Whether borrowed equipment comes back on time depends less on the borrower’s memory than on how the return date is set and when the reminder arrives. This guide covers setting return dates and times, the reminder the day before, following up on overdue items, handling extensions, and what to check when gear comes back, all from the point of view of the person in charge of equipment.
The day before a shoot, you open the gear room and a wireless mic kit is missing. The checkout log has the borrower’s name, and the return date was three days ago. When you ask, it turns out the kit is still in the back of the van from the last job. If you look after equipment, you’ve seen this more than once.
Late returns tend to get written off as the borrower being careless. Trace back what actually happened, though, and it usually comes down to one of two things: the return date was vague to begin with, or nothing reminded the borrower that it was due. Neither comes down to the borrower’s character, and both can be fixed by how the lending side sets things up. In our view, getting the return date right and sending one reminder the day before does more to cut the number of items that don’t come back than chasing people more often.
“Forgot to return it” covers a few different situations. Which one you’re dealing with decides what to do about it.
| Situation | What it usually looks like | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| No return date was set | Equipment goes out on a verbal “bring it back when you’re done.” With no date to return it by, it keeps getting put off | Set a return date and time when the item is checked out |
| The borrower doesn’t remember the date | The return date is in the log, but not anywhere the borrower will look | Send the borrower a reminder before the due date |
| The borrower thinks it’s already returned | They put it back on the shelf but never closed out the record, or they handed it to someone else and left it at that | Decide who receives returns and what action closes a checkout |
| One person effectively owns it | Someone keeps gear they use every day checked out indefinitely, so there’s never a reason to return it | Take it out of the lending pool and assign it to that person instead |
The fourth situation is different from the other three. If someone uses a laptop or camera every day, putting a return date on it just means extending it every time the date comes around, and reminders won’t change anyone’s behavior. Take that kind of equipment out of lending and assign it to the person who uses it, so the records match what’s really happening. Leave these items out when you count late returns, too, or the problem will look bigger than it is.
Of the remaining three, the first two (no return date, and a forgotten date) can be prevented by how you lend. The third, where people believe they’ve returned something, is fixed in the return process.
We cover the causes of lost equipment more broadly, and how to prevent them, in a separate articleRead: how to prevent lost equipmentSet the return date, down to the time, when the item is checked out. Open-ended phrasing like “when you’re done” or “sometime this week” doesn’t work as a deadline for the borrower.
With a date alone, people assume anytime that day is fine. If the next person needs the gear the following morning, it has to be back by the previous evening so it can be prepped. Set the deadline at a time that leaves the next person room to get ready. For small items used around the office, that might be 6 p.m. the same day. For gear taken out on shoots or business trips, it might be noon on the business day after it comes back.
If the loan period is decided on the spot every time, its length will depend on who’s lending. Set a default for each type of equipment and let borrowers extend from there as needed. Whoever is lending the equipment then doesn’t have to make a call each time. For example:
It’s tempting to make the default long, but a short default, combined with an easy way to ask for more time, leads to fewer late returns. By the time a due date two weeks out arrives, the borrower has forgotten why they borrowed the item at all. With a due date three days out, the job is still fresh in their mind.
A common mistake with gear that leaves the building is making the last day of the shoot or event the return date. That day is taken up with wrapping and traveling, and the gear spends the night in a car or at someone’s home. If the due date is the last day, almost every checkout ends up a day overdue, and before long nobody reads the overdue notices. Set the due date for the morning of the business day after the gear gets back, and the only items flagged as overdue will be the ones that really haven’t come back.
Setting a due date doesn’t guarantee the borrower will remember it. When it comes to cutting late returns, a reminder that reaches the borrower before the due date makes more of a difference than any follow-up after it. A reminder sent before the due date doesn’t accuse anyone of anything, so it’s easier on both the sender and the recipient.
A reminder a week ahead arrives while the gear is still in use, so it gets skimmed and forgotten. A reminder on the morning of the due date can be too late if the borrower is out that day. A reminder the day before, or at least 24 hours ahead, gives them time to fit the return into the next day’s plans. For small items due back the same day, skip the reminder and just mention the deadline when you hand them over.
