A tool register is not an inventory. It is evidence. That distinction is the whole thing, and it is why most of them are useless on the day they are needed.
An inventory answers “what do I own?” A loss adjuster is asking three harder questions: was this yours, what was it worth, and can you show me. A list of forty tool names in the notes app on your phone answers none of them.
Here is what to record, in the order that matters, and why each field earns its place.
The short answer
What should a tool register contain?
Make and model, serial number, what you paid and when, and the receipt. Those four fields are what turn a list into evidence. Where the tool is kept, and whether it is on finance or hire, are worth adding. Insurers differ, so read your own policy wording.
The four fields that do the work
Everything else is optional. These four are not.
- Make and model. Not “impact driver”. “Makita DTD172”. The difference between those two on a claim form is roughly the difference between the price of a replacement and the price of whatever an adjuster decides is reasonable.
- Serial number. The only field that can ever reunite you with a recovered tool, and the one that turns “I owned an impact driver” into “I owned that impact driver”. Photograph the plate rather than typing it from across the workshop — 8 and B, 0 and O, 5 and S.
- What you paid, and when. Two separate facts. The price sets the value; the date sets the depreciation, if your policy applies any. A tool bought last month and one bought in 2019 are not worth the same to an insurer even if they are the same model.
- The receipt. Photograph it the day it arrives. Thermal till receipts fade towards blank paper after a year or two in a van door pocket, which is worth knowing before you rely on one.
If you record nothing else, record these. A register of ten tools with all four fields is worth more than a register of a hundred with only names.
Start with the top ten, not the whole van
The instinct is to do it properly — empty the van, line everything up, work through it in one go. That project takes a Saturday, and the Saturday never comes.
Sort instead by what it would cost you to replace tomorrow morning, and register the top ten. On most vans that handful is the bulk of the value, and it takes about twenty minutes. Everything else can go on as you touch it.
A register that exists and is two-thirds complete beats the one you were going to do properly.
Add each tool the day you buy it
This is the habit that actually builds the thing. The receipt is in your hand, the box is in front of you with the serial on the label, and the whole job takes about ninety seconds.
Nobody has ever built a tool register on the morning of a break-in. They build it a tool at a time, on ordinary days, when nothing is wrong.
Record where each item lives
Which van, which store, which person. This has nothing to do with insurance and everything to do with the other 364 days of the year — the SDS that is definitely somewhere, the tester that went out with someone in March.
It matters at claim time too, in a way people do not expect. If the register says an item was in the van and it was actually in the lock-up, you have just put something inaccurate on a claim form. Keep the field current and honest, or leave it empty.
Worth pinning down
The four fields that do the work
- Make and modelNot ‘impact driver’. ‘Makita DTD172’.
- Serial numberThe only field that can ever reunite you with a recovered tool.
- What you paid, and whenTwo separate facts. Price sets the value; the date sets the depreciation.
- The receiptPhotograph it. Thermal receipts fade inside a year.
Flag anything on finance or hire
Items you are still paying for, and items that are not yours at all, both need marking. A hired breaker that is stolen is somebody else’s asset and usually somebody else’s claim, but you are still the one who has to tell them, quickly. Tools on finance may be covered by the finance agreement, by your own policy, or by both — and that is a much better thing to establish now than during a claim.
Total it, then read your policy
Once the expensive half of your kit is on a register, add it up. That number is the one to hold next to two limits in your policy wording: the most it will pay for any single item, and the most it will pay in total.
Two mismatches are common enough to look for specifically. A single item worth more than the per-item cap, which is often lower than people assume. And a total that has quietly grown past the sum insured across several years of buying. Neither is discoverable without the total, which is the practical argument for keeping one.
Cover for tools left in a van overnight varies a great deal between insurers — some exclude it, some require evidence of forced entry, some require a specified lock or alarm. Read your own wording rather than assuming the worst or the best.
Keep it somewhere that is not in the van
A register kept only on the laptop in the van gets stolen alongside the tools. So does the only copy of the receipts folder. Anything cloud-based solves this by default; a spreadsheet emailed to yourself once a quarter solves it well enough.
The test to run on what you already have
Open whatever list you currently keep and ask one question: if I lost the lot tonight, could I hand this over tomorrow without going through three years of bank statements?
If the answer is no, you do not have a register. You have a list. The gap between the two is almost always serial numbers and receipts — and both are only obtainable while you still have the tools.
How ServicePay handles it
The tool and equipment register keeps all four fields against each item, plus where it lives and who has it, and totals the replacement value so you can hold it against your cover. It flags any item with no serial recorded, which is how you find the gaps now rather than at the point somebody asks you to prove ownership.
If the worst happens, the stolen-tool report turns the register into the two documents you actually need — an itemised list with serials for the police, and a priced schedule for the insurer — from the same records, in one go. That is the subject of what to do in the first hour after a break-in.
Any item can also carry a scannable QR or NFC tag that anyone can check with a phone — no app, no login — which is what makes a tool awkward to resell. We do not charge per tool or per tag, so there is no reason to leave anything off the register to keep a bill down.
Tick what has gone. Both documents build as you go.
One crime reference, one list. The officer’s sheet and the insurer’s priced schedule come out of the same ninety seconds — try it.
Van 2 — what was on board
Tick what has gone
Stolen equipment list
Okafor Gas & Heating · crime ref 45/128993/26
| Item | Serial | Scan code |
|---|
Print it, hand it over. Every code on this sheet resolves on a public page any officer can open from their own phone.
Schedule of loss
Priced from the register · crime ref 45/128993/26
| Item | Evidence held | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Total claimed | £0.00 | |
Sample data. Ninety seconds of ticking replaces an evening of writing two documents from memory — and the second one is the one most people never send.
Go on — tick something.
Common questions
What should a tool register include for insurance purposes?
At minimum: make, model, serial number, purchase price, purchase date and the receipt. Where the item is kept, and whether it is on finance or hire, are worth adding. Individual insurers ask for different things, so check your policy wording.
Do I need serial numbers to claim for stolen tools?
You can usually claim without them, but proving the item was yours and that it was the item you say it was becomes much harder. Serial numbers are also the only realistic route by which a recovered tool is ever returned to its owner.
How do I record serial numbers quickly?
Photograph the plate or label rather than transcribing it. Serials routinely mix characters that are easy to confuse by eye, and the photograph is a second piece of evidence in its own right.
Are photographs of receipts good enough?
Generally yes, and after a couple of years they are considerably better than the originals, because thermal receipts fade. Keep the images somewhere that is not physically in the van.
How often should I review the register?
Add items as you buy them, and total it up once a year against your policy limits. The annual check is what catches a sum insured that has fallen behind what you actually own.