Rental management software

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The rental industry spans many different types of equipment from tools to heavy construction equipment, aerial to vehicles, party and event to computers and test and measurement equipment and highly specialized areas such as Crane and Temporary Accommodation rental. In the UK and some parts of Europe it is referred to as the Hire Industry. [1]

Contents

History

Like most software development, initial rental software systems were developed in the 1970s and 1980s as custom or bespoke solutions provided for individual rental companies and occurred in parallel in locations across the globe. In the last two decades a number of leading players have emerged providing solutions for everything from one or two user systems in a single store to international, multi-company and multi-location organizations.

The rental industry itself continues [2] to adapt and re-shape, as different players enter the market and national boundaries become less significant. The introduction and expansion of increasing numbers of manufacturers, such as Volvo Rents, and CAT into the rental industry as direct providers of rental services is also re-shaping the way that individual rental software providers adapt their software.

Rental Management Software Functionality

Rental management software should cover all aspects of a rental business in a systematic way including Financials (GL, AR and AP), Equipment Servicing, CRM and reporting functionality allowing rental businesses to achieve all their business analytics from within a single package. Rental management software that integrates with 'off-the-shelf' accounting software can provide a viable alternative to the 'all-in-one' solutions. There are distinct industry requirements which need to be managed within the software, with Utilization one of the most important. These special features include:

  1. Reservations and Allocations management based on differing contract durations and customer requests.
  2. Dispatch/Pick-Up/Returns Process Management with the ability to manage partial dispatches and returns including asset tracking and signature capture on delivery / pick up..
  3. Accessories, Attachments & Kits including sale or return items such as fuel.
  4. 'In Lieu of' or alternate items when equipment is not available as expected.
  5. Transport management including ordering in outside haulage and keeping track of revenue and cost against delivery vehicles.
  6. Product Exchanges and swap outs on live contracts
  7. Site Moves/Drop Ship & Relocations within live contracts
  8. Contract Charging Profile determining when and how charging is generated including flexibility on excess hours charges, charging by hour / day / week / month etc.
  9. Product Service Units and clock hour recording and maintenance triggers
  10. Bill Processing for long term rental contracts on specific cycles (continuation or recurring invoicing), automated off-rent billing and additional charge management.
  11. Sale or Return consumables must be managed alongside rental products.
  12. Rent to Purchase or Rent to Own agreements with pre-determined contracts to take ownership of assets at a specific point in the contract.
  13. Product Revenue Accruals to provide revenue forecasts for rental contracts not billed at month end.
  14. Product Utilization including Physical and Financial (dollar utilization) must be recorded.
  15. Stock Locations and tracking of equipment between locations including inter-branch or inter-store transfers, and for larger businesses inter-company transfers.
  16. Cash Customers/Contracts with cash drawer or till reconciliation and deposit management.
  17. Sub-Rent or Re-Rent management including the ability to initiate rentals from third parties to cover contract obligations.
  18. Product Service Inspection/Repair including the ability to trigger maintenance activity based on rental status, off-rent damage reports and clock hours or other service units.
  19. Operated Equipment or Wet Rental where operators are sent out with the machine or equipment, and the rental charges are based on a combination of timesheet and standard rental charges. This is generally referred to as Timesheet Billing. This is common practice in crane rental in Europe and in larger equipment rental in India and Asia.
  20. The ability to manage Safety Critical Equipment or Safety Critical Plant including the recording of inspection and examination certificates.
  21. Rental Rate Optimization and Yield Management. [3]

For rental business' working across country boundaries then additional special functionality may include multi-currency, multi-tax jurisdiction and multi-lingual needs.

There are also specialized forms of rental which are either a precursor to a sale of a large piece of equipment, or a special business model normally referred to as Rent-to-own. This specialized area has its own industry body [4] and multiple rental companies across the world are represented. [5]

Implementing rental software

Implementing rental software requires the same basic principles as any other software implementation. The International Rental News and Rental Equipment Register Magazines [6] both offer advice on software implementation. [7]

Real Estate Rental Management Software

Rental management software for real estate properties can include end-to-end functionality such as marketing, rental applications, tenant screening, property management, payment processing, and accounting.

