Frequently asked questions

Most asset lists are incomplete, out of date, or both. flint changes that. Your team films the assets with a smartphone. flint detects and classifies every asset, reads the nameplate and adds location, components and visible defects. The result is a complete asset register with an image and video for every asset, ready for your CAFM.

For everyone who operates buildings and needs to know what is really inside:

• Owners and operators with their own portfolio
• Cantons, municipalities and schools
• FM service providers, from tender through mobilisation to ongoing operations

We work in Switzerland and Germany.

No and no. flint is not a CAFM, and it is not just a data supplier. flint is the system that keeps your asset data current during operations. This happens on the flint platform, with an image and video for every asset, in sync with your CAFM. Your CAFM stays where it is.

flint is a Swiss company based in Zurich, founded in 2025 by Thomas Kessler (CEO) and Fabio Bernasconi (CTO). Thomas previously co-founded Locatee, a workplace analytics software acquired by Tango in 2024.

Usually your own team: technicians, caretakers, property managers. No specialist knowledge is needed, a short training is enough. Your people know the buildings best anyway. If you lack the capacity, flint can carry out the walkthrough as an additional service.

A smartphone no more than two or three years old and the standard camera app. No special app, no internet on site and no floor plans are needed. A torch for dark plant rooms and a selfie stick for assets mounted up high are helpful.

Training usually takes 30 minutes by video call. For larger rollouts, we spend half a day walking through a real building together.

flint captures everything that needs maintenance: heating, ventilation, air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, safety systems and lifts. Roof, façade and windows are also in the catalogue, and custom asset types can be added.

You decide the depth. An air handling unit, for example, can be one asset or split into its components.

For each asset you receive:

• Classification
• Location (building, floor, room)
• Manufacturer, model, serial number and other nameplate data
• Components
• An image and the timestamp in the video

On request, we add a defect report with a severity rating per finding. You get everything as Excel or directly in your CAFM's import format. Expect around 48 hours from upload to result.

A fair question. With manual surveys, hardly anyone asks it: three caretakers produce three different inventories, and nobody measures the quality.

With flint, every asset can be traced back to a second in the video. That way errors get found instead of hidden. An internal quality assurance step also ensures data quality.

The flint data model is based on eBKP-H, BKP and DIN 276. If you work with a different standard or your own asset key, we translate the data into it. We set up the mapping once per portfolio, and it then applies to every further building.

flint delivers to any system that can import data, via import file or API. Our customers work with Planon, Campos, Dalux, SAP and Abacus, among others.

You give us an import template or a sample export. flint proposes the mapping, and we refine it together. We take over existing room numbers, manufacturer lists and asset data from your system. That way the import fits what is already there.

That is exactly the trap. An inventory that is captured once and then filed in the CAFM is wrong again after a few years. That is why your asset register stays alive with flint: on the flint platform, with an image and video for every asset, verifiable at any time and in sync with your CAFM.

Three things:

• Time: With flint, one person captures 400–500 assets per day (our internal record is around 1,000), compared to 80–100 with clipboard and Excel. That is around 5× faster, and there is no follow-up work in the office.
• Cost: The survey is typically 30–60% cheaper.
• Risk: Complete, traceable data means fewer assets forgotten in maintenance contracts and fewer discussions about what is really in the building. And when it matters, you can prove it.

We run the numbers with your own hours and rates.

Per asset, not per building or square metre. You pay once for the capture and optionally annually for the platform. The more assets, the lower the price per asset. You get a concrete offer after a short conversation. It usually includes three packages so you can choose the right scope.

Yes. We work with single buildings just as we do with portfolios of dozens of properties. For a portfolio, we calculate the business case for all buildings at once and then start with the first buildings. That way you see early on what flint means for the whole portfolio.

With a first project: typically a few buildings or 500–1,000 assets, in two weeks from survey to import. Beforehand, we agree on three success criteria: data quality, business case and integration into your system.

For larger portfolios, we work in waves or groups of buildings.

In the EU. flint runs on Google Cloud and is GDPR-compliant. We sign a data processing agreement with you, and large FM service providers have accepted ours as well. flint runs exclusively in the cloud; there is no on-premise version.

People are not filmed, and those filming are instructed accordingly. If your IT has detailed questions, we will set up a call with our CTO.

You take it with you. Every survey includes 30 days of access to the flint platform. During this time you can review and export everything, as Excel or in your CAFM's format. After that, the platform is optional. It is worth it if you want images and videos available long-term, because most CAFM systems can't do that.