KitDesk: Equipment Booking

Alpha IT Solutions

About this app

Kit goes out. Kit comes back. Except when it doesn't, and nobody can remember who had the projector, and the spreadsheet somebody set up in March stopped being filled in around the second week of April because signing something out took longer than just taking it.

KitDesk keeps track of shared equipment and the bookings against it, so the answer to "where is it" is a screen rather than a group email nobody replies to.

SCAN, DON'T TYPE
Every item gets a printable QR label. Point the camera at it and it is booked out in seconds. A barcode scanner plugged into a tablet works too, because it behaves like a keyboard that types very fast.

A TABLET ANYONE CAN USE
Kiosk mode takes a four digit PIN instead of an email and a password, which is what you want on a shared screen by the store cupboard. It keeps taking bookings when the wifi drops and syncs them when the network comes back.

KNOW WHAT IS LATE
Reminders go the day before. Chases go daily after that, so nobody in your building has to be the person who emails a colleague about a tripod, which is the actual reason tripods stay out for six months and then turn up in somebody's garage.

TEST AND SERVICE DATES
Hold PAT and service dates against each item. Anything past its date is blocked from being booked, not flagged. A warning nobody reads is not a control.

PROOF WHEN THINGS GO WRONG
A signature when equipment changes hands, and photographs of the damage on the way back in, so a disagreement three weeks later is settled by a record rather than by whoever remembers it more confidently. Anything returned broken goes to the repair list. It does not go quietly back on the shelf for the next person to find.

THE NUMBERS THAT MATTER
What earns its keep, and what has sat untouched for a year sorted by what it cost.

WHO USES IT
Schools lending laptops and cameras. Hire firms with customers, charges and a depot each. Churches and clubs whose volunteers take kit out on Friday and bring it back on Sunday, mostly. Offices with shared equipment that walks.

ALSO IN THE BOX
Multiple sites, with staff seeing only their own and owners switching between them. Approvals, so a booking from a staff member can need a yes from an admin before the equipment moves. Repeating bookings for the weekly club night, which skip any date that clashes rather than failing the whole run. CSV import to get your existing spreadsheet in on day one, and export to get it back out. Stock take mode for walking the shelves with a phone. Printable label sheets.

Works on a phone, on a tablet, or in a browser. Data sits on servers we run in the EU, and you can delete your account from inside the app whenever you like.

Made in the UK by Alpha IT Solutions Ltd.

What’s new

First release.
Book kit out, scan a QR label to book it back in, and see what has not come back.
Bookings can need approval before they stand, repeat every week and take a signature on collection, and a lapsed PAT or service date blocks the booking outright so nothing goes out untested.
The kiosk keeps working when the wifi does not. Photos on return put damage on record instead of in an argument. No spreadsheet.