One row per item, signed out and signed back in.
The loan log that settles “I thought Dan had it”: what went out, who took it, the state it was in, and the date it is supposed to come back.
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- 9 columns, both ends of the loan
- Prints as a paper form
- Condition out and condition in
A sign-out sheet is a record of two moments, not one
Most loan logs record the handover and stop. That is the half that is easy to remember and the half that settles nothing: an argument about a cracked screen, a hunt for a projector in July, a leaver's last day — all three are questions about the second moment. This sheet has a column for each end of the loan, and the discipline it needs is completing the row rather than starting a new one.
The nine columns, and which end of the loan they belong to
Four are filled in when the item leaves, four when it comes back, and one is the promise in between. The file opens with five blank rows and a note; add rows as you need them.
| Column | What goes in it | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Date out | The day it physically left, not the day you got round to writing it down. | 2026-09-14 |
| Item | What it is, in the words the person borrowing it would use. | Projector, Epson EB-S41 |
| Serial / asset tag | Which one of the four identical projectors this is. | PRJ-002 |
| Issued to | A named person. This is the column the whole sheet exists for. | Jane Smith |
| Condition out | The state it left in, in enough detail to be worth quoting later. “Fine” is not. | Small dent on lid, remote present |
| Due back | A date, even an approximate one. A loan with no end is a gift. | 2026-09-21 |
| Date returned | Filled in on the same row. Starting a second row for the return is how a sheet loses count. | 2026-09-22 |
| Condition in | Compared against the condition-out cell, which is the only reason that cell exists. | As issued |
| Signed off by | Whoever checked it back in. Not always the person who issued it, which is exactly why it is a column. | Sam Patel |
Download the sign-out sheet
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Running it so it stays true
- Keep one sheet, not one per person
A single sheet sorted by date is searchable and countable. A folder of per-person sheets hides the only question anybody asks — what is out right now — behind opening thirty files. - Write the condition before it leaves the room
Condition recorded afterwards is a memory, and a memory is what the argument is about. Ten seconds and one specific noun is enough. - Give every loan a due-back date
Even “end of term” or “Friday” beats blank. Sorting by that column is what turns the sheet into a to-do list instead of an archive. - Complete the row, never delete it
The returned row is the evidence. Overwriting or deleting it leaves you with a sheet that only knows about the present, which is the one thing you could already see by looking around. - Print it if the kit lives by a door
A clipboard next to the cupboard gets filled in; a spreadsheet on somebody's laptop does not. Type the week up afterwards if you want it searchable.
Where a sign-out sheet quietly stops working
The condition columns are blank.
They are the slowest to fill in and the only ones that pay for themselves. A sheet with a full loan history and no condition notes cannot settle a single damage question.
Rows get deleted on return.
It feels tidy and it destroys the history. Six months later nobody can say who had the camera the week it stopped focusing.
“IT” or “Marketing” in the Issued to column.
A department cannot be chased and cannot sign anything. Name the person who walked out with it, even if the team pays for it.
Nobody reads it between events.
A sheet is a record, not a reminder — it will never tell you that three items went overdue on Tuesday. Someone has to open it, which is the job that gets dropped first.
The same nine columns, with the chasing attached
KitLog is this sheet with the parts nobody wants to do by hand: the due-back date becomes an automatic reminder, condition is captured at both ends against the item rather than a row, every completed loan stays in that item's permanent history, and a person who is leaving gets a return checklist of everything they hold. The handover still takes two clicks. Start on the spreadsheet — it is the right answer for twenty items that never leave the building — and bring it with you if the chasing becomes somebody's afternoon.
Questions, answered
- Should the person borrowing the item sign it?
- A signature makes the handover something the borrower took part in rather than something an administrator wrote down, which changes how seriously it is treated. If the kit goes home rather than to another desk, use the equipment loan agreement instead — it says what happens if the item is lost, which a sign-out row does not.
- One sheet for everything, or one per department?
- One, until it is genuinely unwieldy. The question a sign-out sheet exists to answer is “what is out and with whom”, and every split you make is another file somebody has to remember to check before answering it.
- How do we handle something out for months?
- Put a realistic due-back date on it rather than leaving the cell empty, and treat the date as a review point instead of a deadline. A long loan with a date is visible; a long loan with a blank cell disappears.
- Can we use this for kit going out to an event or a job?
- You can, and the trick is the Serial / asset tag column — a job's worth of kit is many rows sharing a date and a person, so sorting by date gives you the load-out list and the returns list side by side.