When IT goes down, a small business grinds to a halt. Yet the IT fleet is precisely the kind of equipment where warranties matter most — and are tracked worst. Between standard warranties, “next business day” extensions and on-site service, knowing what is covered determines how fast you get back up and running.
A fleet more complex than it looks
A small business’s IT estate isn’t just laptops:
- workstations (laptops, desktops) and monitors;
- servers, NAS units, UPS units;
- networking gear (switches, Wi‑Fi access points, firewalls);
- peripherals (printers, scanners).
Each has a manufacturer warranty, often with different service levels: return to depot, advance replacement, or on-site service within 24 hours (NBD). Mix them up and you’re promising a fast fix… that you never actually paid for.
Why tracking falls apart
- Purchases are spread out over time: each batch has its own date and duration.
- Business warranties are managed by serial number or service tag, which quickly become unreadable.
- Extensions have their own end dates, separate from the purchase date.
- Hardware moves around between employees and sometimes between sites.
What rigorous tracking buys you
- Faster fixes: instantly know the service level and warranty end date of a machine that just failed.
- Planned renewals: see warranty expirations coming so you can budget, instead of replacing in a panic.
- No premature purchases: don’t replace a machine that is still covered.
- Traceability: who has what, where, since when.
Keept as your fleet’s source of truth
With Keept, every machine carries its serial number, its purchase date, its warranty (with the service level in a note), and its attached invoice. The app calculates the deadlines and alerts you before warranties expire — so you plan renewals instead of enduring them. A multi-user, multi-site workspace, so the whole IT team — or your outside provider — sees the same picture of the fleet.