Should an asset shift ownership within an organization, allow the asset to be transferred with the historical data remaining intact

Description

The software should maintain the asset's historical data and continuity, reflecting past performance and providing a track record regardless of internal transfers.

Example Use Case

Scenario: A mid-sized manufacturing company frequently reorganizes its internal structure, resulting in shifts of capital assets among different cost centers. Company leaders use CPM software to track each asset's details including usage, Unit of Production depreciation and maintenance costs.

Solution: Whenever there is an ownership change - such as a piece of machinery moving from one department to another - the user is able to change the department on a menu from a specific date forward. This means the new owner will still have access to all relevant information such as the asset's acquisition date, initial cost, accumulated depreciation, and utilization history. This also retains legacy data for the former department that owned the asset prior to the transfer.

Considerations

We include this requirement because some systems will simply shift all data, including legacy data, to the new department. The same goes for many other “line item” planning mechanisms like workforce modeling and shifting an employee or re-assigning a grant. When a buyer is evaluating this, they often assume it works as they expect - by only shifting the asset from a certain point forward. This is definitely not always true, as such we recommend that you ask this question during the demo.

Questions to Ask a Vendor

• Transfer Mechanism: How does your software handle the transfer of capital assets within an organization? Is it as simple as selecting a transfer location via a dropdown?
• Historical Data: Can the software maintain historical data during the transfer process? Does the data remain accessible to the new and former department owners?