Who should own your IT hardware and licences?

Your business should, in its own name, with an asset register and the documentation held by you. Hardware bought on your behalf is fine and normal; hardware and licences registered to your provider are not, and the time to find out is now rather than during a changeover.

This usually happens innocently. A provider buys equipment for a client because it is faster, registers warranties under their own account because that is their process, and holds the licence portal because they administer it. Years pass and nobody revisits it. The arrangement only becomes a problem at the one moment you need control: changing provider, a dispute, or a provider who has stopped answering.

Three things to verify, and none takes long. Equipment invoices are in your business name and warranties are registered to you, so you can claim directly. Software subscriptions sit in your own tenant with your business as the registered organisation. And there is an asset register you can actually see, listing devices, serial numbers, who holds them, warranty expiry and attached licences.

That register earns its place beyond the ownership question. It tells you what is out of warranty before something fails, what a departing staff member is still holding, and what you are paying for across the fleet. Six columns in a spreadsheet is enough, and a good provider maintains it and gives you a copy without being asked, because none of this costs them anything and all of it is plainly right. If you cannot currently answer who your licences are registered to, that is this week's email: 1800 456 567.