Utilizing equipment rental software for maintaining rental equipment and saleable assets
When you are running a rental business or a retail store, the main goal is to achieve higher sales. But to achieve that there are layers of business management that involve an extensive process – from tracking rental and sale equipment to recording invoices, enabling multiple payment gateways or setting up an online webstore, and studying analytics to plan out a better sales strategy. Among these, businesses often ignore the importance of equipment maintenance management. It can either make or break your business. Yes, it’s vital for every business for smoother order management.
You don’t want to rent out equipment that is faulty or sell inventory stock that expires in 2 weeks. A business always has to make sure that the equipment used within the organization and the machinery that’s it rents out to customers or inventory it sells – all of them are in top shape. This requires businesses to run maintenance checks and stay up-to-date with all the service sessions. Businesses can automate all this using cloud-based equipment rental software for maintenance management.
Key benefits of equipment maintenance for your business
Effective business plans tend to follow at least one specific type of maintenance for inventory tools. These include, but are not limited to: preventative, scheduled, reactive, and predictive. While it is absolutely necessary for your company to follow rigid service sessions, the rate of success of such sessions depends entirely on how you carry them out. In order to help you take care of your machines and rental equipment, cloud-based solutions like equipment rental software offer you a variety of features for extensive tool care. Before you learn more about how this works, you should know what to expect from this software. You can attain the following goals through the use of rental equipment management software:
- Implement specialized maintenance routines: Not every piece of equipment is the same, which is why you should come up with customized routines for all your tools and equipment items. This happens because every piece of equipment has a different usage and depreciation rate. When you conduct routine check-ups, you are able to assess and design specific maintenance programs for all your assets.
- Avoid elaborate repair works in the future: Your rental equipment is prone to damage because of extensive use over time. When you regularly inspect your equipment, you are more likely to fix any problems that might get worse if ignored. This way preventative maintenance keeps your assets in good shape for use in the long run. Keep renting them out or put them on sale.
- Increase the resale value: If you are familiar with asset lifecycle management then you probably know the best way to dispose of equipment is to sell it. But, in order to gain some resale value, it is important that your tools have been maintained through their useful life. If you’ve done this right, potential buyers will be willing to pay a good price for your assets.
You can easily take advantage of these positive externalities by investing in online rental equipment maintenance software for your business. Read below on how to use it to improve your order management and gain maximum returns on your equipment:
1. Record and track asset performance
The ideal solution to all your inventory problems would be to closely examine how your tools work. Basically, by doing this, you are able to capture minute changes in the asset behavior. This is how you will be able to assess, what works and what doesn’t. Not all tools have the same input to output ratio and hence need individual attention. With the help of history tracking through equipment rental software, you can store all relevant information in one place. You can access this data and analyze how equipment performance changes over time. Such practices allow you to spot malfunctions and fix them in time. Accurate asset history lets you make informed strategic decisions and optimize usage.
Read more: 3 reasons why your retail business needs online rental software
2. Stay organized by keeping spare parts at hand
How many times does it happen that your equipment breaks down in the middle of an important project and causes unwanted delays? Or how about during the shopping spree season before the holidays? This disrupts the whole work operation and wastes time as well as money. Oftentimes, the problem could have been fixed if you had spare parts at hand. Having access to spare parts helps you get out of unexpected scenarios quickly and avoid repair costs. For example, an AV/Media rental store or event management company could always use spare parts and replacements – not lagging behind in project completion. You can ensure seamless maintenance by devising an efficient vendor management system. This can be done through online equipment maintenance software for your rental business.
With the use of automated service vendor features, you can order whatever repair tools and instruments you need for your company. Even when you are low on stock, automatic receipts will be generated for new stock. Precautionary measures speed up workflows and increase productivity! An equipment rental software supports a swap feature for order replacements that help small businesses catch up on which equipment requires attention and replace rentals right away.
Read more: How can small businesses benefit from a rental management software this season
3. Conduct routine inspections through maintenance audits
Extensive use of equipment is bound to wear it out. While every piece of inventory has a fixed useful life, timely inspections can improve performance, if carried out regularly. So, how does this work? Say, for example, you own a party rental business and rent out party equipment and accessories regularly. What if on New Year’s Eve, you find out that you booked equipment that suddenly stopped working. For starters, it would take time to find out what actually went wrong with the rental equipment. When you finally figure out what happened, the damage could be serious and costly as well.
