Living Water International

How Living Water International uses Reftab to manage assets worldwide

A partnership 10 years in the making

Ryan Butterfras, Senior IT Manager, and Tony Archibold, Senior Director of IT Technology at Living Water International, have been working together for over a decade. Living Water International, a nonprofit organization focused on providing clean water solutions globally, needed an efficient way to track and manage assets as they expanded.

More than 10 years ago, Ryan started searching for a solution.

“I started researching a little bit, and I came across Reftab. Someone had mentioned it in a comment on Reddit, and I’d never heard of them before. So I looked at your site and kind of looked around a little bit. I liked how simple it was and not too involved because we’re not a large enterprise.”

Fast forward 10 years, and Reftab is still an essential tool for their growing operations.

Managing assets across the globe

As Living Water transitioned from in-person to remote operations, managing equipment—especially laptops—became a priority.

Tony says, “We shipped a lot more laptops domestically across the United States, more than we normally did. Also, we provided a lot more accessories like docking stations, more USB devices, more monitors. . . If you are sending someone $2,000 worth of equipment, you want to be able to track that and know who has it. So being able to track that is very important.”

Reftab quickly became their single source of truth for asset management and helped both Ryan and Tony stay organized even while managing a remote team.

“It’s definitely a time saver,” Ryan says. “I work remotely in Kansas City. Most of my team is in our headquarters, but I can manage this remotely for my team and have a good beat on what we have in stock, what loaner laptops we have, what laptops are in for repair… I can see what we need to order—all remotely. It’s been great. And I think overall it’s improved communication on the team.”

Using Reftab’s loanee feature for long-term asset tracking

The team manages assets all over the world, so Reftab’s loanee feature plays a major role in keeping things organized. It creates a clear paper trail, which eliminates guesswork when it comes to equipment like laptops and accessories.

Ryan says,”It’s crucial that we keep our inventory sharp and up to date and clean so we can have good data to make financial decisions, track inventory, and see what laptops need to be replaced.”

But he takes the loanee feature a step further. Rather than just quick check-ins and check-outs, they use it for long-term tracking tied to warranty end dates.

Ryan continues, “We purchase a laptop and typically get a three-year warranty. So we checked it out to that person in Reftab with a return date for when the warranty ends. It lets us project when laptops will expire, track who has what, and budget for replacements. It’s been really helpful.”

The team also uses Reftab’s reporting and threshold features to track stock levels for laptops and accessories.

“Laptops are probably the main ones we track,” says Ryan. “Second would be accessories… monitors, backup batteries, headphones, webcams. I have a threshold set up in Reftab. If stock dips below that threshold, an automatic email goes to our help desk so we can reorder. That way, we’re never fully out.”

Custom fields in Reftab are another way they keep their assets organized, especially given the complexity of modern equipment.

“Custom fields are huge,” says Tony. “Being able to customize fields is one of the strongest features we’ve been able to utilize. If I say an Intel laptop has an i7, that tells me something, but not everything. So we’ve been able to utilize custom fields to track attributes that we need to know.”

A reliable partner for the long haul

After 10 years, Reftab remains a critical part of Living Water’s IT processes.

“I like Reftab because it’s simple, it’s straightforward, it does what it says it’s going to do, and it’s pretty intuitive and highly customizable,” says Ryan.

The flexibility of Reftab helps Living Water adapt to changes as their organization grows.

“We’re still coming up with new processes and seeing how it fits best into our company because our company’s always changing and shifting,” Ryan says. “The fact that we’ve had it for about 10 years speaks to the reliability of the product. I don’t see us not having it in the future because we like it so much.”