Rental Clerks play a vital role in managing the daily operations of your business — from creating rental orders and overseeing agreements to tracking inventory; they are involved in critical functions throughout.
However, many rental companies depend on disconnected software systems and manual processes. This not only makes the process error-prone but also hinders the productivity of your staff, including Rental Clerks.
With over 18 years of experience in the equipment rental industry, we have discussed the challenges of dealing with legacy software with several global rental businesses.
This article will share the key challenges related to the daily activities of a Rental Clerk and how to manage them quickly with our rental software, DynaRent, embedded in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management.
Key challenges faced by Rental Clerks
Manually updating data
Rental Clerks must maintain years of data on spreadsheets and in-house software. They have to track the financial and physical ownership of the fleet to keep the historical data updated.
Complex coordination
They must coordinate with multiple stakeholders (the planning, servicing, technicians, transport teams, and customers) on separate communication channels before scheduling a single piece of equipment.
Scattered documentation
Information is not consolidated in one area, and the Rental Clerk must fetch data from various sources to advise customers on equipment usage and safety protocols.
Duplication of effort
Most of their time is spent on duplication of effort and communication, sometimes repeating the same information to customers, suppliers, and vendors, as processes are not automated.
Usability challenges
Using multiple manual systems requiring updates makes it challenging for Rental Clerks to keep up with the usage of each system. They may also need to be trained every time a new system is installed.
Working overtime
With delays in processes, the Rental Clerk could sometimes stretch their work hours, as customer quotes and agreements need to be prepared and submitted on time. This causes burnout, working overtime, and decreases productivity.
Time taken by Rental Clerks to execute daily activities with manual processes
Based on the above challenges, let us look at a hypothetical scenario of how much time Rental Clerks would spend on average executing their daily tasks in siloed systems.
Without a single software solution and automated rental processes, a Rental Clerk faces several challenges. If you add the data in the table, it is 120%. Executing all these tasks in one day with siloed processes is impossible.
So how can you make the work life of your Rental Clerks easier? By investing in an end-to-end rental software solution that automates business processes.
And we will share how we can help you get there with our rental solution, DynaRent.
How can our rental software in Dynamics 365 solve challenges for Rental Clerks?
DynaRent is a complete rental software solution that manages the daily operations of a business. The cloud-based solution manages your entire rental lifecycle from lead to cash and leverages the full Microsoft technology stack.
Although DynaRent offers standardized business processes for each function within your rental business, we will discuss the processes relevant to a Rental Clerk in this section.
DynaRent helps Rental Clerks with 21 predefined business processes with guided procedures, making it easy to use and learn.
Standardized business processes in DynaRent for a Rental Clerk
There are many standardized business processes that support the daily tasks of Rental Clerks. Five business processes are explained below.
1. Create and send rental orders
You can use this process to rent a rental item or sell a sales item to a customer. The rental order can be created standalone or linked to a project. You can rent a serialized, bulk/non-serialized rental object, or both, on a single rental order.
It gives detailed information on rental order management and customer accounts. You can retrieve the customer's default invoice profile, rental calendar, and rate code.
You can also add rental or sales items to a rental order line. And further assign the rental object on the rental order line, rental quotation line, transport plan board, or service plan board.
The rental order is confirmed once you complete creating a rental order. After order confirmation, a rental order document is made, and you can immediately share the rental quotation with the customer.
Watch this video for a sneak peek at how to 'create and send a renal order' in DynaRent.
2. Revise rental orders
You can edit a rental order based on the changes in the customer's requirements or if rectifications are needed to the current version of the rental order.
The most common amendments are:
- Applying the rental stop to the rental items
- Changing the rental dates (on-rent and off-rent)
- Changing the rental prices
- Adding additional lines to the order
- Exchanging rental items on the order
- Applying charges to the order
3. Create rental agreements
Using DynaRent, you, as a Rental Clerk, can create individual default rental agreements that are active simultaneously. This is done by having a different currency or rental category (rental or sub-rental) for the selected account.
You can define the expiration date of the rental agreement created and use these dates to avoid overlap among the rental contracts.
The rental software in Dynamics 365 gives details on the pricing, rental agreement numbers, and agreement status.
4. Create and send rental quotations
You can use 'rental quotation' in DynaRent to offer rental items, sales items, and services to a prospect or a customer. You can create quotations as rental or project rental quotations.
For rental items, you can use the on-rent and expected off-rent dates to calculate the price of the rental items, making it an efficient process.
After creating the rental quotation, you can send the quotation document to the customer or prospect, and DynaRent instantly updates the status from 'created' to 'sent.'
5. Create and maintain work locations
'Work locations' in DynaRent is a function used to determine the delivery address of the rental order for an associated customer account.
You can define the work location of the rental order based on the customer's requirements. You can create a work location code (number or abbreviation) to reference the work location.
You can also create and maintain work location groups with the construction project ID when multiple work locations are involved. With this, you can link all the work locations to the same area or rental project, making it easy to manage.
Streamline business processes with rental software in Dynamics 365
Above, we have shared 5 out of the 21 standardized business processes in DynaRent for Rental Clerks. There are over 150 standardized business processes DynaRent offers to simplify and quicken the daily operations of your business.
To explore the rental solution's offerings, features, and benefits in greater detail, check out the factsheet below.
Cor Tiemens
Eric Van Hofwegen
Marta Orzechowska
