Inventory Control:
Equipment & Fixed Assets
Risks:
Failure to properly account for capital assets could result in the loss of equipment, and/or a misstatement of the value of assets on college records. Results may also include unauthorized disclosure of Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Protected Health Information (PHI), Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protected information, or other business sensitive data in violation of the Data Classification policy.
Internal Control Objectives:
To ensure that all equipment, fixed assets, and surplus/obsolete property of the College are properly safeguarded, accounted for, and when appropriate, disposed of.
Policy:
The College shall maintain an inventory system, which includes:
1. Affixing a College Inventory Tag with a unique ID number:
- To any College owned item (Non-Information Technology) that has a cost of $1,000 or more.
- To any College owned Information Technology item that has a cost of $1,000 or more. In addition, select computer equipment under $1,000 that are usually high-risk theft assets determined by the Information Technology Department or have hard drives capable of storing sensitive, confidential information.
- Peripheral equipment will be listed in the inventory system for refresh purposes only.
2. All College owned assets are listed in a computerized inventory system.
3. Designating two employees to perform/oversee the annual inventory process:
- An employee from the Administration and Finance Division shall be designated as the Physical Inventory Control Coordinator for all Non-Information Technology items.
- An employee from the Information Technology Department shall be designated as the Physical Inventory Control Coordinator for all Information Technology items. The Director of Client Services & Academic Computing shall be designated as the Obsolete/Surplus Property Officer to facilitate the identification and disposal of surplus or obsolete property.
Procedures:
College Owned Item (Non-IT):
- All Non-IT orders are delivered to the Central Receiving Area and forwarded to the appropriate Department and location.
- Upon acceptance of an item, the Department will forward the invoice to the Business Office for payment processing.
- After an order has been received, accepted, and paid for, a non-IT item, with a cost of $1,000 or more, is assigned a unique Operational Inventory Tag Number.
- The Physical Inventory Control Coordinator then enters the inventory information into the College’s Inventory System as follows.
For College Owned items (Non-IT):
- Excel is the Inventory System used for items with a cost of $1,000 or more.
- The unique Operational Inventory Tag Number and description of the item is entered along with purchase price, PO number, invoice price and location of the item.
- If the item has a cost of $50,000 or more, the cost is entered by the Comptroller or his/her designee for depreciation expense to be calculated. If the cost is less than $50,000 a value of $1.00 is entered in this field by the Physical Inventory Control Coordinator.
- The item is then tagged and any corrections to the physical location are entered in the Excel Inventory System.
Information Technology Equipment:
1. All IT equipment orders are delivered to the Central Receiving Area. (This does not include third party installments that are inventoried at the time of the installation).
• All media installations performed by third parties are to be monitored by ITS staff to ensure that the equipment is stickered and the data on the equipment is collected, including packing slips and serial numbers. All of this information will be emailed to the Inventory Control Coordinator so the equipment can be added to the inventory database.
2. A Central Receiving staff member, upon receipt of shipment, will deliver it to the ITS Department (as indicated by the college Purchase Order they received when the order was initially placed by the Business Office).
3. ITS will review the order and ensure it is complete and not damaged by matching the shipment to the PO number in the ITS ticket system, listing the PO number, and delivery instructions or to the Banner database by PO number. All orders that are not accepted are returned to central Receiving by the IT Department.
4. Central receiving will make the necessary arrangements to return the items to the vendor and no inventory procedures will be performed.
5. The Chief Information Officer (CIO) or his/her designee verifies the invoice against the shipment received, authorizes the invoice by email and delivers the packing slip to Business Office for payment processing.
6. Once the order is accepted, the ITS Physical Inventory Control Coordinator will affix a unique IT Inventory Number Tag to each item that is College owned. The ITS Physical Inventory Control Coordinator enters inventory information into the Inventory Database.
7. After the initial entry by the Inventory Control Coordinator, each IT staff member will be responsible for updating the inventory database with any equipment moves that they perform.
Physical Inventory:
1. Throughout the year, the Physical Inventory Control Coordinators will conduct a physical inventory of their respective assets.
2. The physical inventory count is reconciled to the appropriate Inventory Database System by the end of each fiscal year.
3. Any corrections or changes noted during the physical inventory process will be entered into the inventory database system and documented.
4. Also, any items that are moved are documented and the respective inventory system is updated as to the asset’s new physical location (noting the new room # and building name)
5. The ITS department requests that non-ITS employees do not move/relocate any technological equipment. If a user needs technology moved they are asked to make a request through the ITS ticketing system.
Obsolete/Surplus Equipment:
1. The College Obsolete/Surplus Property Officer reports, via OSD website, all obsolete/surplus property on campus to the State Surplus Property Office (SSPO). The upload describes the property as well as its age and condition. Within ITS this is currently handled by the ITS Physical Inventory Control Coordinator
2. No property may be transferred or otherwise disposed of without prior, emailed approval from the SSPO.
3. Until the property has been disposed of in accordance with the approval of the SSPO, the College is responsible for its security and shall be held accountable for the property.
4. On the recycle day the IT Physical Inventory Control Coordinator will have a printout of all items being disposed of and will check them off as they are loaded onto the truck.
6. The IT Physical Inventory Control Coordinator will verify the items from the recycle list with the reported list from the Recycling Vendor.
7. When the property is properly disposed of the inventory, the database system is updated accordingly.
Update: 8/16/2017