer. The laptop is Jane's laptop. The forklift lives in the warehouse. The compressor belongs to Facilities.

All three axes — person, location, department — are independent. You can set any combination, and each change writes an event to the asset's timeline naming the old and new values.

Assignment is to a Person, never directly to a user account. That is deliberate: a contractor who has no sign-in can still be responsible for an asset, and custody history stays readable after an employee leaves.

See How to assign an asset to a person and How to assign an asset to a location.

Check-out is temporary custody

(Available on Orbit, Odyssey, Cosmos)

A check-out is a transaction: an asset lent to a person and expected back. It records the borrower, the time out, the expected return date, purpose, notes, and which users performed the check-out and the check-in.

Check-out never modifies assignment. An asset assigned to the maintenance workshop and checked out to a technician for the afternoon is still the workshop's asset. That separation is the whole point of having both concepts.

See How to check out an asset.

The rule of thumb

Ask: if this arrangement is still true in six months, is that normal or is something wrong?

• Normal → assignment. Jane's laptop should still be Jane's laptop.
• Something is wrong → check-out. A drill borrowed for an afternoon should not still be out in six months. That is exactly the situation check-out is designed to surface as overdue.

Worked examples

Combining them

The same asset routinely carries both. A thermal camera:

• Assigned to the Facilities department and the Tool Store location — that is where it belongs
• Checked out to Marcus for Tuesday's roof inspection — that is who has it today

When Marcus checks it back in, the assignment has not changed. It never did.

Overdue is derived, never stored

An active check-out past its expected return date is overdue. This is computed every time it is read, from the dates on the record — so it can never be a stale flag left behind by a job that failed to run.

Alerts fire ahead of the return date and again once it has passed.

See How to track overdue assets.

Common mistakes

Using assignment for a two-day loan. You lose the expected return date, the overdue alert and the custody trail — the three things you actually wanted.

Using check-out for a permanent issue. Every laptop your staff use becomes permanently overdue, and your overdue report becomes noise nobody reads.

Changing assignment when someone borrows something. Now nobody knows where the asset really belongs, and when the borrower leaves the asset has no home.

Expecting check-out to move the location. It does not. Location is where the asset lives; check-out is who has it.

Troubleshooting

Check-out is locked. It requires Orbit or above. See Which plans include Asset Check-Out.

"This asset is already checked out." There is at most one active check-out per asset. Check it in first.

I can't check out to a particular person. Archived people cannot borrow. Archived and disposed assets cannot be checked out either.

Someone has left and still has assets. Deactivate the user, then reassign the assets. Their Person record and full history remain. See How to deactivate a user.

Related articles

• How to assign an asset to a person
• How to check out an asset
• How to check in an asset
• Asset check-out overview
• Asset check-out best practices