An Asset is anything supplied to a customer on a do-and-charge basis. For example, computer/network hardware, phone cards (ie. 100 free calls, then charge per minute after that), photocopier/printer on a cost per copy basis, etc.
An Asset can be installed at a customer, then returned, refurbished and installed at a different customer, keeping all history on the Asset, rather than on individual contracts.
This is about separating Assets from Projects, and enhancing the Project interface. This means that the information that is typically stored in the header of a Project can now be split, and one Asset can be related to many Projects, and multiple Assets can be linked to a Project. For this reason, serial numbers are now stored at an Asset level, rather than a Project level.
Assets can be placed into Groups to allow further filtering in lists, etc.
Further information
How to