Comparing Software for Equipment Rental Companies: Selecting the Right Technology for Your Business
Software for Equipment Rental Companies: Selecting the Right Technology for Your Business
With e-commerce and remote work playing a larger role in operations, modern businesses have more responsibility to keep up with the pace of technology at an earlier stage of growth than the corporate giants that came before them. The need to stay competitive in a complex and dynamic market is fueling industrial innovation at an unprecedented pace. This is increasingly true in the equipment rental industry.
Equipment rental business owners, executives, and managers are prioritizing informing themselves about industry-driven technology they can lean on to streamline processes, optimize resources, and stay competitive.
By evaluating unique challenges, vulnerabilities, and opportunities to successfully deploy equipment rental management software, leaders can efficiently and effectively reduce duplicate efforts, eliminate errors, exploit new market opportunities, and improve margins across their entire equipment rental business.
Also read: How to Increase Equipment Rental Profitability in 2021
With over 20 years of experience helping rental companies of all sizes evaluate and match technology to their goals, here we put together the best steps and resources to support you in evaluating and comparing top equipment rental solutions specifically to your needs. From guidance on internal requirements gathering to comprehensive product comparison, everything you need to arm yourself with the latest equipment rental software information is here.
Step One: Determine Your Rental Software Requirements
Is your data currently in one system or spread across multiple? Do you want to use a cloud platform? How would you like to manage software updates? Does it need to be customizable? Should your data be accessible on remote job sites? Do you need the system accessible at multiple locations? Does your business require incorporating manufacturing, advanced warehousing, payroll, HR, CRM, or fixed asset functionality now or in the future? Is a tier one solution or a tier two solution best suited for your company size?
Start to internally collaborate and answer these and other questions. Organizing and documenting your needs helps you identify what to look for when evaluating equipment rental software, which is paramount to starting your technology journey on the path to success.
Instead of guessing on what to ask yourself and your teams, we recommend you start by downloading the Equipment Rental Software Evaluation: Questionnaire and Functionality Checklist Guide. In the beginning, use the questions during internal requirement gathering sessions. Moving forward, you can use the guide as a reference for questions to ask vendors. This will help you flush out the functionality your business needs and match the right software solution.
Now you can be ready to explore and learn more about the most popular software available for equipment rental companies.
Overview of the Top 6 Equipment Rental Software Products
Systematic Rental Management (Texada SRM) has been an industry-leading solution for managing rental operations for over 35 years.
Texada positions itself as a cloud-based platform to connect rentals, sales, service, and accounting with individual modules for service, customer portal, payment services, and business analytics. The solution is not based on a common industry business management or ERP platforms, such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, which limits functionality in extended areas such as manufacturing, advanced inventory, warehousing, and project costing.
Texada SRM is likely best suited for rental companies in the equipment and construction, aerial lift, AV and production, or party and event rental spaces. Although Texada’s user interface indicates the use of older coding tools, as with many software companies, they offer a well-established solution with integrated financial systems capable of handling a good portion of tier-one rental software requirements.
Focusing exclusively on the rental and service industry, Point of Rental offers equipment tracking, customizable checklists, automatic creation of service and repair orders, photos, and GPS integration. Outside of these core capabilities, Point of Rental can be tailored for various business needs by utilizing a development toolkit for customization and configuration that requires the skillset of specialized developers.
As Point of Rental’s existing rental technology is heavily based on legacy technologies, connecting to third-party systems and reporting or analytics tools does require more advanced strategies and skilled software developers for complete integration.
Additionally, as Point of Rental does not provide native accounting functionality, small-to-midsize businesses will require an independent system for financial management. Overall, Point of Rental has evolved to offer both on premises and cloud options for rental and service functionality, making it a good vendor for those simply seeking functional and efficient equipment rental software.
ODT Rentals is a centralized equipment rental management software offered by Open Door Technology, a North American Microsoft gold-certified partner with over two decades of experience in the equipment rental industry. Open Door was the first to offer equipment rental software on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central platform, the most popular mid-market and tier two accounting and business management solution in the world.
The ODT Rentals all-in-one equipment rental solution is able to seamlessly scale with varying rental management needs through tailored functionality ‘extensions’ or a variety of pre-built applications through Microsoft AppSource.
Because Open Door is also a Microsoft development partner, they have had a head start in Microsoft’s cloud movement and business technology evolution as opposed to partners who are just beginning to adapt to the latest version of Business Central. The ODT Rentals solutions are easily accessed from Power Apps and Power BI.
