A Roomba? Really? I bet you think no one ever got a hug for giving a vacuum cleaner for a birthday present. The Roomba is a cool vacuum cleaner that works hard for you even when you are not watching. It’s reliable, gets the job done, can be pre-programmed to repeat tasks, and adjusts to different cleaning needs.
The Roomba takes care of the hard work of keeping your floors and carpet clean. Not a very glamourous job but one that is necessary for keeping your house in order. Likewise, your rental software is the backbone of your operations and keeps your rental business in order. A well designed system will keep your orders flowing and track where your equipment is and isn’t at all times.
Rental software gets the job done, from sales, to managing inventory, tracking assets, maintaining equipment, purchasing, all the way through to the financials and accounts payable. Almost every process you need to run your business can be handled through a complete rental software package.
Like the vacuum that adjusts to different cleaning needs, so too can a rental system adjust to different user needs. The counter person needs to see what equipment is available, what is going out on rent and what is coming off, what deliveries and pickup they need to schedule and how they are doing for rental and sales volumes. The finance manager on the other hand, needs to focus on the general ledger, accounts payable and accounts receivables. Having software that can present the user with the right screens based on their role makes work easier.
The Roomba goes back to its charging stand each night to get ready for the next day. Rental systems that have mobile capabilities operate under the same premise. A sales person can be out in the field and look up customer inventory and request equipment and that information is fed back into the main rental brains back in the office. No longer are reps tethered to their computers they can move to where the dirt is.
The last slick feature is the ability to preprogram both the vacuum and your software. It is easy to run reports and dashboards and have them show up in all your manager’s email box at a certain time. All you need to do is create your dashboard once, then schedule it to show up each day at a select time. You can also use Live Excel to create reports that live on your desktop that automatically update every time you open your worksheet up. Simple red, yellow and green KPI (key performance indicator) reports can really make your company productive.
So next time you are looking to improve your rental company’s business, look no future than your software. And the next time you are looking to get your operations manager a gift, think of getting him or her a Roomba.
