Assets

Licenses, contracts, bookings and kits

Keep track of the software your company pays for, the leases and insurance on your equipment, who has booked the shared projector or van, and the sets of items you hand to new joiners in one go.

Contents: Who can use it · Software licenses and subscriptions · Leases, insurance and contracts · Booking shared items · Kits · Reminders · Example · FAQ

Who can use it

Licenses: people who can see assets see the list; people who add or edit assets add, edit and renew licenses; people who assign assets give and free seats.
Contracts: people who see the asset money side (disposals, running costs) see them; people who record running costs add contracts and mark instalments paid.
Bookings: every employee can book a shared item for themselves under My assets → My bookings. People who handle asset requests see all bookings, book for others, approve, check out and take items back.
Kits: people who assign assets see and issue kits; people who add or edit assets create and change them.

Your administrator can change this under roles.

Software licenses and subscriptions

Open Assets → Licenses and click Add license.

Name (for example "Microsoft 365 E3"), Type: Perpetual (bought once) or Subscription (SaaS that renews), Publisher and Vendor.
Seats: how many people or devices may use it.
Billing: One time, Monthly, Quarterly, Every 6 months or Yearly, with the Cost per period and the Renews on date.
License key (optional): kept encrypted. Lists only show the last four characters; open the license and click Show key to see it in full. Every time someone views a key it is recorded in the activity log.
Cost center and Department for your cost reports.

Give a seat. On the license, click Assign seat and choose a person or a device (an asset such as a laptop). The same person or device cannot hold two seats of one license, and you cannot give out more seats than you bought — the last seat goes to whoever is first. Click Free seat when someone leaves or a laptop is retired.

Unused seats. The license page shows Seats, In use and Unused, the Yearly cost and the Cost per used seat. The summary at the top adds up all active licenses: seats bought, in use, unused, and what the unused seats cost a year. Tick Only with unused seats to find licenses you can cut down at the next renewal.

Renew. Click Renew. The new end date is filled in one billing period after the current one (change it if needed). Enter what you paid and, if it changed, the number of seats. Each renewal is kept in the license's Renewals history. You cannot lower the seats below the number in use — free seats first.

Leases, insurance and contracts

Open Assets → Contracts and click Add contract.

Type: Lease, Insurance, Service / maintenance contract, Rental or Other; a Title, the Contract / policy number and the Vendor (leasing company, insurer).
Starts on, Ends on and Auto renew.
Contract value (what it costs in total) and, for insurance, the Sum insured.
Assets: the items it covers. One contract can cover many items (for example a fleet policy).

Instalments. Under Payment schedule enter the Number of instalments, how often (Monthly, Quarterly, Every 6 months, Yearly) and the First due date. Give an Amount for each instalment, or leave it empty to split the contract value evenly (the last instalment takes any rounding). Use Reschedule later to replace the unpaid instalments; paid ones stay as they are.

Paying. Click Mark paid on an instalment, with the date, the amount (if different) and a reference. The payment is added as a running cost (type Lease, insurance or contract) of each covered asset, split evenly, so it shows in the asset's Total cost and in the cost views. Made a mistake? Undo payment removes those costs again. These costs cannot be deleted from the asset's Costs tab — undo the payment on the contract instead.

A contract with paid instalments cannot be deleted; set its status to Ended or Terminated. The asset page shows every contract covering the item.

Booking shared items

Make an item bookable. Edit the asset and tick Can be reserved. Tick Booking needs approval for items such as a meeting hall or a car with a driver.

Book. Under My assets → My bookings, click Book an item, choose the item, the start and end time and the purpose. The calendar shows when it is already taken. Two bookings of one item can never overlap: if someone has 10:00–12:00, you can book from 12:00 but not 11:00.

Items without approval are Confirmed at once.
Items that need approval wait as Waiting for approval. If your company set up an approval flow for bookings, it goes through that flow; otherwise the people who approve asset requests get a notification. You get a notification when it is approved or rejected. A waiting booking already holds the slot.
You can Cancel your own booking until the item is handed over. Cancelled and rejected bookings free the slot.

Hand over and take back (asset team). Under Assets → Bookings, click Check out on a confirmed booking when the person collects the item. The item is assigned to them like any other hand-over and shows in their My assets. Click Return when it comes back, with its condition. Returning early frees the rest of the slot. A checked-out booking past its end time is marked Overdue.

Kits

A kit is a set of items you hand over together, for example a new joiner's laptop, charger and bag.

Create a kit. Open Assets → Kits, click Add kit, give it a Name and Code, and add the products with how many of each. Only items tracked one by one (with their own asset tag) can be in a kit. The kit page shows how many of each product are in stock and whether the kit can be issued now.

Issue a kit. Click Issue, choose the person and, if you want, the exact items (for example a laptop with a bigger disk). Anything you do not choose is taken from stock automatically. Every item is assigned to the person in one step: if anything is short, nothing is handed over and you see which product is missing.

Take a kit back. Open the issued kit (Assets → Kits → Issued) and click Take back. You can take back everything at once or only some items; the kit is closed when all its items are back.

Reminders

The Expiries list and the daily reminder email now also include:

licenses and subscriptions renewing (30, 15 and 7 days before Renews on);
leases, insurance and contracts ending (30, 15 and 7 days before Ends on);
unpaid contract instalments (7 days and 1 day before the due date).

Cancelled licenses and ended or terminated contracts are left out.

Example scenario

Your company pays a monthly 3,000 for 25 seats of an office suite. The license page shows 22 in use, 3 unused, a yearly cost of 36,000 and 4,320 a year spent on unused seats. At the renewal reminder you renew with 22 seats. Your two delivery vans are on one lease of 1,200,000 in 24 monthly instalments; each month you click Mark paid and each van's total cost rises by 25,000. The training room projector is bookable; Karim books it 10:00–12:00 and Rina, who wanted 11:00, picks 12:00 instead. A new joiner gets the "New joiner" kit in one click.

Troubleshooting and FAQ

"All seats of this license are in use." Free a seat or renew with more seats.
"This item is already booked from … to …" Pick a time outside that booking, or ask the asset team.
I cannot book an item. It is not marked Can be reserved, or it is retired, disposed, lost or stolen.
Check out says the item is assigned. The item was handed to someone else outside the booking; take it back first.
"Not enough in stock for: …" Receive or return more of that product, or choose other items.
Why can't I delete a lease cost on the asset? It comes from a paid instalment; use Undo payment on the contract.

Assets and assignments · My assets, requests and problems · Alerts, import and export · Depreciation, cost centers and total cost

9bx user guide