There are many ways of tracking the movement of assets in and out of a business or company. The two most popular, however, are; use of barcodes and use of microchips. In systems that use bar codes, assets are assigned a unique bar code that show their name and a brief description. A bar code scanner is used to scan the product as it is delivered. The inventory management or tracking software will then update automatically to show that a product has been added. When the asset or product is sold or given out, it is scanned and the system gets updated that the product has been sold or disposed of in one way or another.
The use of microchips or RFID chips has become incredibly popular. An RFID is attached to the asset and sensors placed in strategic locations. When the asset moves from one point to another, the asset tracking system will show that the asset has been moved.