Who should own a signage asset register?

Usually the estates, property or facilities team. A sign company can build and maintain it for a client as part of a maintenance contract.

How is a signage asset register different from a signage audit?

An audit is a survey at one point in time. A register is the record that is kept up to date afterwards, as signs are installed, repaired and removed.

What is a signage asset register? How to build one

The short answer

A signage asset register is a maintained list of every sign an organisation owns or is responsible for: its unique reference, location, type, content, size, material, condition, owner and history. Unlike a one-off audit, it is kept up to date as signs are installed, repaired, replaced and removed, so it can be used for budgets, maintenance, rebrands, insurance and compliance.

Audit, schedule and register: the difference

Term	What it is	When it's used
Signage audit	A survey of what's on site and what needs doing	At a point in time
Sign schedule	The table of signs produced for a project	Quoting, manufacture, installation
Signage asset register	The maintained record of every sign owned	All the time, updated as work is done

A site in Signcensus with its plans, and buttons for a PDF report and a spreadsheet export — Each site keeps its plans, PDF report and spreadsheet export together. Demo data.

What to include

Reference: a unique ID that never changes or gets reused.
Location: site, building, floor and a position on a plan, plus GPS outdoors.
Description: type, content, size, material, illumination and fixing.
Ownership: who owns and who maintains it (for example landlord, tenant or council department).
Condition and action: current condition and what needs doing.
Photos: current photos, kept with the record.
History: when it was installed, repaired or changed, and by whom.

How to build one

Agree sign types and fields that will work across every site.
Run a signage audit of each site to create the first records.
Make one team responsible for the register.
Require every contractor's install, repair and removal to update it, with a photo.
Review it with routine site walks, and in full before a rebrand or new contract.

Spreadsheet or software?

A spreadsheet can hold a small register, but photos, plan positions and change history are hard to keep with it. See spreadsheets vs signage software. Signcensus keeps each sign's plan position, photos, details and full change history in one record.

Questions

Who should own a signage asset register?: Usually the estates, property or facilities team. A sign company can build and maintain it for a client as part of a maintenance contract.
How is a signage asset register different from a signage audit?: An audit is a survey at one point in time. A register is the record that is kept up to date afterwards, as signs are installed, repaired and removed.