2026-09-19

Equipment handover act: what to write down when you give a laptop to an employee

Sooner or later every organisation asks the same question about a laptop, a phone or a power tool: who has it now? The handover act is the short document that answers it. It says who received what, when, in what condition, and it is signed by both sides. Without it, "I gave it to somebody last spring" is the only record you have.

Is there a required form?

For issuing equipment to an employee inside the organisation, no standard form is prescribed. Since Law No. 3565-VI of 05.07.2011 an organisation may design its own primary documents, provided they carry the details listed in article 9 of the Law on Accounting and Financial Reporting: the name of the document and its date, the name of the organisation, what was done and in what quantity, and the positions and signatures of the people responsible. A handover act with the fields below meets that test.

Whether the employee should also sign a material liability agreement is a different question, for your lawyer and for the rules of your donor or parent company. The act on its own is a record of what was handed over, not a substitute for that agreement.

What the act should say

a number and a date, and the place where it was drawn up;
who issues the equipment and who receives it, with their positions;
for every item: what it is (make and model), your inventory number, the serial number;
the accessories that go with it: charger, case, cables, licence key;
the condition at handover: new, used, scratched screen, missing key;
whether the issue is permanent or for a period, and for what purpose;
the signatures of both people, and where the signed original is kept.

Number the acts

A number is what lets you find the act later. Use one sequence for issues and a separate one for returns, never reuse a number, and never renumber after the fact. A row in a spreadsheet is not a number: rows move when somebody sorts the sheet.

The return is an act too

Equipment that comes back deserves the same care as equipment that goes out. A return act repeats the item, the serial number and the condition, and it says what changed. A laptop that left with a clean screen and returns cracked is exactly the case where the difference has to be written down while both people are in the room.

Treat the return as part of leaving the organisation: before the last working day, everything on the person's list comes back or is explained. The same goes for moving equipment between offices: a short act with the old place, the new place and the date keeps the location in the register true.

What a good line looks like

Lenovo ThinkPad L14, inventory number INV-0042, serial number PF3X12345, with a 65 W charger and a case. Condition: no damage except a scratch on the lid. Issued for permanent use to the project coordinator. That single line answers who, what, which one, in what state and for how long. Compare it with "laptop, Anna": it cannot settle a dispute.

Three mistakes that make an act useless

Only the model, no serial number. Three identical laptops become one.
One signature. An act signed by the issuer alone proves nothing about what the employee received.
Accessories not listed. The charger becomes an argument at the return.

Where paper stops working

With five laptops a folder of signed sheets is enough. With fifty items and thirty people, three things happen: finding the signed act for one serial number takes a search through the folder, "what does this person hold today" needs a stack of pages added up by hand, and returns are forgotten because nothing prompts anyone.

In Depot 17 the act is generated from the register. Issue and return acts get their own numbers, print as an A4 act with both names, and are confirmed the way you choose: signed on paper with the scan attached later, or signed on the screen. Every item keeps its history of holders, and a person's card shows what they hold now. More on what the assets module records, and on which plans include it.

Sources: Law of Ukraine No. 3565-VI of 05.07.2011; Law on Accounting and Financial Reporting in Ukraine, article 9. This article is a practical summary, not legal or tax advice.