The use of software in the property rental industry has become more frequent as large property management companies now account for one-third of the annual rentals in the United States.

Oilfield Rental Management Software

Oilfield Rental Management Software helps equipment rental and oilfield service companies with field ticket management, rentals automatic invoicing, manage and track company assets, invoicing and billing etc.

Industry bodies

There is no specific industry body for rental software companies, although most of the larger companies work with either the American Rental Association [8] or the European Rental Association. [9] The American Rental Association also has industry approved metrics that it recommends software providers follow. [10] Country specific software companies will work with their own local rental associations.

In Australia, the body is Hire and Rental Industry Association. [11] In New Zealand the association is Hire Industry Association NZ. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Renting</span> Payment for temporary use; hiring

Renting, also known as hiring or letting, is an agreement where a payment is made for the use of a good, service or property owned by another over a fixed period of time. To maintain such an agreement, a rental agreement is signed to establish the roles and expectations of both the tenant and landlord. There are many different types of leases. The type and terms of a lease are decided by the landlord and agreed upon by the renting tenant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Accounts payable</span> Money owed by business to its suppliers

Accounts payable (AP) is money owed by a business to its suppliers shown as a liability on a company's balance sheet. It is distinct from notes payable liabilities, which are debts created by formal legal instrument documents. An accounts payable department's main responsibility is to process and review transactions between the company and its suppliers and to make sure that all outstanding invoices from their suppliers are approved, processed, and paid. The accounts payable process starts with collecting supply requirements from within the organization and seeking quotes from vendors for the items required. Once the deal is negotiated, purchase orders are prepared and sent. The goods delivered are inspected upon arrival and the invoice received is routed for approvals. Processing an invoice includes recording important data from the invoice and inputting it into the company's financial, or bookkeeping, system. After this is accomplished, the invoices must go through the company's respective business process in order to be paid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ryder</span> American transportation company

Ryder System, Inc. is an American transportation and logistics company. It is known for its fleet of commercial rental trucks.

An invoice, bill or tab is a commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer relating to a sale transaction and indicating the products, quantities, and agreed-upon prices for products or services the seller had provided the buyer.

Property management is the operation, control, maintenance, and oversight of real estate and physical property. This can include residential, commercial, and land real estate. Management indicates the need for real estate to be cared for and monitored, with accountability for and attention to its useful life and condition. This is much akin to the role of management in any business.

E-procurement is the business-to-business or business-to-consumer or business-to-government purchase and sale of supplies, work, and services through the Internet as well as other information and networking systems, such as electronic data interchange and enterprise resource planning.

A rental agreement is a contract of rental, usually written, between the owner of a property and a renter who desires to have temporary possession of the property; it is distinguished from a lease, which is more typically for a fixed term. As a minimum, the agreement identifies the parties, the property, the term of the rental, and the amount of rent for the term. The owner of the property may be referred to as the lessor and the renter as the lessee.

Universal Business Language (UBL), ISO/IEC 19845, is an open library of standard electronic business documents and information models for supply chain, procurement, and transportation such as purchase orders, invoices, transport logistics and waybills. Originally developed by an OASIS Technical Committee with participation from a variety of industry data standards organizations. UBL is designed to plug directly into existing business, legal, auditing, and records management practices. It is designed to streamline information exchange through standardization, facilitating seamless connections between small, medium-sized, and large organization, thereby eliminating the re-keying of data and providing a comprehensive framework for electronic commerce.

Time-tracking software includes programs and applications that allows its users to record time spent on tasks or projects. Multiple industries utilize this type of software, including those that employ freelancers and hourly workers. These include lawyers, freelancers and accountants.

Utilization is the primary method by which tool rental companies measure asset performance. In its most basic form it measures the actual revenue earned by assets against the potential revenue they could have earned.

Mobile asset management is managing availability and serviceability of assets used to move, store, secure, protect and control inventory within the enterprise and along the supply chain or in conjunction with service providing.

