Equipment Booking in HireLogic

Our latest update to HireLogic has brought some exciting new functionality in the form of Bookings. Read more to find out how you can better organise your rental business with an advanced Rental Management Software package like HireLogic.

It’s easy to stick to the good old-fashioned tools we know to accomplish a task, because the newer tools we have invested in just aren’t up to the job, or don’t have the functionality built into them that we need.

Maybe you use a dairy to manage your equipment bookings, and whilst it is hard to argue with the flexibility a blank page and pen can give you, it can be very difficult to make sure all of your staff know when equipment is going out on rental, and who it should be going to. On top of this, these dairies need to be constantly monitored to ensure you don’t double book equipment, something that can be very difficult to manage if you have more than one depot.

A shared spreadsheet could alleviate some of these concerns, however you still have the worry that a member of staff may forget to check the spreadsheet and rental out a piece of equipment that is due to go on rental the next day. Perhaps you have a comprehensive rental software solution that includes booking functionality, but unless the interface is easy to use and staff are sufficiently trained in it, some key information could be entered incorrectly.

All of this can lead to embarrassing experiences with your customers, and cause them to lose confidence in your rental business to provide the equipment they need when they need it.

HireLogic’s most recent update includes the ability to create advance equipment bookings, and it’s just as easy as creating a rental contract. All you need to do is specify the customer and products they would like to book in advance. You can be as detailed as you need to be by specifying a booking for multiple pieces of equipment from a product category, or you can specify the exact items you want to allocate to the booking. You will then be prompted to enter the on rental and off rental dates and times, and whether or not the customer needs the equipment delivered. You can also record any advance payments for the booking, and if you need to add more information, it can be added in the notes section of the booking, just like contracts and invoices.

Any upcoming bookings are easily accessible from the HireLogic dashboard. Laid out in the familiar list view, but also with the option to view it as a calendar, in day, week, or month view. In both the list view and the calendar view, the items are colour coded by their product category, enabling you to quickly scan and see what your availability will be over the coming days or weeks. Active and historical bookings can also be accessed via the customers profile on HireLogic, under the new “Bookings” tab there.

When the time comes to place the items on rental, it couldn’t be easier: All you have to do is click on the “Convert to Rental Contract” button in the top right of the booking details screen. At this point you will be prompted to confirm the exact items that are being placed on rental, when you click “Convert” the items are transferred to a rental contract, along with any payment or delivery information that was provided during the booking process.

Now with your bookings highly visible on your HireLogic dashboard, this will enable you to make more accurate forecasts for product availability, increase your rental companies profitability, and improve customer satisfaction rates. As with all of our features, extensive effort has went into making this as easy to use as possible, and we are very keen to hear customer feedback on this or indeed any of our features, please reach out to our customer success team today if you would like to provide feedback.

Coming Soon…

This is just the first in our series of booking functionality we are hoping to release over the next couple of months. Another feature we are very excited about is a tool to integrate bookings directly into your rental website, so your customer can get in contact directly from it and a booking will be automatically created for you in HireLogic.

Get in contact with us today if you need help getting started with this feature, or if you would like a live demonstration on how it works.