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United States (EN)

Australia (EN)

Canada (EN)

Canada (FR)

France (FR)

Germany (DE)

Ireland (EN)

United Kingdom (EN)

Blog

Introducing Rippling Inventory Management

Author

Published

September 21, 2021

Updated

June 18, 2025

Read time

3 MIN

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Here’s how it works

Retrieve remote employees’ devices—100% hassle-free

Let’s imagine you’re offboarding a remote employee. Think about all the steps you would take to retrieve their device. You find a box, ship it to the employee, ask them to ship the device back (“Quickly, please!”), receive it, assess the condition, and store it until it gets reassigned to a new hire. Whew! 

Then you have to do it all over again when the next employee offboards.

Or you can choose to let Rippling manage that process for you. When you offboard an employee, we'll automatically send them a return box with a prepaid shipping label. You can track the status of their return, too—right in Rippling.

The old way

The Rippling Way

Exchange 10 emails with departing employee to coordinate device return

Employee finds a shipment box, packs up the device

Figure out how to reimburse the employee for the shipment

Track shipment on the FedEx website once employee ships the box

Unpack the package and manually assess device condition upon receipt

Manually wipe and lock the device

Update device status in spreadsheet

Throw it into the device pile in your IT closet

Rummage through the closet to find a device for the new hire

Set up the device for the new hire

Find a box, pack it, ship it, track it

Update device reassignment in spreadsheet

Automatically ship a return box and prepaid shipping label to employee

Have devices returned, assessed, wiped, and stored in a secure warehouse

Remotely set up and ship device to new hire without having to pack it

Kill the IT closet with a secure offsite warehouse

At Rippling, we pride ourselves on having a pretty amazing workspace, but the IT closet at our San Francisco office used to be a royal mess. When work went remote last year, that mess just moved into the home of our Employee Experience Manager. 

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Images are of the actual Rippling “IT closets” at our office and at the home of our Employee Experience Manager. Does your IT closet look like ours?

If you’re responsible for handling laptops, you dread the moment you have to collect an offboarding employee’s device and find somewhere to store it.

Rippling Inventory Management eliminates the need for you to physically store devices. We'll store your new and used devices offsite at our secure warehouse. You can manage your company’s entire inventory right from your Rippling dashboard—no matter how big your team is or where your employees are located.

Easily monitor and restock your offsite inventory

If someone asked you about the condition of all your unassigned devices, how would you get them an answer? You’d probably have to sift through all of them, turning each one on and labeling its condition with a sticky note. 

That might not seem like a big deal in the abstract. But who sets aside the time to do that? It might not seem as pressing as your other work until you’re scrambling to replace someone’s laptop and get it to them ASAP.

Rippling can give you full visibility into your device inventory. Every time you store a device in our offsite warehouse, we physically check it for damage and tag it in Rippling. On your dashboard, you can see which devices are in stock, what each one's condition is, and more.

And if you run low on inventory, you can even order new devices right in Rippling and store them at the warehouse for those hires that accept an offer on Friday and start on Monday.

Reassign and ship your unused devices to employees

Most businesses without a fully staffed IT team lack a scalable process for device onboarding and offboarding when their organization grows or downsizes. If a new employee is starting next week or a current employee’s laptop suddenly stops working, multiple people have to  stop what they’re doing and scramble to set up and ship a laptop.

As complex as it can be, delivering laptops on time is huge for making a positive first impression on new hires. It’s also key to productivity.

We make it easy for you to reassign devices from your inventory in minutes, directly from your dashboard. As soon as you choose the device, shipping speed, and address, we take care of the rest.

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Disclaimer

Rippling and its affiliates do not provide tax, accounting, or legal advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide or be relied on for tax, accounting, or legal advice. You should consult your own tax, accounting, and legal advisors before engaging in any related activities or transactions.

Author

Zaafir Kherani

Product Lead

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