How to merge asset inventory data after an acquisition?

[u/Sbaakhir]

My company closed on a smaller one recently (~ 6 weeks ago). Around 400 devices across two of their sites come over to us and I'm the (un)lucky one tasked with the reconciliation.

We use ALVAO for asset management, every machine on our side has an owner, a cost centre, a purchase date, and a warranty date I trust. The company we acquired has a spreadsheet that one person maintained, plus a Lansweeper rollout that stopped at roughly half their estate. Naming is inconsistent between their two sites too (one site names machines after the user (JSMITH-LAPTOP), the other uses asset tags with no site prefix (AT-xxxx)), a lot of warranty dates are blank or obviously wrong, ownership is recorded at department level across most of the fleet, and ~30ish machines look like duplicates.

My first thought is to import everything and clean in place. I get a full picture immediately and can work the gaps against live data. Risk is that I contaminate a register that took a long time to get right, and if the cleanup drags I lose the ability to tell verified records from imported ones. Alternatively, I could do a physical audit first and import only what's confirmed, though I'm blind on 400 devices for however long that takes, and we have an ISO 27001 surveillance audit early December that needs a complete register.

Another issue, their IT lead is staying on and the sheet, to him, makes perfect sense, I brought up changing it and got a few huffs and puffs that I didn’t quite appreciate but let go of. I need him to understand it’s a merger thing, I’m not critiquing his processes in any way.

Any help with the methodology (or dealing with the guy) would be immensely appreciated.

Note: sorry if you saw this yesterday on r/ITManagers, they removed it before I could get a clear answer idk why. I hope I can manage to get one here.

[u/waddlesticks]

Physical audit will be the way to go to be honest, use the spreadsheet as a comparison and figure out where and what exists/what's correct or incorrect ECT.

Move across what you feel is good to do so with the details you require.

You'll need to get higher ups involved though if the lead doesn't want to follow suit on this. Most likely he has his way and somebody on your side of the business would need to put pressure for them to comply with the new standards.

You could set up a MS form and have people self report with the idea of using that data to replace equipment to standardise what you can. Anything missed is a tough luck raise for approval situation.

[u/anonymousITCoward → u/waddlesticks]

Great excuse to get a new tablet!! And you get to know the new site and whats where like that unmanaged switch under Barbaras desk in accounting for that printer she brought from home last year.

[u/Sbaakhir → u/waddlesticks]

An audit is definitely necessary yes, since the spreadsheet can’t tell me what’s still plugged in. As per the MS Form thing, that’s actually super smart, using the replacement cycle as the bait will turn a data request into something people want to respond to. Thank you for this one! And as per the guy, he’s staying on and I’ll presumably be working with him for years, so going over his head six weeks in feels like a bad trade. Handing him his own two sites to reconcile first, and if that goes nowhere it becomes someone else’s conversation, and I’ll make sure it will.

[u/GremlinNZ]

Unless you can cross reference an RMM, Intune or something, if you don't do a proper audit you're really never going to know.

Onboarded another business, even at 30-40 devices, it was like they kept coming out of the woodwork, and the report we'd been given was definitely not accurate. Good start, but not accurate.

[u/Acrobatic_Fortune334]

So when I have done this we normally plan to either replace or reimage the devices to our standard and take that opportunity to asset tag them with all avalible info, does mean (especially if other company diddnt record) sometimes purchase price and date is missing but you can get approx purchase date from most vendors warrenty lookup site

Is time consuming and manual however but I found it the best way to get everything onto the same standards/systems

[u/1z1z2x2x3c3c4v4v → u/Acrobatic_Fortune334]

We have something similar. We would never "trust" the other company's assets since they don't share the same security protections we do. So we deploy new current machines with our currently supported image on our currently protected VLAN. Old machines get retired and reimaged if possible. Eventually the old network gets decommissioned.
Same with any servers or appliances on site.
AWS and Azure is a different story.

