Spreadsheets look harmless, especially when you’re starting out with a limited number of assets. But as your workforce expands and assets grow, gaps start to appear.
For starters, you lose real-time visibility. You don’t know where your assets are—whether they’re actively in use, collecting dust in a storage room, or already lost.
And because there’s no real-time insight, you might still renew licenses on those inactive devices, thinking they’re critical to operations.
The result? Huge financial leakage.
A report from TechRepublic says, $34 billion is wasted annually on unused licenses in the US and UK.
And that’s just one aspect of how manual asset tracking hurts your team.
But there’s a better alternative to spreadsheets that fixes the above issues: IT Asset Management (ITAM) tools.
In this article, we’ll explore what ITAM tools are and why they matter. You’ll also find a list of hand-picked ITAM tools for 2026—key features, pros and cons, and reviews from real users.
Finally, there’s a short guide to help you compare the options and choose the right solution.