The equipment rental industry is proliferating exponentially in today’s age. This outstanding growth can be attributed to urbanization projects and increased government spending on infrastructure development.
However, most construction contractors no longer want to invest in high ticket equipment they’d only be using once for a project. For this reason, they resort to ordering such heavy equipment from equipment rental businesses.
This shifts the onus of equipment management and maintenance onto the rental companies. The ever-growing competition and widespread distribution of their B2B customers further adds to this pressure.
To cope with this, most rental business owners now use smart rental management solutions to keep tabs on their orders across various business locations.
These solutions not only help rental owners with oversight of equipment but also let them schedule regular repair sessions. This ensures that their fleet is always in top shape before they rent it out to different business locations.
Continuous location tracking of items in the order also pulls down instances of theft and embezzlement. No matter which business location your inventory is at, with a dedicated rental management solution you can always keep it under check.
Here are 5 ways you can use rental management software to seamlessly manage rentals across different business locations.
1. Centralize your data logs
You know your business is advancing when you get orders on a continuous basis. It sure brings in more bucks and reflects positive asset utilization patterns.
However, it makes the reservation and record keeping processes more laborious, especially when your business is spread across numerous warehouses.
When you manage thousands of rental items across different business locations, it gets even harder to keep track of what is available. It is also crucial to know which items are due for return from where.
You must also be wary of how much inventory you have at hand on a certain location, so you do not overbook for your orders. This is where rental management software steps in to save the day.
It keeps a centralized log of your inventory whichever customer or business location it may live at. Most rental management software systems come saddled with a dashboard calendar.
It shows the availability of each of the items in your rental repository over selected time intervals. This way you only reserve items that are available for a specified order duration and can ensure conflict-free bookings.
It also helps you monitor the capacity at each of your business locations so excessive orders do not put a strain on your resources. A consolidated database also enables you to review the maintenance status of your rental assets across different locations.
You can track performance issues and take immediate corrective actions. This reduces instances of equipment breakdowns and guarantees functioning inventory at all business locations.
2. Optimize your inventory level
The prime reason for the growth of equipment rental businesses is the big-ticket asset items involved. It’s not a wise move to squander your company budget into unnecessary purchases.
You must not overstock for items that will only lie dormant in the warehouses. On the contrary, it is also important to house enough inventory so you can meet your customer requirements.
Inventory shortfalls are the main cause of lost revenue. For this reason, it is essential to stockpile optimum levels of inventory. With rental management software in place, you can dig deeper into your customers’ minds.
It helps you glean over trends in customer preferences, and highlights the most rented out equipment. This way you can purchase more of what your customers want.
You can even set minimum inventory level thresholds across each of your business locations. Whenever your stock reaches this threshold at any one of the locations, the system will automatically generate purchase orders and notify your vendors to replenish the stock.
A credible rental management system lets you maintain a balance between customer demands and your inventory needs.
3. Reduce theft and late or damaged returns
Equipment rental industry is fast-paced. Any breakdowns or disruptions can make you slog through your daily operations. This situation is aggravated when any of your rented out items are lost and returned late or in a damaged condition.
The extra time needed for retrieving the lost asset or repairing the damaged one simply holds you back. When this happens, you should be able to charge the concerned customers for the lost time or lost sales.
Most rental systems come integrated with sensors that monitor the working condition of your rented equipment. Whenever a customer misappropriates an asset, the system will notify you.
You can even trace back the culprit by identifying who the asset was rented out to. The software also lets you set rules to charge the customer for any late or damage fines.
This way you can ensure timely returns and ascertain that they are being used the right way, whichever business location they are at. The GPS technology also helps you hunt down misplaced assets in case you suspect theft.
With rental management software bearing the brunt of such trivial issues, you can focus on more strategic business tasks.
4. Gain useful business insights
Running equipment rental across different business locations blindly is just a fool’s game. You need to periodically evaluate the performance of each of your branches and zero in on ones that are not bringing in any profits.
Business locations that squeeze out all your investments and don’t give any returns need to be shut down instantly. Rental management software aids you in this pursuit with its reports module.
You can run monthly, semi-annual or annual reports on each of your business locations to gauge their performance. This allows you to map out your long term business strategies and capitalize on locations that get the most bang for your buck.
You can extract information on asset utilization, profit margins and revenue streams from different locations. The rental software unwinds and presents all this complex data in the form of easy-to-understand graphs.
You can even filter results by products or customers to see which business locations lead to most orders and of which kind. These insightful reporting capabilities of a rental management system allow for informed decision making that is corroborated by meaningful statistics.
You can even download and share these reports with relevant stakeholders when needed.
Stay laser-focused on your rental management strategies
Managing your rental fleet across numerous business locations can get quite frustrating. You’re always juggling between different tasks at different work sites.
It not only pertains to managing inventory in each of your warehouses but also has to do with overseeing orders shipped to different customer locations. Rental management software makes this grueling task a breeze.
It offers you a consolidated asset database and helps with conflict-free reservations. Furthermore, it also secures your assets against theft and damage via location tracking.
With efficient reporting, you can keep customer requests at the forefront and stock accordingly. When rental management software supervises your operations across business locations, you can stay laser-focused on your long term strategies.
Read more: Grow Your Rental Business With Rental Scheduling Software
About EZRentOut
We are a cloud based rental system that offers businesses seamless rental management across various locations. It also comes with a host of other features like asset tracking, maintenance management, a customized webstore, and much more.
