If you own and operate a rental business, efficiently managing your rental inventory should be the top priority. Whether you use a rental inventory tracker or not, you want to understand what you have available and when. Otherwise, you’re likely losing money due to lost revenue opportunities. 

Compile a Full Inventory of Your Equipment

When you’re trying to figure out how to keep track of rental inventory, step one should be to gather your equipment information. This information includes a list of: 

• All of your assets and equipment
• Their makes and models 
• Their current conditions 
• Their current values 

Then you’ll want to start putting the necessary processes in place to efficiently manage your rental inventory. This work includes figuring out who is in charge of tracking equipment and its current state. How will you keep track of repairs and maintenance? Who’ll be in charge of that? 

Note that software tracking systems can help make the entire process of tracking and managing inventory easy and straightforward. They’re much more effective at ensuring your information and availability are always up-to-date. 

Decide on a Method for Tracking Your Products

When it comes to tracking rental inventory, there are three main categories you’ll want to group your products into:  

Trackable Individual Equipment

This group is the easiest category. It includes all of your trackable equipment. These are your key assets, such as your heavy equipment if you’re running a heavy equipment rental business or your power washers for your power washing rental business. 

Bulk Inventory

Your bulk products will include items that it doesn’t make sense to track individually, such as small items you might provide to a customer. You don’t need a unique identifier for each bulk item. These items are often low-cost and easily replaced. 

For example, if you’re running a catering rental business, the bulk inventory items might be flatware or silverware. If you have 100 flatware items, you wouldn’t want — or need — to itemize every item. You’d categorize these in bulk and not be too concerned if you only got 99 forks and spoons back after an event. 

Consumables

Consumables are things that will be “consumed” by the customer. These are often add-on items that you can offer your customers, such as washing fluid or tape. Consumables are usually items that the customer won’t be returning to you. 

Choose an Identification System

After grouping all of your inventory, you’ll need to figure out how to identify each piece. Each product needs a unique identifier. 

In particular, you’ll want to have a stock-keeping unit (SKU) for each item. Note that SKUs can be bundled. You can use the same SKU for variations of the same product, such as the same make and model of a golf cart in different colors. 

Labeling your SKUs with a product name or word helps you identify the product is important. Simple is usually best here. 

Photos are another form of identification that you’ll want to attach to your product records. Product photos will give customers a visual preview of what they’re renting. Ideally, you’d use an image of the actual product or a stock image that’s the same unit as yours. 

You’ll also want to bundle near-identical products to help make scaling easier. If you have the same make and model, you should create variations under the same SKU. Each SKU would still have its own price and stock count, but this setup will save you legwork as you grow, keeping your inventory list manageable. 

Create Notes on Each Item

In addition to the general information attached to each SKU, you’ll also want to maintain notes for each product. These notes can be for your own inventory management purposes, as well as for the customer. 

You’ll want to have a place to attach various types of notes to each item, such as detailed descriptions of the product, its current location, serial numbers, and a log of any repairs or maintenance. Managing these notes is where rental equipment management software becomes a big help. 

The notes section in such software platforms can host a variety of stored information, such as custom fields, tags, and almost any data that might be relevant. 

Determine Your Pricing Structure for Each Item

When it comes to pricing your rental inventory, there are two key pricing models: flat fee and structured pricing. Which you’ll choose depends on the products you’re offering. 

Flat Fee

Many rentals are priced based on a flat fee structure that involves a set price for a set period. This setup can involve a particular amount per hour or per day, such as $300 per day. The rental fee would be $2,100 for a week in such a case. 

Structured Pricing

Structured pricing is also popular among rental businesses. This approach has a tiered pricing setup. It factors in a slight discount on longer rental periods.

For example, you may charge $300 per day, but for longer rentals lasting a week, you could charge $1,925 (which averages out to $275 a day) to gain a competitive advantage over other rental businesses. 

Leverage Inventory Management Software to Track Your Rental Inventory Efficiently

A rental inventory management system coupled with an equipment scheduling software will guarantee you’re getting the most revenue by efficiently managing your inventory. 

Quipli can help you track your rental inventory regardless of your business. Our inventory management software is easy to use and intuitive while providing out-of-the-box equipment rental website templates. Reach out to the Quipli team today to set up a demo.

Learn more about inventory management with our equipment rental excel template.

Learn About Quipli’s rental Inventory Managnent Software

Careful planning is the most important thing when starting and growing your rental business. This planning needs to cover the company from every angle — logistically, technically, and legally. Nothing should be left to chance when it comes to your business.

