Top 7 Articles to Help Advance Your Equipment Rental Operations
As an owner or operator of an equipment rental business in North America, you know how important it has been for your company to stay agile and evolve with current market trends and new industry technology.
The rental business is already a challenging sector to stay ahead in, but after the recent worldwide pandemic shutdowns have turned business on its head, rental owners and operators are scrambling to adjust and pivot to new ways of doing business. Those who did not have modern equipment rental software to overcome these obstacles have not all survived.
If you’re reading this, your company has been able to adapt and persevere through trying times. Now, you are probably looking for advice or tips on how to pull ahead and boost profits while competitors are still trying to pick up the pieces.
If you’re feeling a little lost about where to begin, we’re here for you! With over 30 years of experience in the business technology and rental industry, our team is in the loop on current trends and rental technology best practices.
We like to follow other industry experts, and in doing so, have compiled a curated list of articles regarding equipment rental software and how to increase rental profitability. This list includes a mix of our own thought leadership articles, as well as some blog posts sourced from other highly experienced rental industry experts across North America.
- Why You Need to Ditch Excel Equipment Rental Spreadsheets to Boost Profits
You know you need a better way to track each of your equipment rental transactions because Excel spreadsheets just aren’t cutting it. Excel is a great tool, but ultimately spreadsheets can’t scale and evolve as your rental business grows. Relying on limited spreadsheets can lead to:
- Continuous human errors and mistakes
- Lack of real-time visibility into your data
- Little to no software integration (and therefore a lot of manual data consolidation)
- Limited access and accountability for multiple users
- Slow day-to-day business processes and productivity
Read this article to learn about the many benefits of using integrated rental and financial software to simplify day-to-day transactions and prevent your business from lagging behind competitors. You will discover exactly how centralized equipment rental software streamlines and unifies all your business processes—way better than a spreadsheet ever could!
- The Fastest Ways to Increase Equipment Rental Business Profitability
The next article we recommend points out some of the specific ways your rental business might be losing money, such as double-booking items and lost equipment.
Potential customers will always choose the organization that can offer the right equipment at the best price. Human error, inefficiencies, and not being able to keep track of your assets can wreak havoc on your business’s bottom line.
What’s also interesting in this article is the difference between your operating profit margin versus gross profit margin. Although you and your employees can get excited when a line of equipment is initially generating lots of revenue, it’s important to realize that only the end-of-day return on investment and profitability really matters.
Knowing the significance of these two different numbers may mean the difference in how well you can serve customers and grow your business.
- 6 Ways to Boost Your Equipment Rental Business Profitability (Equipter)
“A single investment can yield major profits if calculated and executed properly.” This article from Equipter provides 6 ways to increase your rental profits. It’s a great article, and although we recommend reading the full piece, there were two points that really stood out to us.
- Firstly, you want to choose and own rental equipment that is versatile, well-maintained, and can be useful in multiple industries. Having innovative equipment available like this tells your potential customer you’re always able to help them fill a need or solve their problem.
- The second tip that resonated is the importance of putting the time and effort into maintaining your company’s digital presence. Where do customers search for the equipment they need to rent? The internet. To set your business apart from smaller, less organized competitors, your website needs to be easy to find and clear in what you offer.
Read this article for the other 4 rental tips and to dive deeper into these concepts.
- Key Considerations When Evaluating Equipment Rental Accounting Software
Choosing the right accounting software to help you run your business can be difficult because there are many options available, and it may not always be clear which software will best suit your business model. In this blog post written by our very own team, we’ve collected a list of the key considerations when you’re selecting an equipment rental accounting system.
For example, some questions to consider are:
- Will this software accommodate all your business data in one central platform?
- Will it spread your data across multiple system parts?
- Is this software the most modern version and offering you up-to-date technology, or is it a legacy system you’ll need to upgrade again later?
- Is it customizable with mobility options to suit your unique business needs?
- Does it use the cloud to effectively store your data?
When researching new technology, it’s important to do your due diligence. This article will help get you more prepared on what you need in a new rental management solution and what to look for before investing.
- Software for Equipment Rental Companies: What’s the Cloud Hype?
Speaking of the cloud, what’s all the hype about? After years of relying on on-premise infrastructure, many rental companies are still on the fence about moving to a business management system that uses cloud storage. This blog post provides some insight into cloud ERP software and shares how it offers a more convenient and affordable way to:
- Reduce costs
- Automate key processes
- Work remotely
- Improve data security
- Better adapt to evolving industry conditions and trends
- How to Make Your Equipment Rental Business Profitable (Reservety)
Successfully marketing and running your rental business look very different from marketing and running a traditional business. Customers need to be won over and kept around by using unique strategies. This informative article from Reservety analyzes what actions to take and tools you can use to help your rental business thrive.
Among the pro tips you’ll read about here is the importance of studying the market and your potential customers continuously. Additionally, you’ll learn details about how not to waste money on buying more and more equipment prematurely but rather maintaining your existing equipment assets well. Your rental company’s profitability depends on multiple factors, one of which is upgrading your rental software diligently for more efficient business processes that will help you stay ahead of competitors.
- How to Increase Equipment Rental Profitability in 2021
As a bonus tip to help your equipment rental company become more profitable, we’d like to recommend reading this educational whitepaper that focuses specifically on the rental industry’s status in 2021 and beyond. It points out how the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has brought unique challenges and influenced business trends.
Many equipment rental companies have had to adopt creative ways to keep their doors open and maintain their customer base and profits. A team of rental software experts collaborated in this whitepaper to share 8 effective tools you can use in your business processes to help you grow your margins.
Choose Equipment Rental Software That Best Suits Your Business
Reading these enlightening articles, you might be ready to speak to a rental software expert one-on-one. There are many different variations of rental software options on the market today, and it can be difficult to select the right solution for your business without guidance.
At Open Door Technology, we offer a team of rental software advisors with decades of experience who are here to answer your questions.
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