What is ID Card Software?

ID card software is any software that provides secure identification, barcode and asset tracking and visitor management. The following post gives a brief overview of each of the basic elements central to an ID card software program.

Secure Identification

Secure identification is the bread and butter of ID card software and is the process by which professional-looking and good quality ID cards are created. These cards, which are created for and issued to a building visitor upon entrance, are typically printed on the spot and can be used for a variety of purposes, such as corporate and student ID cards, government credentials and driver’s licenses. Identification badges usually display the picture of the individual on the front and function either through a barcode printed on the front or back of the card, through a magnetic strip embedded alongside the back of the card (as with a credit card), or through biometrics, which is the recording of biological characteristics such as fingerprints or DNA.

Barcode and Asset Tracking

An asset is defined as any permanent piece of equipment or item used by a business on a regular and fixed basis. Assets can generally be split into two categories: tangible and non-tangible. Thus, computers, phones, desks, hardware, computer files and data are all considered assets and a company must be able to track them on a regular basis.

Asset tracking is integrally related to asset protection, or retail loss prevention, which is an investigative method into the occurrence of workplace theft. According to the 2006 National Retail Security Survey, company losses and their percentages are split into 5 main categories:  46.8% from employee theft, 31.6% from shoplifting, 14.4% from administrative error, 3.75% from vendor error, and 2.86% from unknown error. While there is no way to determine how much revenue goes unaccounted for yearly through retail loss, failure to properly track business assets can lead to very high costs for the company, estimated at billions of dollars a year.

Some of the main problems associated with asset tracking are the amount of time needed to locate missing items, repurchasing lost items and the complexity involved with substantiating asset inventories, all of which contribute to revenue loss. Jolly, an asset tracking software provider, allows a company to track their assets by connecting to existing databases such as MS Access, MS SQL Server, MySQL, Excel spreadsheets, CSV or text files.

Visitor Management

Visitor management refers to the system used to track public building traffic by recording the identity, location and number of people entering and exiting the site on a daily basis. Visitor management software typically focuses on three basic elements: visitor registration, badge printing and creating reports from collected data.

After the Oklahoma Federal Building was bombed by Timothy McVeigh in 1995, which took 168 lives, injured more than 680 people and cost approximately $652 million in damages, a report later determined that he carried out preliminary walkthroughs of the building’s lobby. Investigative access to a corporation’s visitor management data reports, which record an individual’s whereabouts and visitor frequency, are instrumental in preventing similar events.

Usage of a typical visitor management software system requires that a person entering the building register for a company-issued identification badge, usually printed on the spot, which he swipes every time enters or exits the building. The badge is also used to gain access to different parts of the building, in some cases including elevators. At the end of a given period the information amassed regarding the traffic of all building visitors is created into a report and stored.

ID Card Software Categories

Different vendors divide their software options in variant ways. For example, Asure ID divides its software features into 4 different software packages, while Jolly categorizes them as Standard Edition Software and Premier Edition Software.