Software case study · October 2026
OpenAsset ITAM: IT Asset Management I Built from Monthly IT Work
An IT asset management application for the work IT teams do every month: inventory, assignments, depreciation, chargeback and disposal with evidence. It runs offline on Windows and macOS, with an optional online edition for several users in a browser.
Asset work lives in spreadsheets until it doesn't.
Monthly IT asset work, from who has which laptop to what each department is charged and what was disposed of and how, usually lives in spreadsheets. They work until someone needs history, approvals or an audit trail.
OpenAsset is built around those monthly tasks rather than around a generic database.
Covering the full life of an asset.
Assets, people, contracts, assignments and full history.
Calculated charges, with posted history that cannot be changed afterwards.
Approvals and evidence for every disposed asset.
A permission matrix, and an audit trail where each entry is chained to the last.
Encrypted backups in a documented file format.
Validated CSV import, reports and a dashboard.
Desktop first, online when needed.
| Edition | How it runs | State |
|---|---|---|
| Windows desktop | Local database, signed installer | Released |
| Online edition | Same app in a browser for several users, PostgreSQL, scripted upgrade and rollback | Released |
| macOS desktop | Built automatically by CI | Built; final checklist open |
Treated like software someone else will rely on.
What building it taught me.
A feature without a procedure gets used differently by every person.
Posted charges and a chained audit trail make month-end disputes short.
It is much harder to remove later.