When Is It Time to Move to an Equipment Rental ERP?
Arielle Cox
Your business is too important to just “get by” with systems that are too slow or too cumbersome to keep pace with your growth. Maybe you’re using basic spreadsheets or entry-level point solutions – but are you ready to elevate your rental business to the next level and be taken more seriously?
Maybe you’ve been in business for a few months or even a few years and are unsure of what direction to go in to take the next step. Or maybe you invested in a one-size-fits-all software solution that sounded great on paper but doesn’t really work in the unique context of the rental industry. This is where a designated equipment rental ERP comes in.
Some "tells" that an ERP could help you bring your business to the next level:
- Your staff is rapidly growing and your long-time employees – or even worse, your busy management team – is spending tons of time training people on procedures as they come on board. From there, there’s the ongoing process of making sure they stick to your established processes...and this is preventing you from getting to the rest of your job to the point that things are starting to fall through the cracks.
- Your fleet is rapidly growing, and you can no longer quickly look out into your yard and "spot check" what's there. With a growing customer base and potentially even multiple branches, you need real-time visibility that you just can’t achieve with your current technologies.
- Your rental business is doing well financially, but you know you can increase profitability if you make a determined effort to be smarter about your investments, pricing, and other performance metrics. You’re willing to invest the time into pursuing continuous improvement – you just need a better handle on your historic performance data to know where you stand and where you should focus your efforts.
- You're using multiple individual systems and it's becoming too time-consuming to log onto different platforms any time you need one specific piece of data - or worse, you get different answers for the same question when you look in different places. Bringing it all together into one equipment rental ERP gives you a "single source of truth."
- You've implemented baseline procedures, but you've essentially put them together through trial and error. Now, it’s time for a "sanity check" – or better yet, proven recommendations on how other successful companies in the rental industry are doing things.
There's no hard and fast revenue threshold for when it makes sense to start looking at an equipment rental ERP. But, as a general rule of thumb: once you cross the threshold of $1 million in annual rental revenue, it's worth doing some research to see what options can help you grow from startup to successful mid-size business.
If you're over the $10 million mark and NOT using a designated rental ERP, it's absolutely time to get more formal with your approach. You may even want to see about getting your hands on some of the same tools the "big boys" use to level the playing field.
Regardless of where you are on the revenue scale – when you make the jump into a second location, a full-featured rental ERP should almost be mandatory. Without one, you’ll likely run into big logistical headaches very quickly. From inventory transfers to multi-location depreciation, there are too many complex processes that entry-level rental software just can’t handle in a way that’s efficient enough to work for a growing multi-branch business.
At InTempo, we’ve helped companies grow from small startups to some of the most successful independent rental businesses in the country. With an ERP system that brings together accounting, operations, sales, maintenance, and comprehensive reporting, you get all the tools you need to run your business today and grow it for tomorrow.
To learn more, contact us or request a demo.
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