Dome asset list will fight theft.

The entire contents of the Millennium Dome – right down to the last light bulb – have been bar coded to deter theft by visitors, Accountancy Age has learned. The New Millennium Experience Company – the organisation established to design, construct and fill the dome (above) – said it has adopted software to track and value every asset. There are an estimated 9,000 items including IT and office furniture, supporting pylons under the famous roof. Bar coding enables assets to be monitored for calculating depreciated net book value. NMEC also needs to ensure it can account for its inventory in a comprehensive asset register, a factor in choosing Surrey-based Hardcat’s asset register software. ‘People may be tempted,’ said Hardcat’s Paulo Maina. ‘If everything is labelled and has an asset number and a bar code it’s a deterant against casual theft,’ . NMEC fixed asset manager Iain Rees said: ‘Initially, we are only going to use Hardcat for tracking assets in the dome, and at our office sites. But we pre-empted the fact that we would want reports on our asset value in preparation for the sell-off of assets after the dome’s construction.’