Before the fiscal year-end, many companies discover they have old laptops, equipment from former employees, and unused hardware taking up space in inventory. This guide explains what to do with each (sell, reassign, decommission, or destroy) and how to turn that turnover into part of next year's budget.
In December, almost the exact same thing happens. Someone in IT opens the inventory to close out the numbers and finds an uncomfortable list: three laptops from employees who left in recent months and were never fully recovered, a batch of four- or five-year-old machines that no one wants to use anymore, and a pile of boxes left in a corner of the office or, worse, at the homes of former employees in another country.
The questions that arise then are: which of these devices are still worth anything, which need to be securely wiped, which are worth reassigning, and what to do with all of this before the fiscal year closes and a new year starts with a new budget.
The problem is that the end of the year brings three things together at once: the inventory that needs to be sorted out, next year's budget that needs planning, and a pile of idle equipment generating nothing. Handling them separately is what leads to the easy and expensive decision: leaving everything for later. This article is about tackling them together.
Why year-end is the best time to decide
The fiscal year-end is the natural moment to organize your hardware fleet because it forces you to look at the entire inventory, and that snapshot is precisely what is missing during the rest of the year. While operations are running, old equipment never faces an urgent deadline that forces a decision. The year-end close does: it's when the company reviews assets, plans purchases, and can convert idle hardware into capital for the upcoming year.
And the scale of the problem is larger than it seems. According to the UN's Global E-waste Monitor 2024 (ITU/UNITAR), 62 million metric tons of electronic waste were generated globally in 2022, and only 22.3% was documented as formally collected and recycled, with a projection of 82 million metric tons by 2030. Screens and computers make up a significant portion of that volume. Put another way: most hardware taken out of circulation does not end up with an organized destination. [itu]
And when this isn't anticipated in a company, a good portion of that hardware ends up being computers that still had value or data inside.
First, the inventory: what equipment exists, where it is, and in what condition
Before deciding the fate of anything, you need to know exactly what equipment exists, where it is physically located, and in what condition. Without that baseline, any decision is made blind: new equipment is purchased without knowing that there are four unrecovered units from the previous quarter, or something is decommissioned that was still suitable for reassignment.
A piece of equipment can be assigned, available, under repair, in transit, in storage, or decommissioned. If those statuses are not defined (or are on a spreadsheet that nobody has updated), the inventory says "we have 60 devices," but it doesn't say how many are actually available, how many need to be retrieved, and from which address. We explain this in detail in the article on the remote hardware lifecycle and asset management.
For the year-end closing, the minimum useful inventory has four columns per device: model and age, physical condition, actual location (country and whether it is in the possession of the company or an individual), and whether or not it contains unerased data. With that, you can already make decisions.
What to do with each piece of equipment: the five real options
When dealing with old or disused equipment, there are five possible outcomes, and the choice depends on three variables: age, condition, and whether it still has resale value. It is not a batch decision; it is device by device. The table below organizes the criteria.
Equipment status | Recommended destination | Why |
|---|---|---|
0–3 years, good condition, profile that the company still uses | Reassign to a new hire | Avoids a new purchase; it is the most direct saving |
2–4 years, functional, but with no one to assign it to right now | Store after wiping data | Remains ready for the next onboarding without purchasing |
3–5 years, functional, no planned use | Sell / BuyBack | It still has resale value that can be recovered as capital |
Any age, faulty or with high-risk sensitive data | Decommission with certified destruction | The data risk outweighs the residual value |
Very old or non-standard, no resale value | Donate or recycle in a certified manner | Responsible disposal instead of uncontrolled waste |
Certified erasure: the non-negotiable step, whether sold or destroyed
Certified erasure is the verifiable deletion of data from equipment before it leaves the company's control, documented with a certificate recording the serial number, method, and date. It is not optional, nor does it depend on the equipment's destination: it applies equally whether it is sold, donated, stored, or destroyed. A "quick format" is not secure erasure; the data remains recoverable.
