As the CFO of a rental business, you might be familiar with the challenges of irregular cash flow, limited financial insights into rental fleet performance, or revenue loss because of increased equipment downtime.
To stay ahead of the challenges, you should adopt technology that ensures your rental business adapts to the changing rental landscape fueled by evolved technological trends and customer demands. However, with so many technological solutions available, you would want to know which platform can help solve your rental business needs.
One cutting-edge solution is rental-specific software embedded in the ERP system. With features like rental agreements, material delivery notes, material return notes, invoicing, and fixed asset management, rental ERP software can help CFOs comprehensively manage all vital financial aspects and overcome industry-related challenges.
In this article, you can discover rental businesses’ challenges and how the Equipment Rental ERP Software can proactively address them.
Irregular Cash Flow
Effectively managed cash flow depends on the demand for rental assets and stock levels. When the number of customers looking forward to renting and expecting flexible offerings increases, having a 360-degree view of your inventory becomes more critical. It helps immediately respond to customer demands and properly manage the supply chain and cash flow.
The solution: A rental ERP system featuring an end-to-end financial capability enables your company to have all contracts, invoices, renewals, and credits in a single location. Moreover, the system facilitates standard templates for billing models and complete visibility into available stock across different sites and depots.
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This single, 360-degree view enables CFOs to make decisions quickly by rapidly calculating rental rates while allocating equipment for rent to customers, leading to regular cash flow.
Lack of Collaboration Due to Communication Silos
McKinsey’s study reports that 50% of administration, data collection, and processing tasks can be automated. Automating these processes can increase the overall efficiency of rental operations, especially when various stakeholders are involved.
However, a lack of communication among business departments can cause lags and information gaps, leading to delays or confusion about the rental orders.
The solution: Rental companies should invest in industry-specific end-to-end rental software embedded in rental ERP based on their technology stack. The software should integrate all departments, from HRM to planning, rental inspection, and inventory management to finance and rental operations and delivery.
The integrated departments will lead to effective interdepartmental communication, collaboration, and cross-functional teams, ensuring improved organizational efficiency.
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Revenue Loss Due to Delayed Equipment Maintenance
Ensuring your rental equipment is in the best working condition is vital to drive maximum uptime and profits. It makes rapid response times for equipment maintenance calls important.
Moreover, equipment field service engineers should be empowered to work remotely on the site where the rented equipment is used and coordinate with experts at the office to carry out repairs and maintenance.
The solution: A cloud-based ERP system designed for the rental industry can offer anytime, anywhere access via mobile devices. Such systems can provide field engineers with the correct details in real time, lowering equipment downtime and increasing profits.
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Limited Analytics and Financial Insights
A Gartner study states that 82% of CFOs believe that advanced data analytics tools and technologies are their top priority. However, 785 of these professionals expect it to be challenging to implement these analytics tools.
Complete visibility into the rental company’s financial aspects and rental assets performance through advanced analytics is vital for future investment decisions.
The solution: An equipment rental ERP software features an advanced analytics module with industry-specific BI capabilities and KPIs. These systems can help CFOs track their rental fleet’s assets and historical asset information in real time. Thus, they can extract insights on asset performance, booking trends, utilization rates, etc.
With these detailed reports on each rental equipment, CFOs can make calculated predictions about the equipment’s future status, make accurate decisions, and contribute to effective financial planning and budgeting.
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Concluding Thoughts
Many rental business owners think that rental ERP software is out of their league and that they don’t need its functionality or expenses. Little do they know how robust Rental Software can help them overcome the above-discussed challenges, boost business efficiency, and increase their earning potential. With an ERP system designed for rental companies, CFOs can gain valuable financial insights, manage cash flow, induce collaboration and communication among departments, and boost revenue.
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