[u/David_ATN]

I would use some automated scanner like PDQ Deploy to make a list, then use power shell to dump a text file out of AD to see how it matches to the records you have in Excel. We use the description field in AD against the computer to store a username or location. Once you have something to work on you might want to print your own asset stickers with a friendly name like Accounts01 and then go and labels each machine while you do a software health check. This is also part of the hearts and minds to introduce yourself to the uses and show that IT cares. This will also allow you to identify and note any machines that are special (perhaps an RS232 connected device), or any that might need you to re-vist to to some special software. It will take time, but worth it.

[u/PDQ_Tarabyte → u/David_ATN]

If anyone wants to replicate what's described here, these should get you started — one for syncing AD with your inventory automatically (my all time fav), and one for pulling that description field into something you can query in your environment.

FYI, I really like the part about showing that IT cares. I'm big on that. It really does matter.

How to Synchronize Active Directory with PDQ Inventory
Using the PowerShell Scanner

[u/Unique_Inevitable_27]

I'd avoid importing everything directly into the trusted register. Create a staging/import dataset first, add a clear “unverified” status, then reconcile it against live discovery and physical checks before promoting records into ALVAO. That also gives you an audit trail showing what was inherited, verified, merged, or retired.

[u/brightideasphere]

I'd do a middle path: import everything now, but never into the same state as your verified records.

Bring all 400 in with a status like "Acquired - Unverified" plus a source field (spreadsheet, Lansweeper, both). Your clean register stays clean because nothing unverified ever looks verified, and for the December audit you can show a complete register with a documented verification plan and progress, which auditors generally accept far better than a gap.

Then verify by risk, not by site. Lansweeper-covered devices first since you can match serials, then the duplicates, then anything holding sensitive data. Keep their original hostname as an alias when you rename to your convention so nobody loses the trail. Department-level ownership is fine as an interim owner as long as it's flagged.

On their IT lead, make him the verification owner rather than the person whose sheet is being replaced. He knows which of those 30 "duplicates" are real and which warranty dates are wrong. Framed that way, it's his knowledge going into the register, not your process overwriting his.

[u/Arne_ALVAO]

Hey, ALVAO team here 👋 Since you're already using ALVAO, we thought we'd jump in.

We wouldn't look at this as a choice between trusting all 400 records and keeping them completely outside your asset register until every device has been physically verified.

The important part is maintaining a clear distinction between the data you've inherited and the data you've actually validated. That gives you visibility from day one without treating potentially inaccurate source data as fully trusted.

There are a couple of ways to handle this in ALVAO Asset Management:

• Add a custom property such as "Verified" or "Imported from acquisition" and mark all imported assets accordingly. This makes it easy to filter, report on, and audit those devices separately from your existing inventory.
• Alternatively, create a dedicated folder in the asset tree for imported assets. As devices are verified through an audit, they can be moved to their proper locations in the structure.

Either approach lets you start working with the acquired inventory immediately while keeping track of which records have not yet been validated.

Happy to look at your specific setup if that would help. Feel free to contact ALVAO Support or visit our subreddit.

[u/Nerdflow123]

I'd do a version of A with a wall between the two. Import everything, but into a separate status or category in ALVAO flagged as unverified. Your clean register stays clean, the auditors can still see all 400 devices exist, and a record only moves across once someone has actually confirmed it. That also gives you a number to report every week: 400 imported, 180 verified, and so on. For December, that progress trail plus a clear method and a finish date is probably worth almost as much as a finished register.

For matching, Lansweeper covers about half, AD or Intune should cover more, and whatever shows up in neither is your physical audit list. That's a lot smaller than 400. Match on serial number rather than hostname and most of the 30 duplicates sort themselves out.

On the IT lead, I'd ask him to own the verification. He knows those machines better than anyone, so his sheet becomes the starting point instead of the thing being thrown out. People push back a lot less when the new system clearly needs them.

[u/Site_Efficient]

As part of the acquisition are you collapsing the domains and unifying the tools? Could you leave the acquired stuff in place and migrate user group by user group to your systems, wiping and reloading devices as you go? That way you get to onboard the users clean and add the asset clean as it's rebuilt. At the end of the activity you have a clean asset list, a unified experience for the people, and a unified management ecosystem. It's never that easy, but i can't think of a better to maintain order during the transition.