Developing a formal construction equipment rental contract is a vital task that your rental business needs to start offering equipment rentals. While this might seem like a challenging task, we’ve got some clear guidelines to help you out.

What Is an Equipment Rental Contract?

Just about every kind of business out there relies on some sort of contract to nail down what exactly the service being provided entails. Defining this agreement is important to prevent confusion between companies and customers and to provide evidence of the nature of the contract if legal action ever needs to be taken.

A construction equipment rental contract is similar to the contracts many businesses deal with but covers both customer and business responsibilities. Considering that you have valuable equipment on the line every time you rent it out, you want your equipment rental contract to be ironclad and incredibly clear.

Need an airtight rental agreement template? click here to learn more

What Should an Equipment Rental Agreement Include?

Your construction equipment rental contract needs to clearly define the terms of the rental or lease in question. It is imperative not to overlook any details when preparing an equipment rental agreement because any ambiguity could end up being decided in favor of the customer if you ever face legal action.

Of course, you also want your equipment rental contract to be clear to make customer relations go smoothly. If a customer understands all of the terms of the rental clearly, they won’t end up disappointed or dissatisfied by any misunderstandings.

To protect yourself legally and keep your customers happy, make sure your construction equipment rental contract includes the following:

The Specific Equipment to Be Rented

Your equipment rental contract needs to specify very clearly what particular equipment is being rented. You don’t want to ever have to deal with a customer returning a similar but different piece of equipment and having only your word against theirs to rely on. Keep in mind that this should include any accessories and attachments as well.

The Length of the Rental

The construction equipment rental contract needs to define how long the rental term will be. Is the user renting your equipment for a day, a month, or indefinitely? 

The return deadline should be clearly stated. If you’re arranging without a set end date, you’ll need to define additional terms for billing and what constitutes the end of the lease.

The Rental Rate

Of course, your agreement needs to define what the price is for the rental. This section should include a complete breakdown of the costs, not just a total. The rates should be set for each piece of equipment and be listed as the per day, per hour, or week rate. Don’t forget to be clear about accepted payment methods as well.

Limitations and Liability

Part of running a construction equipment business is dealing with the regular wear and tear and consequent maintenance involved. However, your agreement should have clear limitations defining what is and isn’t allowed, holding the customer liable if they damage the equipment through negligent or inappropriate use.

Insurance Responsibilities

Insurance is one of the most complex aspects to deal with when defining a rental agreement. The contract must identify who is responsible for equipment insurance. Does the customer need to acquire their own insurance, or does your equipment rental business insure the equipment during rentals?

Transportation Arrangements

Every agreement should clearly state who is responsible for transportation. This section is one of the most common sources of disputes between customers and rental businesses, whether the equipment needs to be picked up by the customer or dropped off by the company.

Termination Provisions

As the owner of the equipment, it’s in your best interests to include some provision for terminating rentals at will. This section will allow you to demand the return of equipment in some extenuating circumstances. 

Without these terms, you could find yourself without any recourse if you know that customers are misusing equipment or breaching renting terms and conditions.

Renewal Options

With construction equipment, the actual duration that contractors need equipment can vary widely from their initial estimates. This variability means that they could require the rental longer. 

Contractors will often look for businesses that provide attractive renewal options. Your agreement should define renewal rates and notice periods for extending the rental.

Maintenance Responsibilities

Most types of construction equipment require regular maintenance that would fall within the typical duration of rental agreements. It’s essential to define these maintenance responsibilities to avoid negligence from customers leading to equipment damage without your rental business having any effective recourse.

Warranties

The warranties defined in your rental agreement show what the primary expectations for your equipment rentals will be in terms of equipment quality and condition. In general, this protects the customer more so than the business. Many customers will be unwilling to rent without well-defined warranties guaranteeing that equipment works as intended.

Contact Us Today to Purchase a Rental Agreement Template

There’s a lot to keep in mind when setting up rental agreements for your rental business. We can make things a bit easier with this handy downloadable rental agreement. Of course, make sure to look over it carefully and ensure that it’s in line with the terms you want to set for your construction equipment rental contract.

Contact Us Today For a Rental Agreement Template

Starting Your Construction Equipment Rental Business Off on the Right Foot

Having a reliable equipment rental agreement is an absolute must for your business, but there’s so much more that goes into running that business well. Reservations and inventory management are two of the most important areas to handle properly if you want to succeed.

Quipli provides rental businesses with a dedicated platform for seamless inventory and rental management, along with a point of sales system and digital growth tools for growing your business. Just contact our team today to book a demo and see what we can do for you.

START YOUR EQUIPMENT RENTAL BUSINESS WITH QUIPLI’S SOFTWARE TODAY