ODT Rentals allows users to access the latest mid-market enterprise resource planning (ERP) technology running on top of Microsoft’s SQL Azure cloud infrastructure, either in-house or in the cloud. It’s accessible in a secured, public cloud and provides you with automatic, seamless upgrades twice a year, eliminating the need for major,time-consuming, and costly upgrades, allowing you to always use the latest technology without waves of disruption and large investments in upgrade services.
ODT Rentals is designed to be easily scalable, allowing equipment rental businesses the ability to add or remove users as needed, and can grow with the organization as needs change. The system can seamlessly expand its functionality to include service, field ticketing, manufacturing, advanced inventory, warehousing, project costing, and more, so growing rental businesses can invest in a solution that will last for the life of the business.
Suite Engine is a tier two rental solution designed to assist equipment rental businesses in container rental, construction, and oil and gas with asset utilization and accounting capabilities. The company positions itself as specializing in the equipment rental industry with streamlined software so businesses can run more efficiently.
Since 2020, Suite Engine is powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central on a Microsoft SQL Azure cloud platform that may suit businesses seeking basic ERP features. Suite Engine offers cloud-based or on-premise deployment and mobile capabilities synchronized with standard online mobile apps for IOS, Android, and Windows.
Suite Engine takes advantage of the latest Microsoft technology to offer modern answers to rental companies looking for systems they can’t outgrow. As a Microsoft ERP-based solution, it also provides strong integration to tools such as Power Apps and Power BI.
Orion Software’s Sirius-e is one of the industry leaders in the mid-market rental software space, dedicated to developing solutions designed specifically for the needs of the rental industry with the complete functions of an ERP system.
Involved in the rental space for over 30 years, Orion offers both cloud and in-house deployment options available for medium and large rental companies. While Orion Software does offer an accounting module, it may not capture all the benefits of an advanced ERP system in areas outside of rental and service.
Sirius-e utilizes web development and Windows architecture to allow users to connect through the technology of their choice to a centralized database, including mobile options. As expected from a higher-end system in the rental space, the product offers many advanced features such as equipment tracking, reservations, preventive maintenance, web portals, and dispatching solutions. Additionally, Sirius-e provides RFID scanning capabilities, ensuring real-time data accuracy for your inventory and warehouse systems.
Known as an enterprise solution, Dynarent offers two options for equipment rental companies. The tier one solution is built for the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance platform and includes equipment rental contracting, asset utilization tracking, delivery optimization, warehouse management, parts sales, CRM, and accounting functions. Typical with a high-end system, it can take over one year to implement.
The second option for tier two customers includes similar functionality and is built for the Acumatica ERP software platform. Dynarent provides integrated workflows across financials, project accounting, and inventory management to CRM, with specialization in construction, manufacturing, commerce, distribution, and field service.
Dynarent for Dynamics 365 Finance has a robust feature set, as might be expected from a tier one solution. However, their tier two solution on Acumatica offers some unique advantages as well, including a licensing module based more on data and transaction volume than the user license model favored by most vendors, including Microsoft Dynamics 365. The system does offer a toolkit for customization to the software with the assistance of skilled professionals.
Compare Your Equipment Rental Software Options Side-by-Side
Take a look at how equipment rental management solutions stack up against each other in this easy-to-understand comparison chart.
Click Here to Download the
COMPLETE EQUIPMENT RENTAL SOFTWARE COMPARISON CHART
Grow Your Business with the Right Technology
With so many vendors offering variations of similar solutions, how can you be sure which one is the right fit for your equipment rental business? Whether it’s tracking your rental assets, customizable checklists, managing service and repair orders, or analyzing the key metrics critical to your business, it’s important to remember that the technology you use for your business should be scalable, up-to-date, easy to customize, and provide effortless access to your data.
As you learn more about the equipment rental software options available on the market, continue to ask yourself another important question “What does my business need from a technology partner today that will increase ROI tomorrow?” Trusting your systems and data to a qualified organization at the front line of innovation with tenured industry expertise is crucial to successfully implementing any technology that will help your business grow.
We know that running a business is a lot of work – your equipment rental software should be working for you, not against you.
Let Us Help
Open Door Technology is here for all your equipment rental software needs, so you can have peace of mind knowing that the technology to lean on every day to run your operations and grow is built for your business and your users. We’re standing by to help you evaluate not only which solution will be the best match for your current and future goals but also if a change in your business management software is where you’ll find the most value.
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