How to Conduct a Lab Asset Inventory Audit in 5 Steps

If you've ever gone looking for a specific reagent and found three half-empty bottles of it in three different rooms, you already know why asset audits exist. Records drift. Equipment moves. Someone buys a chemical the lab already had because the spreadsheet said it was gone.

A lab asset inventory audit fixes that drift. It's a structured pass through your equipment, chemicals, and other lab assets to confirm what you have, where it is, and what condition it's in. Done well, it supports your environment, health and safety (EHS) obligations, cuts wasted spend, and means you're not scrambling the week before an inspection.

This guide walks through the five steps, then covers what to look for in lab asset management software, since the audit is only half the job. Keeping records accurate between audits is the other half, and that's where a system like SciSure earns its keep.

The importance of asset management in labs

Effective asset management in laboratories involves a systematic approach to procurement, maintenance, upgrades, and disposal of assets.

Effective asset management can improve:

• Procurement of proper equipment that mitigates risks with engineering controls and that is sustainably designed.
• Maintenance schedules of equipment and potentially reduce malfunctions, injuries, and accidental releases.
• Optimization of chemical inventories by minimizing hazardous materials storage, and ultimately risks of exposure.
• Regulatory compliance against preventative maintenance and monitoring requirements.
• Waste mitigation efforts by extending equipment lifespans and minimizing resource consumption.

How to conduct a lab asset inventory audit in 5 steps

1. Define the scope and prepare your resources

Start by identifying which facilities, equipment, chemicals, and other assets will be included in the audit. Identify any applicable compliance obligations for the audit (e.g., the OSHA NRTL Program.)

Assemble your team for the inventory audit. Gather resources by preparing checklists, barcode scanners (when applicable), and labels for tagging assets. Prepare the lab inventory management software (if available). If you're already running chemical inventory or equipment records in a system, pull a current report before you start walking the lab. The gap between the report and what you find is the real output of the audit.

2. Perform the initial inventory audit

Start with tangible equipment such as lab equipment. Record the

• Location
• Condition
• Make and model
• Relevant dates (e.g., acquisition)
• Brief description of the asset  

When possible, group similar assets together to simplify identification. After entering this data into your database, tag the equipment with concise labels with essential information such as name, ID number, date of acquisition, and safety information. Consider a color-coding system when labeling to distinguish ownership, health and safety classification, lab zones/work areas, etc.  

Assign specific locations for each category of assets to avoid clutter and facilitate retrieval, where applicable. Ensure storage areas are accessible and appropriate for the specific items (e.g., temperature-controlled for certain chemicals).

Inventory all chemicals by the following classifying information but not limited to:

• Estimated volumes
• Storage locations
• Expiration dates
• Supplier/manufacturer information.
• Use all available resources such as colleagues to help inventory, bar coding system, and chemical inventory management software, if available.  

3.  Evaluate your results

Identify the gaps, missing items, outdated equipment, duplicate chemicals, etc. This may take a long period of time to understand trends but it’s important to analyze the asset usage patterns and compare them with the inventory.

Assess the condition and performance of the equipment. Flag any equipment that requires maintenance, repair, upgrade, or needs to be safely decommissioned and disposed of. It may be an inventory but you’re also visually inspecting for any noticeable damage or defects.

For chemicals, evaluate the usage data and expiration dates across several inventory audits to avoid unnecessary hazardous chemical storage and disposal, which could have environmental impacts.

Log the gaps as you go rather than at the end. A photo, a location, and a one-line note taken at the bench is worth more than a reconstruction three days later.

4. Automate best practices & Corrective and Preventive Actions (CAPAs)

Assign team responsibilities

Determine roles and responsibilities for inventory audit tasks and ensure your team is trained on the system. Build and foster a culture of shared responsibility for inventory management. Increased ownership/engagement, visibility, and communication of the inventory activities brings forth proactive solutions, promotes efficiency and optimizes processes.  

Organization and storage

Implement a first-in, first-out system to avoid expiring chemicals persisting in storage areas. Regularly dispose of obsolete or damaged items. Don't let outdated equipment or expired chemicals occupy valuable space and pose health and safety risks. Establish clear disposal protocols for different asset types.

Store equipment based on frequency of use. Keep frequently used equipment within reach while infrequently used items be stored on higher shelves or in designated areas.

Finally, streamline asset identification and data entry with barcode scanners.

Procurement and cost management

Forecast future asset needs and use bulk purchases when possible, to take advantage of any discounts. Seek help from your procurement department (if applicable) and compare prices across different suppliers to find what works best for you from an EHS perspective but also operationally and financially.  

Maintenance and calibration of equipment

Implement routine maintenance schedules for equipment to ensure optimal performance and prevent unexpected breakdowns. Document equipment usage and calibration records. Maintain accurate records of usage logs and calibration certificates for compliance.

Automate recordkeeping and documentation

Lab inventory management software helps ensure accurate documentation and uniformity with your data. Set clear expectations for your team on recordkeeping.‍

Likewise, considering moving from Excel spreadsheets and physical notebooks to lab inventory management software to automate your documentation and ensure accuracy. Develop templates or forms to ensure consistency in data collection. This ensures that records are complete when conducting the inventory audit, so you don’t have to double your effort.

Conduct routine inventory audits

Communicate the importance of routine audits to your team and lab personnel. Routine audits ensure you meet compliance obligations for asset management, chemical storage, and equipment safety. Failure to comply could result in serious penalties, injuries, and fatalities.

