The renewal spreadsheet
The insurance renewal arrives and asks for an updated equipment schedule. The operations manager opens the kit list, last updated at the previous renewal. Since then the company bought a new camera body, two lenses and a set of LED panels, sold an old camera, wrote off a monitor that was dropped on a shoot, and sent a lens for repair that came back with a new serial number on the mount.
She spends two days going through purchase invoices in Xero, photos of serial plates in her phone, and the kit room shelves. A tripod head bought on a personal card never makes it onto the list. Later in the year, a camera is stolen from a van and the claim asks for serial numbers and proof of ownership. The serial is on the list, but the receipt is in an email to someone who has since left.
Why the kit list goes stale
- Purchases are recorded in the accounts package, not the kit list.
- Sales, write-offs and losses are not recorded against the kit list.
- Repairs and services are arranged by email and never logged against the item.
- Serial numbers are photographed on phones and not typed up.
- The list is updated once a year, when someone asks for it.
What your insurance policy requires, how kit should be valued and what is covered on set or in transit are questions for your broker. The register only makes the records they ask for easy to produce.
What a stale register costs
An inaccurate schedule can leave items out of cover or leave you paying to insure kit you sold. A claim without serial numbers and proof of purchase is harder to make. Repairs without history mean you do not notice a lens that keeps going back for the same fault, or a camera past its service interval. And the annual scramble takes days of someone's time.
How we build the kit register
- Every item is recorded with make, model, serial number, photo of the serial plate, purchase date, supplier and purchase invoice.
- Purchases coded to equipment in Xero or QuickBooks create a draft register entry, so new kit is not missed.
- Sales, write-offs, losses and thefts are recorded with a date and reason, and the item leaves the active schedule.
- Repairs and services are logged against the item, with dates, supplier, cost and notes. Items can have a service interval that triggers a reminder.
- The register links to the kit booking system, so an item marked faulty at check-in opens a repair entry.
- At any time, you can export an equipment schedule in the format your broker asks for, with the values you choose to show, and attach receipts where needed.
| Register entry | Comes from |
|---|---|
| New item | Purchase invoice in your accounts package |
| Serial number | Photo of the serial plate, typed and checked |
| Repair | Fault at check-in or manual entry |
| Service due | Service interval set on the item |
| Disposal | Sale, write-off or loss recorded with reason |
Renewal time, next year
The operations manager exports the equipment schedule in a few minutes. It includes the camera bought in March, with its receipt, and excludes the one sold in June. The lens with the replaced mount shows its new serial and the repair invoice.
When the service reminder for the main camera body comes up, she books it between shoots instead of finding out it is overdue when a fault appears on set. When a lens goes back for the third time with the same focus issue, the repair history makes a strong case for replacing it rather than paying for a fourth repair.
Items bought on personal cards and reclaimed as expenses are caught too, because the expense line is coded to equipment and creates a draft entry just like an invoice does.
Is your kit list like this?
- The kit list is updated once a year for insurance.
- Serial numbers are in photos on someone's phone.
- Sold or written-off kit is still on the schedule.
- Repair history is spread across emails.
- Nobody knows when each camera was last serviced.