Professional services automation (PSA) is software designed to assist professionals, such as lawyers, auditors, and IT consultants, with project management and resource management for client projects and utilization rate management for billable staff. This is accomplished by developing metrics to quantify and qualify basic business processes that can then be used to streamline and improve those processes.

A vendor management system (VMS) is an Internet-enabled, often Web-based application that acts as a mechanism for business to manage and procure staffing services – temporary, and, in some cases, permanent placement services – as well as outside contract or contingent labor. Typical features of a VMS application include order distribution, consolidated billing and significant enhancements in reporting capability that outperforms manual systems and processes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Accounting software</span> Computer program that maintains account books

Accounting software is a computer program that maintains account books on computers, including recording transactions and account balances. It may depend on virtual thinking. Depending on the purpose, the software can manage budgets, perform accounting tasks for multiple currencies, perform payroll and customer relationship management, and prepare financial reporting. Work to have accounting functions be implemented on computers goes back to the earliest days of electronic data processing. Over time, accounting software has revolutionized from supporting basic accounting operations to performing real-time accounting and supporting financial processing and reporting. Cloud accounting software was first introduced in 2011, and it allowed the performance of all accounting functions through the internet.

Barloworld Limited is an industrial brand management company, founded in South Africa. Once a large conglomerate with many unrelated businesses, ranging at various times from mining, information technology and building materials to motor vehicles, it has repositioned itself as an industrial brand management company and unbundled many of its assets. Its headquarters was at the sprawling Barlow Park campus in Sandton, Johannesburg. It had been sponsor of the Barloworld cycling team.

Equipment rental, also called plant hire in some countries, is a service industry providing machinery, equipment and tools of all kinds and sizes for a limited period of time to final users, mainly to construction contractors but also to industry and individual consumers. Renting can be defined as paying someone for the use of something for temporary or short-term purposes.

Operated Equipment Rental is the term used for the rental of large or complex machinery where the rental company supplies an operator or driver to operate the machinery. This is also sometimes referred to as Wet Rental, and Operated Plant. In India, the Middle East and Asia a large percentage of all heavy equipment and cranes are supplied with operator reflecting the comparative youth of training programs for specialized operators in construction companies in those countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Result Group</span>

Result Group sold a specialist equipment management software application: rentalresult to companies renting and managing assets, e.g., cranes, tools, heavy equipment, aerial, modular space, computer hardware and test & measuring equipment since 1994. It was privately owned and incorporated in Delaware and the United Kingdom. The company was acquired by Wynne Systems Inc of Irvine, CA in December 2015 and the RentalResult product continues as a brand under the Wynne umbrella.

WorkingPoint is a web-based application providing a suite of small business management tools. It is designed to offer a single point-of-access for all business management needs while offering a user-friendly interface. WorkingPoint’s functionalities include double-entry bookkeeping, contact management, inventory management, invoicing and bill & expense management.

Enterprise legal management (ELM) is a practice management strategy of corporate legal departments, insurance claims departments, and government legal and contract management departments.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.hae.org.uk Hire Association Europe
  2. ↑ Article on expansion of rental industry in 1957
  3. ↑ http://www.khl-group.com/news/printarticle.asp?articleid=2441 Yield Management
  4. ↑ "What is APRO? - Membership Benefits". www.rtohq.org. Archived from the original on 2008-02-08.
  5. ↑ http://www.rtohq.org/apro-rent-to-own-organization-and-company-websites.html list of rent to own companies.
  6. ↑ http://rermag.com/ RER Magazine
  7. ↑ http://www.khl.com/magazines/international-rental-news/detail/item26555/Rental-software:-the-key-to-successful-implementation/ Implementing rental software
  8. ↑ http://www.ararental.org American Rental Association
  9. ↑ http://www.erarental.org European Rental Association
  10. ↑ http://www.ararental.org/Business-Resources/Business-Measurement-Tools/Rental-Market-Metrics ARA Market Metrics
  11. ↑ http://www.hireandrental.com.au HRIA
  12. ↑ http://www.hianz.net.nz HIANZ
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