What should be in an asset register?

At least a unique ID, category, manufacturer, model, serial number, location and condition, plus warranty end date and a reference to the evidence. Designing Buildings lists many more optional entries, such as supplier, installer, maintenance requirements and photographs.

How do I create an asset register in Excel?

Start with the headings, format the serial column as Text before typing, then add one row per unit copied from its nameplate. Agree the headings with the client first, and keep the register up to date after handover.

What is an example of an asset register?

One row per unit: item 003, battery, SampleCell, SC-100, serial 000123456789, new, battery store. The worked example above has six invented rows, and Yale’s nameplate data matrix shows a real client’s version.

How do I stop Excel changing serial numbers?

Format the column as Text before you type or paste. Microsoft says Excel otherwise drops leading zeros, shows long numbers in scientific notation and zeroes digits after the 15th. Check the CSV in Notepad before sending it.

Does Baton give me an Excel equipment asset register?

Yes. Baton makes one register per job as PDF, Excel and CSV from the nameplate photos your crew takes on site. Every data cell is stored as text, and each unit has a pointer to its photo page. Files are saved in your Google Drive.

Equipment asset register template (Excel): what columns it needs and how to fill it from site

An equipment asset register template for Excel needs about a dozen columns: a unique ID, category, manufacturer, model, serial number, rating, location, condition, warranty end date and a reference to the evidence. Most downloads stop at the headings. This guide gives the columns, where each value comes from on site, a worked example, and how to stop Excel turning serials into 1.2E+11.

The short answer: what the register is for and what goes wrong without it

Designing Buildings describes an asset register as an itemised list of a building’s components, with the extra information needed to inspect, maintain, clean and replace them. It often sits inside the owner’s operation and maintenance manual, and the facilities team uses it to plan inspections and repairs. Its typical entries include description, identification number, location, supplier and installer, condition and defects, photographs, certification and warranties.

Without it, the person who inherits the site has a pile of invoices and a roof they cannot easily climb. They cannot tell which inverter is which, which warranty clock started when, or which unit was damaged on delivery. A register written at the unit, by the people who fitted it, removes that guessing.

What the guidance actually asks for

Designing Buildings’ page on registers for construction projects says the end client and their advisers should define the content, and that the main contractor normally produces it as part of the agreed handover deliverables. It is built up in stages: intended assets, locations and IDs at design, then as-installed manufacturer, model or part number and warranty end dates during construction, then commissioning and tagging data before handover. Where the client is unclear, it points to the UK BIM Framework, based on COBie, as the industry standard for what to include.

Yale’s Office of Facilities shows what a client can ask for in practice. Its equipment nameplate data matrix has contractors enter as-installed nameplate data for each asset: an equipment number starting at 001, a description, an asset group picked from a list, building and room, manufacturer, part number, model number, serial number, acquisition date and warranty end date. The shape is a useful model for an installer: one row per unit, copied from the plate.

Public bodies set accounting minimums. The Scottish Public Finance Manual lists what the asset is, where it is, when it was acquired, what was paid, expected useful life, the cost centre and the source of funds. Those are finance fields. A handover register for installed equipment keeps some of them and adds the physical facts that only the site can supply.

Aconex, a construction platform, makes a related point about process: to build a handover manual, issue suppliers an Excel template that is empty except for column headers, one column for each kind of information you want about each asset. Agree the headings before the work starts, not after.

The columns, field by field

This is the column set we would use for installed solar, battery, heat pump, HVAC or switchgear equipment. The last column matters most for a crew: it says where the value comes from, so nobody types from memory.

Equipment asset register columns, what goes in them and where the value comes from
Column	What goes in it	Example	Where it comes from on site
Item	A unique number that ties the line to its evidence	007	Allocated once per unit and never reused
Category	The equipment type, so the register can be read by family	Inverter	Chosen by the crew when the unit is photographed
Manufacturer	Maker as printed on the plate	Sungrow	The nameplate
Model	Model or part number as printed	SG110CX	The nameplate
Serial number	Exactly as printed, stored as text	A2105001234	The nameplate
Rating / capacity	The headline rating the plate states	110 kW	The nameplate
Condition	New, or what is wrong, with a note	New	Judged at the unit by the crew
Location	Where the unit sits on the site	Plant room, bay 2	Typed by the crew while standing there
Warranty end date	Start date plus length, as an end date	11 Sep 2036	The warranty paperwork, set per equipment type
Site tag	The client’s own identifier, if they use one	INV-01	The client’s drawings or labels
Additional specifications	Other labelled details the plate states	IP66; 3 MPPT	The nameplate, line by line
Evidence reference	Where the nameplate photo can be found	Page 12	Added when the pack is built

A column checklist you can copy

Paste this into the first row of a new sheet, then delete what the client does not want. Keep the order: identity first, then what it is, then where it is, then its state, then its paperwork.

Item (unique number, never reused)
Category (equipment type)
Manufacturer
Model
Serial number (format the column as Text before typing anything)
Rating / capacity
Location
Condition (and a note if it is not new)
Warranty end date (and the start date it was worked from)
Site tag (the client’s own ID, if they have one)
Additional specifications
Evidence reference (photo page or file name)

A worked example: six rows

Here is how a small plant room might look. The values are invented for illustration. Notice that the serial on the third row has leading zeros and that the battery serial on the fourth is long enough to be damaged by a number format.

