Real Asset Management International — Asset Station

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From the Dec. 2006 Review of Fixed Asset Management Systems

Real Asset Management International has a long history of providing fixed asset management software, having been in business for 25+ years, serving customers in 60 countries. Asset Station, which is reviewed here, is the little brother of the vendor’s Asset4000 (a comprehensive and customizable high-end asset management application). This single book program supports up to 1,000 assets, entities and related divisions. It manages all aspects of an asset’s life, while offering support for multiple languages and U.S., UK and EU accounting standards. Real Asset Management offers a suite of products that includes inventory control, advanced asset budgeting, lessee asset management, capital project control, maintenance management and document management. Asset Station is a single-user, standalone program that starts at $499.

NAVIGATION/EASE-OF-USE -- 4 Stars
Asset Station offers a well-designed opening screen that includes icons across the top of the screen together with traditional pull-down menus for accessing program utilities and functions. The main screen is divided into two panels, one containing the Asset Browser while the other provides navigation functions. The Asset Browser provides two tabbed views: a list of all assets for the current client and the Ranges tab, which provides users with the ability to filter, search and sort data. User queries and searches can be saved for future use and reference, and the user can customize many of the program’s interface components.

Customization is the order of the day, and all detail and description fields on the program’s asset information data screens may be changed, or fields may be added to serve the individual needs of the user or client company. These asset information screens include smart selection lists, while offering asset financial information across the bottom of the window. The addition of new assets is well-guided, as is the setup of client companies and similar general setup tasks, including selection of depreciation methods. The system offers visual hierarchies of asset relationships to assist users.

MANAGEMENT FEATURES -- 4.5 Stars
Asset Station supports up to 1,000 assets and companies, and includes the ability to track assets by location, division, cost center, groups or other categories. Accounting periods are user-defined. Asset Station supports asset splits, revaluations, transfers, disposals, parent-child relationships, and like-kind exchanges. Digital images of assets can be stored with applicable asset records. Asset events can be applied in bulk, across multiple assets or individually. An audit trail maintains the details of every action applied to an asset throughout its life.

The program supports depreciation with reporting and onscreen access to period asset costs and other data. Depreciation methods supported include non-depreciating, straight-line, MACRS and ACRS. Users can drill-down to obtain asset transaction histories. Barcoding technology is supported through the vendor’s asset tracking module.

INTEGRATION -- 4.5 Stars
Asset Station can be configured to share data with many GL systems, and can export to various file types including *.CSV and *.XLS. A Data Import Wizard assists with importing data, but the program does not currently link directly to any tax preparation systems.

REPORTING -- 4.5 Stars
Asset Station includes several standard pre-built reports, including the following: Asset History, Disposal Events, Transfer Events, Asset Depreciation List and Yearly Depreciation List. Annual summary reports are also available, including gross summary, depreciation summary and a balance sheet. As previously noted, reports can be exported to various file types such as *.CSV and *.XLS.