Quick Start Guide — Set Up UniAsset in 15 Minutes

Quick start guide

This guide takes a brand-new organization to a working asset register in about 15 minutes.

Overview

You will set up the structure assets are filed under, create or import assets, and invite your team. Nothing here is mandatory before your first asset — but doing it in this order saves rework later.

Requirements

• Available on: Nova, Orbit, Odyssey, Cosmos
• Role: Owner or Admin (categories, departments and users need admin rights)

Step 1 — Check your organization profile (2 min)

1. Go to Settings → Organization.
2. Confirm your organization name, country, currency and financial year start month.
3. Save.

Currency and financial year are defaulted from the country you chose at registration. Set them correctly now — every cost figure, depreciation schedule and report reads from them.

See Organization settings.

Step 2 — Create categories (3 min)

Categories classify assets and carry depreciation settings, so they are worth a little thought.

1. Go to Dashboard → Categories.
2. Click New Category.
3. Name it, and optionally pick a parent to build a hierarchy.
4. Save, and repeat for your main asset classes.

Start with 5–10 broad categories such as IT Equipment, Vehicles, Machinery, Furniture. Categories nest to any depth, and filtering on a parent includes everything beneath it.

See How to manage categories.

Step 3 — Create locations (3 min)

1. Go to Dashboard → Locations.
2. Click New Location.
3. Name it, and pick a parent location to nest it.

Locations form a hierarchy — campus → building → floor → room. Build only the depth you actually need today.

See How to create and manage locations.

Step 4 — Create departments (2 min)

1. Go to Dashboard → Departments.
2. Click New Department.

Departments are cost centres. They let you answer "which unit is carrying this cost?" in reports.

See How to manage departments.

Step 5 — Add people (2 min)

People are the humans assets are assigned to or checked out to — whether or not they can sign in.

1. Go to Dashboard → People.
2. Click New Person and enter a name, and optionally phone, employee ID, designation and department.

A contractor who borrows a drill needs a Person record, not a user account.

See How to add and manage people.

Step 6 — Add your assets (3 min)

A few assets: go to Dashboard → Assets (Individual) and click New Asset. See Creating your first asset.

An existing inventory: use CSV import instead. Assets are unlimited on every plan, so import everything — there is no paywall waiting at 50 or 500 rows. See How to import assets from CSV.

Step 7 — Invite your team (2 min)

1. Go to Dashboard → Users.
2. Click Invite User, enter the email address and pick a role.

Seats are checked against your plan's user limit before the invitation is sent. Nova includes 5 users, Orbit 15, Odyssey and Cosmos unlimited.

See How to invite team members and Roles and permissions.

What happens next

• Every asset gets a QR tag automatically at creation, ready to print and stick on.
• Your dashboard starts showing asset counts, status distribution, upcoming work and alerts.
• Upcoming collects everything due — maintenance, document expiry, warranty expiry, checkout returns.
• If you opted into demo data at registration, you can remove all of it in one action once you no longer need it.

Common mistakes

Creating assets before categories. You can, but you will revisit every record to file it. Spend three minutes on categories first.

Skipping purchase cost and date. These drive depreciation, net book value and total cost of ownership. An approximate date is far better than a blank one.

Assigning assets to users instead of people. Assets are assigned to People. That is what keeps custody history readable after someone leaves.

Building a ten-level location tree on day one. Add depth when you need it.

Troubleshooting

"You have reached your user limit." Your plan's seat count is full. Deactivate a user who has left, or upgrade. See Why can't I add more users?.

A sidebar item shows a lock icon. That module needs a higher plan. The lock tells you which one. See Why can't I see this feature?.

I can't see Users or Departments. Those pages are Owner and Admin only.

Related articles

• Welcome to UniAsset
• Creating your first asset
• Dashboard and navigation overview
• Categories, locations and departments
• How to design your organization structure