Conducting an IT Asset Audit: Step-by-Step Guide

• The IT asset audit uses more than just counting hardware; it is used to manage the ever-evolving, widely distributed technology environment of an enterprise. Today, the typical employee has several devices and many SaaS subscriptions, which drastically increases the attack surface and creates increased potential for wasted expenditure.
• Organizations that consider audits to be a reactive, once-a-year activity are behind. Assets that are out of view increase risk: financial risk from unmanaged assets and security risk from cyber attacks targeting unmanaged assets.
• The future of IT Audit will be automated, continuous, and predictive. Leading organizations utilize integrated platforms, AI technology, and real-time analysis to move the audit from being a one-time point-in-time analysis to a continuously compliant and optimized environment.

For many IT organizations, the term audit immediately inspires feelings of dread: a mad, frantic hunt for assets, followed by an endless quest to reconcile multiple spreadsheets and prove discrepancies that existed. But this reactive, backward-looking method is history.

As enterprises experience hyper-distribution of their assets as they move back and forth from remote locations to physical sites, cloud environments to data centers, the annual audit becomes not only a waste of time but also a substantial strategic risk. The result is that organizations are relying on a picture of reality that is at least months out of date, which prevents organizations from identifying growing security threats and skyrocketing expenses.

It is time to redefine IT asset audit, and it needs to evolve beyond merely being a burdensome compliance task to a continual strategic practice. A modern-day audit does not exist as a singular event; it is a constantly evolving process that is driven by automated methods and real-time data.

It represents the basis of creating optimum cost savings, cybersecurity, and ongoing process capability. In this document, we provide a practical roadmap that illustrates how to turn the audit of IT assets from a reactive activity to an ongoing source of competitive advantage.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Conducting an IT Asset Audit

A central tenet of audit transformation is the integration of people, process, and technology in a structured, multi-phased manner. An effective audit transformation must be developed in a strategic way as a series of steps and milestones. These milestones will lay the foundation for a sustainable, repeatable value-add audit process.  

1. Determine Your Auditing Goals and Purpose

Before auditing any assets, you must have a clear understanding of why you want to audit. For example, if you are trying to save money, your audit will focus on identifying any unused software licenses. 

If you’re looking to comply with SOX regulations, then the focus of your audit will be primarily security-related. An audit of internet-facing devices will require a different approach than an audit of servers. By establishing the purpose for the audit, you can provide the necessary focus for the audit and keep it on track to achieve its purpose.  

2. Form a Cross-Functional Audit Governance Team

Every audit should be organized by forming a cross-functional governance team composed of IT, Finance, Procurement, and Security representatives. 

Each member of the governance team plays a critical role in ensuring the audit is successful, aligns with the organization’s business strategy, and has clear accountability and ownership for the data. Finance will provide the necessary purchasing history, and IT will provide the necessary risk thresholds for the different asset types being audited.

3. Consolidation and Automation of the Asset Baseline

The age of the manual spreadsheet audit is over.

The first step to establishing an asset baseline is consolidating information from existing systems into a single, trusted source of record. An intelligent IT Asset Management platform automates this process by providing network scans and agent-based discovery processes that create an up-to-date inventory. An automated asset baseline is the foundational element for eliminating ghost assets and shadow IT.

4. Validation and Enrichment of Asset Data

After an asset baseline is established, the second step is to add value to the asset data by verifying and augmenting the data. Verifying that the physical location of the asset, the assigned owner, and the operational state of the asset are correct and accurate constitutes the enrichment of the data. 

The use of modern tools such as QR codes and RFID for tracking, integrated into a central platform, enhances the efficiency and accuracy in this process significantly. For remote assets, user attestation and device health must be verified using endpoint management tools.

5. Cross-Reference Asset Inventory

This step is where organizations find the most value from their audit. The validated asset inventory should be compared to all relevant procurement records, software license agreements, and maintenance contracts. 