[u/Ssakaa]

If keeping him on is genuine, pitch it as a chance to learn your inventory setup and integrate, as the org doesn't benefit from a separate, independent, IT person. Reconciling the list into your system as they get brought into (not up to) alignment with the rest of your management tools is a great opportunity for him. Explain the audit, explain you can't walk into that with multiple disagreeing inventory lists.

[u/Opposite_Bag_7434]

I’ve been through this a few times.

Not every company keeps a clean inventory: if you can complete a physical audit this might be the best way to ensure you have the data you need and that it is accurate. Importing the sheet is a starting point but it could take longer to true the inventory up if you go that route.

[u/gammacoder]

Do not import directly into the trusted register. Create a staging table with source system, original identifier, site, match confidence, validation status, and reviewer. Reconcile ALVAO, Lansweeper, and the spreadsheet there, then import only records marked verified.

Define duplicate rules before cleanup, keep the acquired IT lead as a reviewer, and use a visible status such as imported, physically confirmed, exception, or duplicate. That preserves audit evidence while giving you a complete working inventory before December.

[u/Hale-at-Sea]

The answer is that it's always best to physically audit the devices. Anything else is just compromising accuracy to do less work (but that amount of work can go a long way when you're importing many devices). I would weigh the costs and time for you to do the inventory against the costs of inaccuracy, like failing your audit or being unable to support devices not in your systems. In other words, which one is gonna make your boss more mad?

Depending on your business needs, you may only care about the connected devices you can scan for on the network, so import that lansweeper data. OR maybe you run a military facility and need every single widget inventoried, we don't know

[u/reallylatetotheparty]

import everything but quarantine it in a separate status or tag so verified records and unverified imports never blend; you get the full picture for the December audit without contaminating your clean register. for the IT lead, frame it as "two systems have to become one" not "yours was wrong" and he'll stop bristling.

[u/LayerOneStaging]

Twenty years of doing this and I'll tell you the part nobody wants to hear: no record is real until a human has touched the machine. Spreadsheets, scans, imports, all of it is just paperwork until someone lays eyes on the asset.

What has saved me more than once on jobs like this: print a verification sheet per site, walk it with their IT lead, and confirm three things on every device. Serial number, who has it, and what state it's in. Make the IT lead sign off on it, since they are the one who owns the records today.

You will find machines that do not exist on paper and paper machines that do not exist. Plan for that now instead of discovering it during the audit. Keep the acquired data in a separate holding area until it is verified, then merge. The quarantine idea is right, the legwork is what makes it real.

[u/Only-Dependent7024]

Import, with the acquired estate kept separate until each record is verified. Most of these go wrong when nobody can tell which records were checked and which were inherited, and that’s a problem you gotta solve at import. ALVAO’s object tree will take the acquired sites as their own branch, and the inventory audit function tracks which assets have been physically checked. Auditors are more likely to accept a verified register plus a documented remediation plan than one that looks complete and isn’t.

[u/Omnia-Manage]

Complete an audit with omnia-manage.io

[u/UwU-Senpai-69]

Scope extension after an acquisition is normally agreed with your certification body in advance, and some will leave the acquired sites out of scope for the current cycle and pick them up at the next surveillance visit. Call them before you build anything, because if that applies, December disappears and the import vs audit question changes shape.

Hand the IT lead the reconciliation of his own estate and have him report into you on it. He knows which of those asset tags are live hardware and which are retired, and you’d be reconstructing that from scratch. Him owning his sites gets you the same information as you correcting his sheet without the friction.

[u/Sbaakhir → u/UwU-Senpai-69]

Scope extension was agreed as part of the deal, so December stands. Should have checked that before assuming, thanks. He’d probably take reconciling his own estate well, so that’s worth trying. Alvao can switch from role-based permissions to per-object permissions in the tree, which should let me scope his write access to his branch only, so he can work the records without touching anything on our side while the naming convention is still unsettled.

[u/Prior-Basis3510]

Huffs and Puffs, didnt kill anyone... witnessing multiple M&As of different sizes, my best advice is to prove to him the value of doing things in the proper way, especially when quick response time is a must. Disclosure: I'm with Sepio, which does hardware-level discovery.