All this inconvenience would have been avoided if you would’ve conducted frequent maintenance checkups. This can be easily done through maintenance management in equipment rental software. By using this software, you can thoroughly inspect the condition of your tools and machines at the time of audits. Being vigilant about your equipment saves you time and keeps your machines in good shape.
Read more: 5 Ways to Make it Big with Party Rental Software
4. Schedule alerts for timely service sessions
You’ve decided to fix a date for the maintenance session of your equipment. How do you go about doing this? You have all the necessary information noted down. The next step is to inform the respective department to make the required arrangement for your repair event. An online rental software lets you organize such events by sending out customized alerts and emails to your employees. No need to stick to those boring and monotonous templates. You can edit and add fields as you deem fit when you create your maintenance email alerts. When you schedule alerts in advance, maintenance events are much more likely to be organized and have positive outcomes!
5. Check availability for streamlined work operations
In a multiplex company, equipment is being constantly checked out for use. It is easy to lose track of which tools are currently in use and which ones are available. This may cause confusion and slow down the order management process. When there is a lack of information, employees also feel demotivated and slack behind in their duties.
To make work easier for your workers, you can utilize an availability calendar to check the status of your assets. Equipment rental software allows you to book tools and venues for your specific events. Updated asset and order information through the dashboard lets you plan hassle-free booking without any conflicts. Run flawless maintenance events for improved output levels.
6. Set recurring services for small tools and parts
Every piece of equipment has fixed useful life while certain supporting tools have a shorter useful life. This is why there are items that need continuous maintenance after every certain time period. Setting up recurring services on your equipment rental software is beneficial in such cases.
Say, for example, you own a construction rental business that rents out heavy machinery and equipment. What if you rented a conveyor belt and it broke down due to a worn-out bearing roller? Due to the harsh working conditions, an average bearing roller lasts 30 days before it begins to wear out. It is highly likely that heavy equipment is regularly maintained after six months but servicing supporting tools like bearing rollers at the same time will be five months late. The longer the overdue, the bigger the risk associated with increasing costs for your business.
Your equipment rental software can help with setting Recurring services for items to be serviced on a repeated interval. You can easily manage to choose maintenance recurring cycles and set start and end dates accordingly. You can, for example, set yearly warranty renewals for equipment. This can improve scheduling and minimise reactive maintenance issues for critical support tools.
7. Schedule an automated service for items upon check-in
Some rental equipment may require a maintenance and servicing check after every rental cycle but it can be challenging to ensure that happens every time. The downside: Lack of routine maintenance checks once items are checked-in might lead to equipment breakdown and a greater financial burden on your business.
A rental software can fully automate this process for you via the service triage capability. By using this capability you can automatically send checked in equipment into maintenance. Not only does this streamline your process so you no longer have to worry about scheduling, but it also ensures that equipment will always be available for check out in ideal conditions.
8. Gain useful insights from service reports
Services reports can provide useful information on overall equipment condition and upkeep. You may find insightful data points to see how many pieces of equipment have been serviced. Based on the findings, you can figure out which equipment groups haven’t been serviced in a long time and plan maintenance accordingly. These reports can assist you in making proactive and well-informed maintenance decisions.
Boost equipment performance for maximum returns to investment
As a rental business, your ultimate goal is to achieve your targets faster with minimized costs. For successful daily operations, it is imperative that you manage your equipment efficiently. In order to do this, you can deploy equipment rental management software for your company to enable seamless work operations. You can track and record performance to deal with breakdowns on time. Similarly, you can also schedule alerts for maintenance activities. Regulatory practices such as these, prolong the useful life of assets and increase their productive capacity! Hence, it enables you to increase your business revenue.
About EZRentOut
EZRentOut, a cloud-based equipment rental software can help. EZRentOut offers companies in numerous industries seamless rental management along with a host of other features. You can integrate your website with our EZR plug to keep track of all your rental Assets and operations.