So make sure you implement a regular schedule for inventory audits (e.g., monthly, quarterly, annually). Update records with current information with each subsequent inventory audit.

5. Consider these steps if you're relocating your lab

Lab relocations can be complicated, especially when it comes to asset inventories. Here are some tips:

• Conduct a comprehensive inventory of all assets, prioritizing the criticality of the assets (e.g., EHS critical equipment, frequently used assets, and assets with special transportation or storage requirements).
• Identify the chemicals and equipment that need to be either disposed of properly or decommissioned first to avoid unnecessary transport risks.
• Use appropriate storage containers to protect equipment and prevent exposure to chemicals.
• Ensure that chemicals and chemical storage containers/boxes are labeled appropriately according to regulatory requirements.
• Maintain a record or chain of custody of asset movement to avoid loss or damage.
• Implement safe work practices including proper waste disposal procedures for the new lab.
• Schedule calibration for equipment upon arrival. Perform a Pre-Startup Safety Review (PSSR), as needed, to check for potential hazards prior to using the equipment.

What to look for in lab asset management software

Container-level and asset-level detail

Tracking "acetone, 5 bottles" isn't enough for fire code reporting or an emergency responder. You want each container and each piece of equipment as its own record, with its own identifier, location, and history.

Reconciliation, not just data entry

‍Plenty of systems let you add assets. Fewer help you check them. Look for the ability to scan a space and confirm, relocate, transfer, or remove what you find, so the recount itself is a supported workflow rather than an export-and-compare exercise in Excel.

Bulk tools that match your scale

‍If a building move means editing 800 records one at a time, the system will lose to a spreadsheet.

History that doesn't get overwritten

‍Service records, certifications, and calibration entries should stack up over time. When an inspector asks what happened to a biosafety cabinet in 2023, you want the answer on the record, not in someone's memory.

How SciSure handles lab asset management

‍SciSure Health & Safety tracks chemicals at the container level, with barcodes or RFID tags, hazard and regulatory data, and SDS matching. Its reconciliation tools let you validate inventory within a space and confirm, relocate, transfer, or remove containers as you scan, which is exactly the recount step of an audit. Bulk edit applies the same change to as many as 1,000 records, and spreadsheet import handles up to 9,999 containers at a time.

For equipment, SciSure Health & Safety covers the safety-critical side: biosafety cabinets, fume hoods, eyewash stations and showers, fire extinguishers, autoclaves, centrifuges, and more. You can set recurring audit requirements, choose who's authorised to perform each audit type, attach certifications and service records without overwriting history, and take items in or out of service.

On the Research side, SciSure's LIMS handles equipment used in day-to-day science, with booking calendars, validation schedules, barcodes, and usage logs. Which of those you need depends on what your audit is for. Fire code and MAQ reporting points you toward chemical inventory. Preventive maintenance and calibration compliance points you toward equipment records.

What smart lab management looks like at scale: SmartLabs

SmartLabs runs flexible lab infrastructure across hundreds of lab spaces on both US coasts, for partner companies working on very different things. Keeping an accurate picture of what's in each of those spaces is not a side task for them, it's the product.

Their EHS team uses SciSure Health & Safety for chemical inventory, SDS, inspections, equipment, biological registration, and medical surveillance. After implementation they reported:

• Inventory search dropped from around 15 minutes to 1–2 minutes
• Reconciliation for an entire research center went from an all-day job to as little as 20 minutes
• Generating a chemical inventory report went from about 30 minutes to about a minute

The reconciliation number is the one to notice if you're planning an audit. That's the recount step, the part most teams block out a full day for. Read the full SmartLabs story.

Build a culture of continual improvement & safety

Asset audits aren't only about cost control. They're how you find the expired peroxide-former before it becomes an incident report, and how you spot the autoclave that hasn't been serviced since the person who booked it left.

Run them on a schedule, keep the records in a system rather than a spreadsheet, and the next audit is a check rather than a rebuild.

If this sounds like the kind of lab you'd like to build, get in touch with us to get a walkthrough of how SciSure fits your lab workflows.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a lab asset inventory audit?‍

A structured check of your lab's physical assets, mainly equipment and chemicals, to confirm what you have, where it is, and what condition it's in. The audit compares what you find against what your records say and corrects the difference.

What counts as a lab asset?

‍Equipment, instruments, chemicals and reagents, consumables, storage units such as freezers and cabinets, and in some programmes software licences and furniture. Most EHS-driven audits focus on equipment and chemicals, because those carry the safety and regulatory obligations.

How often should you audit lab assets?

‍It depends on hazard level and turnover. Many labs reconcile chemical inventory quarterly and audit safety-critical equipment annually, alongside whatever certification schedule applies to each item. Smaller, more frequent passes on individual spaces usually produce better data than one large annual sweep.

What's the difference between an asset audit and a lab safety inspection?‍

An asset audit checks that your records match physical reality. A safety inspection checks that practices, controls, and conditions meet a standard. They overlap, and findings from one often trigger work in the other, but they answer different questions.

Do you need software to run a lab asset audit?

‍No, but spreadsheets get expensive at scale. Once you're tracking more than a few hundred containers or working across multiple rooms, barcode scanning, reconciliation by space, and bulk editing save enough time to pay for themselves. SciSure supports all three.

Can one system handle both chemicals and equipment?‍

SciSure Health & Safety covers container-level chemical inventory and safety-critical equipment records, including recurring audit requirements and service history. Equipment used in day-to-day research is managed through SciSure's LIMS. Available modules and reports vary by configuration and licence, so check what's enabled in your instance.