Meet the man behind PS Assets
We spoke to Tim Cropper-Williams, Product Director at PS Financials, about his thoughts on PS Assets and asset management for the education sector.
Hi Tim. First things first: what exactly is PS Assets?
PS Assets is the only complete online asset management solution for education, built in complete collaboration with schools.
Now, that’s an interesting soundbite, but it doesn’t actually explain what asset management means. Basically, schools and school groups have a number of what we call tangible assets – that would be your equipment and premises – and intangible assets, which would be your contracts, documents and so on.
PS Assets makes it easy to track all of this on a really detailed level, not just your school equipment. It’s cloud-based, so you can take it wherever your assets are and access this information from anywhere on the planet.
How is it different from similar products on the market?
The keyword there is similar. PS Assets is unique, so other products on the market don’t really come close. It’s made up of 3 main elements: a powerful online interface, mobile apps for iOS and Android, and our unique scannable printed asset tags.
It makes it really easy to stay on top of asset management; when schools want to add new assets, they simply tag the item, scan it using the app, and can then access any associated information from anywhere using the online interface.
Other asset management products don’t make it this easy.
So who uses it at the moment?
Currently, it’s used in over 1,000 UK schools, along with a further 600 in the US and several charities and football stadiums. This includes IT, premises, finance and business teams, and that number’s growing daily!
What’s the number one benefit that customers get excited about when you talk to them?
It’s got to be the reporting. Since you can record any information you want against any asset, you can run some really powerful reports that drill down into any information you want.
There are even built-in notifications, so you never miss a date – if something needs checking for compliance reasons, the right member of staff will know about it at the right time.
What do you think makes it useful for so many schools?
It’s the most flexible asset management system on the market. There’s a lot of different schools out there with hugely differing needs, so we offer total customisation over asset types, data collection fields, and location structures to match everybody’s requirements.
What’s in store for the future of PS Assets?
In the immediate future, we’re really excited about our helpdesk ticketing system. It’s been built to enable school staff to raise issues with their support teams, facilities, or whoever the right person would be to help.
There’s also a built-in ‘ticket scheduler’ that adds tickets for all the statutory checks and other seasonal tasks that site and facilities teams need to carry out.