This has a practical consequence for decommissioning: the choice between "selling" and "destroying" is not the same as "erasing or not erasing." Erasure is always performed. What changes is whether that erasure leaves the equipment suitable for a second life, or if the equipment goes straight to destruction because it is no longer usable or because the data is too sensitive to risk. The details of when each applies can be found in the article on secure equipment destruction and data protection.
BuyBack: How Old Equipment Finances the Upgrade
BuyBack is the repurchase of unused hardware by a specialized company, which evaluates it, quotes it in bulk or per unit, and pays for it in cash or credit for future purchases. It is, probably, the most underutilized tool in all hardware management: instead of letting equipment sit idle or giving it away in an offboarding without a process, part of the original investment is recovered.
The value criteria is simple and worth keeping in mind to avoid unreasonable expectations: a three- or four-year-old device in good condition still retains resale value; a six-year-old or faulty one, almost nothing. That's why BuyBack is a year-end decision, not a "someday" one: the longer it is postponed, the less the equipment is worth when it is finally quoted. How the full program works (diagnosis, quote, logistics, erasure, and payment) is detailed in the article on what hardware BuyBack is.
How to Organize It Before the Year-End Close with First Plug
Organizing all of this before the year-end close involves coordinating several things at once across different countries: retrieving devices held by former employees, performing certified data erasure, deciding the destination for each one, and recording the decommission. This reverse logistics is the most complicated part when the team is distributed, and it is where having an in-house operation in LATAM makes all the difference.
At First Plug, we manage that entire journey through our own operations in each country across the region: we coordinate pickup wherever the equipment is located, perform certified erasure, log the decommission in a traceable manner, and, depending on the case, allocate it for storage, redeployment, BuyBack, or secure destruction. All with a single point of contact, instead of dealing with a different provider per country. Coverage extends to over 170 countries, but what guarantees timelines and accountability at every handover point is that our operation in LATAM is our own, not outsourced.
And we are upfront about deadlines: retrieving equipment in Brazil does not take the same amount of time as in Colombia, because each country has its own logistics regulations. That is why starting before the close, rather than right against the deadline, is what allows devices to be processed by the time the books close.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it better to sell or decommission a four-year-old laptop?
If it works and is in good condition, selling it through BuyBack is almost always the best option: at four years old, it still retains resale value that will be lost if it sits idle for another year. Decommissioning with destruction is reserved for faulty equipment or devices containing high-risk data, where the risk outweighs any potential financial recovery.
What happens to the data if I sell the company's used equipment?
Before any sale, a certified data wipe must be performed, not just a simple format. Secure erasure deletes data in a verifiable way and is documented with a certificate per device. Without this step, company information can remain recoverable in the hands of third parties.
Can I retrieve equipment from former employees located in other countries?
Yes, although it is the most demanding part of the process. It requires coordinating reverse logistics in each country, with its own timelines and rules. Having local operations in each market is what makes it possible to go pick up the device wherever it is, rather than relying on the person to ship it on their own.
Does BuyBack work for very old equipment?
It depends on the resale value. Devices older than five or six years, or faulty ones, usually have little to no repurchase value; for those, the sensible destination is donation or certified recycling. BuyBack pays off with equipment that is still within its useful lifecycle.
What is the difference between certified erasure and destruction?
Certified erasure wipes the data while leaving the device fit to be reused or sold. Destruction physically renders the storage medium unusable and is used when the device is no longer functional or when the data is so sensitive that zero risk of recovery is accepted.
Conclusion
Closing the year with an orderly inventory is not just another administrative task: it is the difference between starting January by purchasing equipment you already had, or kicking it off with part of the upgrade already funded by what was phased out. Old devices do not gain value by waiting. Every month a working laptop spends sitting in a box, it loses resale value and adds data risk.
The core decision is simple: every piece of equipment leaving the company should have a defined destination (reassigned, sold, stored, decommissioned, or recycled), and none should ever leave without undergoing certified data erasure.
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