> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.assetinfinity.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Lost & Found

> What was found on-site, what was reported missing, and the paper trail connecting the two.

Somebody found a phone in a meeting room. Somebody else reported a phone missing three days ago.
Lost & Found is the record of both, and the workflow that turns "we have an unclaimed phone" and
"I lost my phone" into the same phone.

The screen holds two registers, reached by tabs: **Lost reports** and **Found property**. A lost
report is somebody telling you something of theirs is missing. A found property entry is an item
that physically exists in your possession right now. They are different things with different
lifecycles — an item can be found with no report ever filed against it, and a report can sit open
with nothing found to match — which is why they are tracked separately rather than as one status
field.

## Lost reports

| Status        | Meaning                                        |
| ------------- | ---------------------------------------------- |
| **Open**      | Reported missing, nothing matched yet          |
| **Matched**   | A found item has been linked to this report    |
| **Returned**  | The item is back with its owner                |
| **Cancelled** | Withdrawn — found elsewhere, reported in error |

## Found property

| Status          | Meaning                                        |
| --------------- | ---------------------------------------------- |
| **In store**    | Logged and held, awaiting a claim              |
| **Claimed**     | Matched to a claimant, not yet handed back     |
| **Collected**   | Released to whoever claimed it                 |
| **Disposed of** | Held past its retention period and cleared out |

<Note>
  A found item does not need a lost report to exist. Plenty of what comes through Lost & Found —
  a stray charger, a water bottle — is never claimed at all, and goes straight from **In store** to
  **Disposed of**.
</Note>

## Matching a found item to a lost report

Rather than making you eyeball two lists and guess, the matching screen suggests candidates for
you. Open a found item and it surfaces open lost reports that plausibly describe it, each scored
by how closely it matches — category, description, location, date — with the closest candidates
first. You confirm a match; the system does not commit one on its own.

Confirming a match moves the lost report to **Matched** and the found item to **Claimed**. Nothing
is released yet — matching says "this is probably it," release says "and now it's gone."

## Releasing and disposing

**Release** is how a **Claimed** item leaves the store. It records who collected it — a named
collector, not just a tick box — and when. That name is your evidence if someone comes back later
asking where their property went.

**Dispose** is for items nobody ever claimed. Each of the twelve preset property categories —
phones, wallets, umbrellas, and so on — carries its own default holding period, so a phone might
sit in store for weeks while an umbrella clears out in days. Disposal is not available until that
period has passed, and it always asks for a reason: **donated**, **destroyed**, **sold**, **handed
to police**, **kept**, or **returned to the finder**.

<Warning>
  Disposing of an item is terminal. Once it is logged as donated, destroyed, sold, handed to
  police, kept, or returned to the finder, there is nothing left in the store to release against a
  late claim.
</Warning>

## Adding a report or item

Each register has its own **New** button — **New lost report** on the Lost reports tab, **New
found item** on the Found property tab.

Found items also get a shortcut into the global header: **+ Create → Found item** logs one from
anywhere in the app, without navigating to the Lost & Found screen first — useful for the person at
the front desk who has just been handed a set of keys and wants to log them before they get busy.

<Card title="Statuses and transitions" icon="route" href="/config/statuses">
  How the states above are configured, and what "allowed move" means for your organisation.
</Card>


## Related topics

- [Scan](/field/scan.md)
- [Work settings](/config/work.md)
- [The skills matrix](/workforce/skills.md)
- [Tool settings](/config/tools.md)
- [People and access](/setup/access.md)