Send the pre-due reminder to the borrower only. Copying an admin or the borrower’s manager at this stage looks like you’re keeping tabs on someone who isn’t even late yet. The reminder should say which item and which unit, the due date, and where to return it. Include the asset ID, so nobody returns the wrong unit when you have several of the same model.
Separately from reminders, give borrowers somewhere they can check, at any time, what they have checked out and when each item is due. A paper checkout log can only be read in the gear room, and in a spreadsheet their rows are buried among everyone else’s. If borrowers can open a list filtered to their own name, even someone who missed a reminder can catch it themselves. People who check out several pieces of gear at once for a job are often the least sure which ones are still out.
With a spreadsheet or paper, the day-before reminder means the person in charge has to check the list and send each one by hand. That works as long as they keep up the habit of opening the list at the same time every day, but it slips on days they’re off and in busy periods. Since the day-before reminder is a routine task that comes up every day, it holds up better when it’s sent automatically from the checkout records than when someone has to remember to send it.
Once the due date has passed, responsibility shifts from the borrower to the admin. What you want to avoid is whoever happens to notice chasing the borrower by whatever means comes to mind. One person asks over chat, another stops them in the hallway, and there’s no record of who said what and when. Agree on the steps in advance.
The first step can be automated. From the second step on, a person makes contact. Sending the same overdue notice every day stops working after about the third day: nobody reads it, and the urgent cases look the same as everything else. Send one automatic notice, then have the admin agree on a date and time with the borrower. Items tend to come back sooner that way.
Admins should also set a regular time to check the overdue list. Checked first thing in the morning, anything that came due the previous evening can be followed up the same day. If the list is only reviewed once a week, the second-step follow-up can be up to a week late, and the borrower’s memory fades in the meantime.
Hi Sato, the camera (CAM-03) that was due back at noon on October 3 hasn’t been returned to the gear room yet. It’s booked again from 9 a.m. on October 6, so could you bring it back by the end of October 5? If that won’t work, let me know when you can return it.
The key thing in the message is explaining why you need the item back. If there’s a reason, such as an upcoming booking or a stocktake coming up, the borrower can weigh it against their own schedule. Requests without a reason get put off.
Some workplaces use penalties, such as suspending a person’s borrowing privileges. Where dozens of people compete for the same gear, that can work as a deterrent. In a team of around ten, though, the effort and awkwardness of enforcing penalties often outweigh the benefit. Before you consider penalties, make sure the day-before reminder and the next-day direct follow-up are actually happening.
To get people to respect return dates, you have to make extensions easy to ask for. If there’s no way to extend, a borrower who needs more time has no choice but to quietly let the due date pass, and from the admin’s side there’s no way to tell someone who needs more time from someone who forgot.
The third point is easy to miss when you manage lending in a spreadsheet. If an extension means the next person to book the gear turns up on the day and finds nothing there, that affects other people more than a late return does. Before approving an extension, add a step to check what’s booked for that item next.
In Werp™, you extend a loan by changing the booking period. If the new period would overlap another booking for the same unit, the change isn’t allowed, so you can’t extend a loan without noticing an upcoming booking.
Cases where people believe they’ve returned something happen when the return process is vague. Is an item returned when it’s back on the shelf, when the record is closed, or when someone has checked it over? If that isn’t decided, the records drift: the log says an item is out while it’s sitting on the shelf, or the log says it’s returned while accessories are missing.
A return is complete when the record is closed. Putting the item back on the shelf doesn’t count on its own. Beyond that, check the following, depending on the type of equipment.
Checking everything every time is a burden, so narrow the list by type of equipment. For a meeting room extension cord, checking that it’s back in its spot is enough. For gear that comes with accessories or data, like cameras and laptops, name a person to receive returns and have them check the item before closing the record. If something turns out to be faulty, record the return and then change its status to something like “in repair” so it doesn’t get lent to the next person.
