Guide / office, honestly
Office inventory software, free: the honest ladder
Office inventory is the furniture, the equipment and the supplies — assets with locations and lifetimes. Free covers the list; the issue-and-return history is where the record earns its keep.
The key facts
- What office inventory is: furniture, IT equipment, tools and consumables — assets that move between people and rooms.
- What the record needs: quantities per room, issue-to-person as a recorded movement, purchase history, cycle counts.
- Free covers the list — spreadsheet or capped tiers; issue tracking and audit trails are the paid layer.
- BSimple runs office stock and assets on one record — from $180/month (AUD), free to trial.
- Where it fits: this page is one branch of the inventory management guide.
- 01The key facts
- 02What office inventory actually is
- 03What free covers
- 04How BSimple runs office inventory
What office inventory actually is
Two families share the name. Assets: desks, monitors, laptops, tools — each one unique, each with a home and often an owner. Consumables: stationery, kitchen supplies, toner — quantities that deplete and reorder. An office runs on both, and the failures are familiar: the projector that nobody can find, the cupboard restocked by whoever noticed, and the insurance schedule that was current two reorganisations ago.
The record both families need is the same shape: quantities per location (rooms, floors, people), movements recorded as they happen — issued to who, returned when — purchase details attached, and counts that reconcile the list with reality. The hardware-stock pattern is the closest cousin, and the asset-tracking view covers the lifetime-asset discipline.
What free covers
The spreadsheet rung: item, location, custodian, purchase date — honest for a small office with one maintainer. Free tiers add a real database with phone counts and photos, capped on users and volume. What free rarely includes is the movement discipline — issue and return recorded as transactions with users and timestamps — which is precisely the part that stops the equipment walkabout. The free ladder and the free tools list map the rungs; the network-discovery boundary matters here too — discovering what is plugged in is an IT job, not this one.
The honest test for staying free: when the last audit asked who has the portable hard drives, did the spreadsheet answer? If yes, stay free. If the answer took an afternoon and a rumour, the record needs movements.
How BSimple runs office inventory
We build BSimple, so weigh that. Offices run on the same record as anywhere else: items and consumables as products, rooms and floors as locations, issue-to-person and returns as recorded movements with an audit trail, purchase orders from reorder levels for the consumables, counts from any phone browser, and the accounting handoff to Xero or MYOB for the capital purchases — from $180/month (AUD), everything in the core plans.
The honest test: trial one floor — record ten assets with locations, issue two to staff, count the rest. If the list and the office agree afterward, the record fits.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there free office inventory management software?
A spreadsheet, genuinely — item, location, custodian, purchase date — while one person maintains it. Free tiers add phone counts with caps. Issue-and-return movements with an audit trail are the paid layer nearly everywhere.
Can BSimple track who has which equipment?
Yes — issuing to a person is a recorded movement, visible on the item's history with the user and timestamp. Returns and re-issues read from the same trail, so the insurance schedule stays current by construction.
Is BSimple free?
No — plans start at $180/month (AUD), every feature in the core plans. The trial is the full product on your own office list, no card to start.
Office assets vs consumables — one system or two?
One system, two behaviours: assets tracked individually with locations and custodians; consumables tracked by quantity with reorder levels. BSimple runs both on the same record, which is why the count of monitors and the stock of toner never argue.
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