A set is always in motion. In live production, items are exchanged quickly by dozens of people between rehearsals, scenes, storage units, trucks, and stages. When coordination breaks down… which it often does… you need emergency replacements. Missing gear leads, in no small part, to a longer production timeline.
The Pre-Show Panic is so common that it's tradition at this point. But it really doesn't have to be that way anymore. With Scanlily's suite, entertainment and media companies can track every item, stay on budget, and ensure the production wraps up on time.
How Hard is it to Track Production Equipment?
A mid-size theatre or media production can have maybe 300 to 500 trackable items moving constantly. From props, lighting & electrics, sound equipment, scene construction tools, to costumes and media gear. Companies and filmmakers, trying to keep costs down, may use loaned items. But this still doesn't solve the problem of misplacing them anyway.
A tracking option these companies sometimes use involves expensive enterprise asset management software that charges per user and is difficult to use. The cost of the software even competes with the production budget. But, as expected, these solutions don't last long because, aside from the price, they are complex and don't put accountability in the hands of people who handle the tools most.
Crews may not know it yet, but they already have the perfect tool for tracking inventory right in their pocket… smartphones.
How Scanlily Solves Tracking Problems
Scanlily is an equipment management system built for how production sets function. Using AI recognition and QR codes, the tracking experience shifts from slow and inefficient to a fast process that only needs your phone camera. Our use of image capture tech, app-less interaction, and mobile-first design counters the failures of traditional enterprise software.
Instant Visual Catalog with AI
One of the major problems with digitizing production inventory is the time needed to type in descriptions for hundreds of items. Scanlily changes this with AI image recognition. Now, production teams can just photograph items, and our AI automatically identifies each one and creates a separate entry for each in seconds.
In fact, the AI creates a visual inventory for crew members. For example, a "blue velvet" chair can be differentiated from another "blue Victorian" one.
The AI can even recognize multiple items on a shelf or in a container from a single photo, speeding up the way you catalog props or costume racks. This method also works with video. You can record your gear with your voice listing the type of equipment, say, "video gear for Broadway production. First Crew", and the AI automatically extracts the items and creates the catalog. How convenient is that?
QR Labels That Work Backstage
Scanlily provides QR stickers that you can place on prop boxes, equipment cases, and tools. With app-less viewing, anyone with a smartphone camera can scan the code to see exactly what is in a case, where an item belongs, or its current status. You don't even need to install the Scanlily app or create an account. Traditional software cannot compete with this decentralized visibility.
Use Containers for Department Organization
Scanlily's container feature digitally mirrors how production departments organize gear. It doesn't matter if you want to track boxes, cases, or trunks. A user can create a container record and nest items inside it. So, instead of opening every box to check its contents, you just scan the QR sticker on the case. Containers can also be nested in hierarchies. Meaning, a box of adapters can be nested inside a larger cable trunk, which is nested inside a truck, etc. All of this is automated, so you get to do less and achieve more!
Tag GPS Across Venues
We already know that tools go missing more when they move around a lot, which media and production companies do. Scanlily addresses this with passive GPS tracking. When a crew member scans an item, our software automatically captures the coordinates (if permitted), creating a location history or trail without an active, battery-draining GPS tracker on every item. You no longer need duplicate budgets for the same set of items. No matter where the tools are, you can just 'ask your inventory' and find them.
Flag Gear Condition Before It's Too Late
Accidents happen on set all the time. It could be a costume tear, set damage, or even forgetting to charge sound and video equipment for a shoot. Some of these are preventable using logs. Scanlily allows crew members to flag items as Broken, Needs Repair, or Maintenance Due from their phones. The repair department can receive alerts and set reminders to prep before the next performance or rehearsal.
Booking and Checkout for Shared Items
It is common for theatre companies or production houses to have multiple productions running at a time. Tools will move from Production A's set in the morning to Production B in the afternoon. Without a system to know who has what, many tools will disappear into the schedules.
Scanlily introduced an equipment and item booking feature to manage shared inventory. The best advantage of our software is that it's easy to use without any training. With just your phone, you can check items out to different productions, crew members, or companies, just like a library.
The system has three modes:
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Checkout Mode: Tracks who has the item.
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Reservation Mode: A calendar system to prevent double-bookings.
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Reservation with Pickup: Combines calendar booking with physical verification when collecting.
Transfer Baskets for Consumables
Some items usually get used up rather than returned, like gaffer tape, batteries, or screws. Scanlily's Transfer Baskets feature allows set managers to track quantities as they move from stock to production location. The feature also supports MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Operations) inventory management, ensuring the team knows exactly how many rolls of tape went where.
Protect Your Insurance, Budgets, and Documentation
Based on research, budget and insurance documentation are real concerns for theatre companies. Beyond daily logistics, Scanlily also helps with your administration and finances.
Insurance Documentation
When filing an insurance claim, the burden of proof lies with the company. Scanlily automates this documentation by keeping:
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Photo Evidence: Every item record includes photographs proving the item's existence and condition over time.
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Serial Numbers: AI-captured serial numbers provide details to insurers for claims.
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Receipts and Values: You can attach receipts and value estimates for replacement claims directly to item records.
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Instant Access: Insurance details and warranty information are instantly accessible without searching through filing cabinets.
Tracking inventory this way also prevents lazy spending. Everyone who handles the tools is now responsible for them in a coordinated ecosystem, no excuses. When people know that every interaction can be traced to them with evidence, there's a better incentive to prevent loss.
The system also tracks the replacement value of the entire inventory for better financial planning. Plus, documenting borrowed/loaned items prevents problems with the owners that could lead to financial liability.
Grant Audits
Non-profit theatre companies and educational institutions that are audited or write grant reports can use Scanlily's exportable reports, which show full asset inventories. You now have a full digital record (photos, video, and written) with an audit trail that justifies the need for more grant funding.
Why Scanlily is Perfect for Production Teams
The asset management market is crowded, yet production teams still haven't found the right fit. Spreadsheets and static barcodes don't work for filming and production because they offer no automated visuals, no open mobile access, and no real-time updates.
Traditional software takes accountability away from the many and gives it to a select few, who, many times in the daily chaos, will fail to keep up. By the time a tool reaches its third exchange of the day, it's already at risk of being lost forever. Now, multiply that by hundreds of tools and people.
It also doesn't help that the basic visibility you get from legacy tools requires a dedicated team to use (you're already running on limited time), AND it's still expensive. Think about how impractical per-user pricing is for productions with rotating crews and volunteers.
What Scanlily offers instead is a Goldilocks solution that fits just right:
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Our tech works on the phones the crew already carries.
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No app required for volunteers or guest crew to view info via QR codes.
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AI catalogs of hundreds of items in a single video walkthrough, saving hours in documentation time.
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Access your visual inventory like a photo library. Simply scan, snap, document, and export data in a few steps.
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Scanlily's services are affordable. Our pricing model does not compete with your production budgets.
Conclusion
Every show has enough variables. Your inventory shouldn't be one of them. Each member of your team, from stagehands to technical directors, carries the weight of all the moving parts. All equipment needs to be in the right place at the right time, or the chaos disrupts rehearsals, wastes already slim budgets, and creates panic that burns out crew members and compromises production quality.
If the show must go on, inventory must keep up. Scanlily gives theatres, media, and production teams a system that works the way they do: fast, visual, mobile, and interconnected. When you can finally account for everything on set, inventory stops being painful and wasteful and starts delivering ROI.