To cut down further on returns people only think they’ve made, make closing the record part of the act of returning. If borrowers scan the item’s QR label in the gear room and record the return right there, there’s no separate step of going back to their desk to update a spreadsheet, and items are less likely to be back on the shelf with no record of the return.
Sometimes gear goes straight from one job to the next and is handed to the next person without going back to the gear room. In that case, the record still shows the original borrower, and the reminders still go to them. The person who received the gear doesn’t think of it as something they borrowed, and the person who handed it over no longer has it. Neither of them returns it, and it goes overdue. Make it a rule for handovers: record a return at the moment of handover, then record a new checkout in the receiving person’s name. It’s one extra step, but the due date and the reminders move to the person who actually has the gear.
How to record check-outs and check-ins with QR labels, and how to make the process stick, is covered in a separate articleRead: managing check-outs and check-ins with QR codesWhich of these steps people have to handle, and which can be left to the records, depends on where you record checkouts.
| How loans are recorded | Reminder before the due date | Spotting overdue items | Recording return checks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper checkout log | The person in charge reads the log and contacts borrowers by hand | Only whoever opens the log notices | Possible with a column for who checked it, but hard to look up later |
| Spreadsheet | The person in charge checks the list and sends reminders by hand. Sorting by return date makes them easier to find | Conditional formatting can turn rows red, but only someone who opens the file sees it | Possible with columns for the return date and who checked it |
| Equipment management tool with notifications | Sent to the borrower automatically from the checkout record | The admin’s screen shows the number of overdue items and a list of them | Recorded as part of the return and kept in the history |
Paper and spreadsheets can work. If only a few people borrow equipment and there are a handful of checkouts a week, the person in charge can check the list each morning and send the day-before reminders. If you run it by hand, decide who checks the list and when, and who covers on the days that person is off. Once checkouts happen nearly every day and more than ten people borrow equipment, keeping up the day-before reminders and the overdue checks by hand every day gets hard. That’s a good point to consider a tool that automates notifications.
Whatever you use to record loans, count the number of overdue checkouts once a month, along with how many days each one took to come back, so you can see the effect of any changes you make. The same numbers help you sort out the cause: if overdue items cluster around one type of equipment, its default loan period may be too short; if they cluster around one person, you need to talk to them directly.
If you’re starting with a spreadsheet, we offer a free checkout log template (in Japanese) where rows past their return date turn red automaticallySee how to build a checkout log, with a templateHow to put together a full set of equipment management rules, including rules for returns, is covered in a separate article.Read: how to write equipment management rulesMost late returns come from vague due dates and from nothing reminding the borrower. Set return dates down to the time at checkout, and for gear that leaves the building, make it due the business day after it gets back. Send the borrower a reminder the day before. Once the due date passes, send one notice, then have the admin agree on a date and time with the borrower. Accept extension requests made before the due date, and check that they don’t clash with the next booking. Treat a return as complete only when the record is closed, and for gear with accessories or data, have the person receiving it check it over before closing the record.
You don’t have to put all of this in place at once. For the first month, try just two things: include a time in every return date, and send a reminder the day before. Look at how the number of overdue items changes, then move on to the follow-up steps and return checks. You’ll get a much clearer picture of what your own process is missing.
Werp™ is a cloud-based equipment management system that runs entirely in the browser. You set a return date on each booking. Scanning the QR label on an item with a smartphone opens that item’s page, where you can record check-outs and check-ins. There’s no app to install.
For bookings that are checked out, the borrower gets an email and an in-app notification 24 hours before the due date and again once it has passed. Overdue items are also flagged to all admins in the app, and the admin home screen shows how many items are overdue and how many days late each one is.
Extensions are made by changing the booking period, and an extension that would overlap another booking for the same unit isn’t allowed. If someone other than the borrower records the return, the borrower gets an in-app notification. Check-outs and check-ins are kept in the usage history, so if missing accessories or damage turn up later, you can trace who used the item last and when.
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