How Do Rental Companies Track Their Inventory?

The Big Boys

Many equipment rental companies are started by entrepreneurs and small business owners who are looking to generate revenues by renting their equipment surplus. Forward thinking business owners get frustrated looking at equipment sitting idle on a company’s depreciation schedule or in the warehouse.

The rental market has been swallowed up by large, publicly or private equity held corporations with the financial capability to implement a state-of-the-art rental inventory tracker. These large companies virtually have unlimited resources and funds to help track their rental equipment.

Main Street

So where does this leave main street? How does a small business with a surplus of equipment begin renting its equipment & tools and successfully track renter information, location, maintenance, etc.? Is there a rental tracking app? Is there an off the shelf, easy to use, tool rental app?

Most business owners will begin renting their equipment without the ability to correctly scale and track. They will go old school using a clipboard with pen and paper, and postcards signed by the renter with initials on condition. Filing cabinets and folders containing this precious information and without the ability to view this information in the cloud, on your smartphone or tablet.

Other questions that often come up: How do I label my rental assets? How do I track my rental inventory? Can I get a pre rental and post rental photo? Where is my rental equipment being used? Is the renter performing the correct daily check list functions?

How We Developed The Best Rental Equipment Inventory Tracking App

The Slate Pages development team set out to answer one simple question: What is required to develop the best rental equipment inventory app?

Development Requirements for the Best Rental Equipment Inventory App:

• Smartphone app for remote use with QR code scanner
• Unlimited Users
• Web portal access for Admin
• QR Code Label with Equipment ID for Tagging (Print your own if preferred)
• Standard Rental Template with ability to self-customize
• Permission set to allow renter ability to complete pre built checklist

Let’s start with the app. Most employees have a smartphone. Slate Pages developed an app for iPhone & Android that is free to download, and each account can have unlimited users. Smartphones are great for the field, but some admin team members may be more comfortable using their laptop or desktop. We then created a web portal that allows the viewing, sorting and exporting of real time data by the administration team.

Next, let’s cover labeling and building an inventory. As simple as this sounds, it is sometimes the roadblock to getting started. Slate Pages developed a unique QR Code Slate that can be printed on a label, sticker or even laser etched onto an anodized aluminum tag. Having many options for tagging and labeling helps ensure a correctly populated rental inventory. Slate Pages has also partnered with some of the largest label manufacturing companies in the US to assist its end users for those unique applications.

Templates and self-customization is the common denominator when trying to create the best rental equipment inventory app. Every rental business manages equipment differently. Slate Pages designed an app that allowed end users the ability to create a template and be able to customize themselves without paying third party software developers. If you can download an app from the app store, you can add or remove a field on a Slate

Get Started

Want to start using Slate Pages to label, track, and organize your assets? Let us show you how you can get started in less than 5 minutes. Contact us to schedule a demo today.