Six invented rows from a small commercial site
Item	Category	Manufacturer	Model	Serial number	Condition	Location
001	Inverter	ExampleMaker	EM-110K	SN0012345	New	Plant room, bay 1
002	Inverter	ExampleMaker	EM-110K	SN0012346	New	Plant room, bay 2
003	Battery	SampleCell	SC-100	000123456789	New	Battery store
004	Battery	SampleCell	SC-100	123456789012345678	Damaged: dent on casing	Battery store
005	Switchgear	DemoGrid	DG-AC4	10-3	New	Main LV room
006	Panel	SolarSample	SS-545M	PN2400056	New	Roof, array A

How to stop Excel mangling serial numbers

Microsoft’s support guidance says Excel removes leading zeros by default, converts large numbers to scientific notation such as 1.23E+15, and has a maximum precision of 15 significant digits, so anything past the 15th digit of a long number is turned into a zero. The Text format keeps entries as typed, but it only affects numbers entered after you apply it. A leading apostrophe also makes Excel treat an entry as text.

The Clean Energy Regulator, which collects inverter serial numbers in Australia, gives the same warning in its ledger guidance: a serial of 12 or more digits and no letters is converted to scientific notation automatically. It tells users to set the serial column to Text, not Number, and to open the exported CSV in Notepad to check what is really stored.

Create the sheet and select the whole Serial number column before you type or paste anything.
Set the column’s number format to Text.
Type or paste the serials. A value that has already been converted cannot be rebuilt from the cell, so re-enter it from the source.
If you import a CSV, use Data, From Text/CSV and set the serial column to Text in the import step.
Before you send the file, open the CSV in Notepad. What you see there is what the recipient’s software will receive.

Mistakes that spoil a register, and the fix for each

Typing serials into a number column. This is how 0012345 becomes 12345 and a long battery serial ends in zeros. Fix: format as Text first, and check in Notepad.

Formatting after pasting. Microsoft says the Text format applies to numbers entered afterwards, and a custom format does not restore zeros already removed. Fix: clear the column and paste again into the Text-formatted cells.

Using only the accounting fields. A template built around cost, useful life and depreciation, like the finance minimums above, will not tell a facilities team which unit failed. Fix: keep the physical columns in the checklist.

Leaving as-installed data until after handover. Designing Buildings places manufacturer, model and warranty dates in the construction stage. Fix: record each unit while you are standing at it.

Not agreeing the columns with the client. The client defines the content, and Aconex advises issuing the headings to suppliers first. Fix: send the empty header row at the start of the job and ask for changes then.

Letting the register go stale. Designing Buildings stresses that it must be kept current once compiled. Fix: name one person who owns it after handover.

Filling the register from site with Baton

Baton is built to fill this register at the unit. Your crew opens a link or scans a QR code and types the six-digit job code. There is no account and no app to install, and it works with no signal. For each unit they photograph the nameplate and two views of the unit, then record its condition and location. Any equipment type can be named on site, so inverters, batteries, switchgear and heat pumps each get their own lines.

Two AI models read every nameplate. A person in your office checks manufacturer, model and serial against the photo before the handover can be made. The register is saved as a PDF, an Excel file and a CSV in your own Google Drive. Baton stores every data cell in the Excel file as text, so a serial like 0012345 stays as typed and 10-3 does not turn into a date.

The columns follow the checklist above: Item, Category, Manufacturer, Model, Serial number, Condition, Rating / capacity, Location, an optional Warranty column, Site tag when a job uses tags, Additional specifications, and a last column that points to the page in the PDF where that unit’s photographs sit. The Excel file also has a second sheet, Details by unit. Warranty dates are set once per equipment type.

What Baton does not do

The Excel and CSV files carry a pointer to the photos, not the pictures themselves. The PDF shows each nameplate and unit photograph on the unit’s own page. Baton does not hold test or commissioning results, issue certificates, file anything with a grid operator or scheme, or connect to your facilities software.

If the client wants a specific format such as COBie, or a CAFM import, treat Baton’s Excel as the clean source and map the columns yourself. Add test results and certificates through the attachments index, with a reference, a date and who issued each one.

Quick answers

What should be in an asset register?: At least a unique ID, category, manufacturer, model, serial number, location and condition, plus warranty end date and a reference to the evidence. Designing Buildings lists many more optional entries, such as supplier, installer, maintenance requirements and photographs.
How do I create an asset register in Excel?: Start with the headings, format the serial column as Text before typing, then add one row per unit copied from its nameplate. Agree the headings with the client first, and keep the register up to date after handover.
What is an example of an asset register?: One row per unit: item 003, battery, SampleCell, SC-100, serial 000123456789, new, battery store. The worked example above has six invented rows, and Yale’s nameplate data matrix shows a real client’s version.
How do I stop Excel changing serial numbers?: Format the column as Text before you type or paste. Microsoft says Excel otherwise drops leading zeros, shows long numbers in scientific notation and zeroes digits after the 15th. Check the CSV in Notepad before sending it.
Does Baton give me an Excel equipment asset register?: Yes. Baton makes one register per job as PDF, Excel and CSV from the nameplate photos your crew takes on site. Every data cell is stored as text, and each unit has a pointer to its photo page. Files are saved in your Google Drive.
Who fills in the serial numbers in Baton?: Two AI models read each nameplate, and a person in your office checks manufacturer, model and serial against the photo before the register can be generated. Baton shows the register only after that check.