As a result of this process, organizations will become aware of any discrepancies, such as ghost assets for which they are paying yet cannot identify, and shadow IT assets for which an official record does not exist. Organizations that establish sound financial reconciliation processes typically realize significant savings on software expenditures and improved compliance with licensing requirements.

6. Assess the Lifecycle Stage and Condition  

Your assessment will not only inform you of what you have, but also of the current condition of each item in its lifecycle. For instance, are the computers under warranty? Is the server scheduled for decommissioning? Is the computer running an unprotected version of an outdated operating system?

The results of this assessment will provide a starting point for developing a proactive lifecycle management strategy—for example, by planning replacement schedules, consolidating the number of maintenance contracts in effect, and identifying which items are eligible for redeployment and which should be discarded.

7. Actionable Reporting and Remediation

At the end of this process, you don’t just have a static report—you now have a reporting solution that will allow you to create actionable recommendations from developed assessments. Your reporting solution should be set up to prioritize remediation activities based on risk and cost impact.

Examples of specific remediation activities can include the recovery of unused software licenses, patching of unpatched computers, and the initiation of asset disposal for end-of-life items. The most important aspect of actionable reporting is identifying who is accountable for the remediation event and tracking the completion of those events within your ITAM system.

Transforming IT Asset Audits Using Signifi

Signifi’s integrated technology solution allows for an automated and proactive audit of your company’s IT assets. Instead of using periodic manual audits, Signifi’s solutions empower companies with 100% real-time visibility of assets, as well as the ability to proactively control asset dwindling or growth.

• Automated Inventory Update: The SignifiVISION™ platform serves as the core platform for your entire company’s IT assets by integrating with all of your IT systems. This provides a single and accurate view of your entire asset inventory, thus eliminating any need for manually consolidating data. In addition, the SignifiVISION™ platform also serves as the basis for any formal audit of your company’s IT assets.
• Secure Physical Asset Management: The use of Signifi’s Smart Lockers and automated vending systems provides companies with a secure and auditable means of managing physical IT assets. Each issuance, return, and break-fix of a physical asset is automatically logged, providing you with an immutable audit trail that can be produced at a moment’s notice when required for compliance.
• Asset Lifecycle Reporting: Not only does the SignifiVISION™ platform provide a means to track IT assets, but it also enables tracking the entire lifecycle of each asset from purchase through disposal.
  
  By viewing the dashboards on the SignifiVISION™ platform, you can quickly and easily identify how many of your assets are currently active or in need of repair, or are approaching the end of their lifespan. This allows you to make informed decisions about purchasing new assets as well as disposing of old assets based on the information provided by the SignifiVISION™ platform.

Minimizing Asset Loss in the Healthcare Domain

A major healthcare provider experienced an ongoing trend of losing many critical medical assets at an extraordinary annual rate, resulting in failed audits and costly replacement costs for affected assets. To remedy this situation, this provider implemented Signifi’s Smart Storage technology and capability to create a secure automated check-in/check-out process for all medical assets.

As a result, Signifi’s SignifiVISION platform incorporated a real-time audit log of all assets, and within 12 months of implementing the Signifi solutions, the provider was able to reduce the amount of asset loss it experienced dramatically; therefore, the provider passed all compliance audits easily, and returned all costs associated with the implementation of the Signifi solutions through the cost-saving benefits of replacing fewer assets.

The Continuous Predictive Audit

The future of IT asset management is not to conduct periodic audits. The purpose of implementing a Continuous Predictive Audit is to create a fully integrated and intelligent ITAM Platform in which the continuous state of compliance becomes the standard, rather than just a one-time point of reference.

Using AI analytics, the Continuous Predictive Audit will allow for the early detection of asset failure, as well as the identification of any security vulnerabilities prior to them being exploited, and the creation of an automated asset life cycle from procurement to disposal. This represents the proactive audit function of an organization, and the proactive audit will provide strategic value to every modern digital organization.