New Release Notes!

The moment you’ve all been waiting for is here – the latest update of Point-of-Rental has been released and we couldn’t have completed it without your suggestions! Thank you for taking the time to help make Point-of-Rental the best rental management software worldwide. In this article we’ve highlighted a selection of the enhancements, but we encourage you to read the full release notes found on Nethelp. So, without further ado, the 2015 Release Notes:

Contract Fulfillment:

The new Contract Fulfillment module provides your rental business with streamlined mobility and productivity. Facilitating real-time contract processing with the flexibility of using mobile tablet devices, this module replaces load slips and prep reports to save time and money.Now, even out in the yard or warehouse, the process to view existing contracts and filter by any field is as simple as selecting a few categories on your touchscreen. Once a contract is selected, the team can then mark all items as prepped or individually assess each line item. You can also select returning orders and “eyeball in” items, which will designate that it has not been physically counted, or choose “count in”.With this module, it’s easy to document shortages or damages, as well as view hour meter readings and fuel usage. The item files can be customized with these readings to automatically notify your counter staff of overage billing. Also, the wireless capabilities allow warehouse staff to create notes that are communicated in real-time to your counter staff. Immediate updates mean you’ll reduce customer wait time and details won’t be missed in the paper shuffle, allowing you to recover costs associated with loss, misuse, abuse, or negligence.

Employee Scheduling:

The new Scheduling module allows you to define the daily work schedules of your employees. It allows your employees to view, print, email, and import their schedules into third party calendar apps. Your employees can request time-off, which will alert their manager for them to approve or deny the request. With integrated capabilities to define daily templates and shift requirements, schedule building is a breeze.

For those who prefer an even more automated process, the schedule for 31 days out can be automatically generated with a simple press of a button. This tool can generate all shifts based on templates for the whole company, a specific store, shift, or employee group.

SmartEquip Integration:

SmartEquip is the leader in electronic order processing between merchants, dealers, and OEM’s. Our integration with SmartEquip allows your mechanic to look up parts using manufacturer’s exploded diagrams. After selecting the parts needed, the system will automatically add them to a pending purchase order. Once the purchase order has been approved, the order is automatically placed electronically with the vendor and billed to your account. The mechanic no longer needs to spend hours of his time looking for the part, calling up the dealers, writing PO’s, and then waiting for approval to call the dealers to place the orders! For this feature, there is a set up fee and a monthly service fee paid to SmartEquip. This is most useful to stores that do a lot of service so that the value of the increased efficiency outweighs the monthly fee.

RFID Integration:

The Holy Grail of the rental industry for the last decade has been RFID tags, which are used to locate and take inventory of equipment. This has eluded rental stores until now. We have integrated RFID tracking through a partnership with Positek RFID. Point-of-Rental and Positek work together to match a specific item to a specific contract and therefore can be prepped and counted back in independently of the contract. In other words, you can read an entire pile of linens being returned and properly mark each specific linen to each contract so you know exactly which contract had a missing linen and charge them accordingly. Not only does this save many hours of counting, but it also gives you complete confidence in knowing exactly how many/which items went out to the customer and which items were returned. So when the customer calls to complain about the missing items charge, you can be assured that the customer really didn’t return them. After explaining to the customer that each piece is tracked with an RFID tag, they will likely be more accepting as well.

Credit Card EMV:

You’ve all heard the hype surrounding the new EMV credit card requirements that go into effect in October. To keep you up-to-date, we have added support for EMV cards through VeriFone terminals. If you are already using VeriFone terminals, then there will be some new setup and configuration to handle the EMV cards. If you’re using PC Charge, you will need to move over to the VeriFone terminals to handle EMV cards. Please call the sales department to get a quote.

AEMP GPS Integration:

The AEMP GPS integration allows you to get the hour meter reading as well as the location of items in your fleet. To enhance this, your items will be polled at least once a day and the current meter will be automatically updated in the inventory record. This allows your maintenance due and service due to be up to the minute all the time! So if your customer is running your equipment 24/7, you will know right away that you need to go service the equipment on site.

Auto Continuation Bill:

A new option allows you to set the bill through date when doing continuation billing. This can be used if you want to continue contracts within particular dates such as the first to the first of each month. This can also be used to get the initial contract opened through a particular date. For example, mini-storages are usually rented month-to-month on the first day of the month. With this feature, you can continue all of the contracts opened during the month to start on the first of the next month. Remember that you can continue only contracts in certain item categories–which is helpful to isolate just your mini-storage contracts.

Non-discounted Damage Waiver:

Just because you have discounted a line item doesn’t necessarily mean that you want to also discount the damage waiver for that item since the liability is the same. So a new parameter has been added that allows you to charge the damage waiver on the non-discounted amount. For example, you have a $100 item that you gave a 50% discount on. With the parameter checked, you will charge the damage waiver on $100 and not $50.

Email Letters:

You can add dynamic fields within your email letters for such things as the customer’s name, contract number, contract date, etc. We have added several new fields as well: Delivery Address, Delivery Comments, Contract Total, Contract Paid Amount, Contract Owed Amount, and Contract Deposit Paid. Simply add the special fields into your standard letters and those fields will be replaced with the appropriate value for your contract.

Company Branding:

We have added a new option for Company Branding. This allows you to set a company name, address, email, website, and logo that’s different than your store info. This can be used if you have a different business housed in your store such as a specialty rental items or maybe an event rental. Please contact sales if you’re interested in pricing for this option.

Optional Items:

You create a quote for a customer and add the items that he/she requested, but you would really like to show him/her some additional items that the customer could get as well. If you add those items to the quote, it will also increase the price and might make the customer not place the reservation. There is now a solution to this problem. You can create another quote with the optional items on it; then, link it to the first as optional. Now when you print or email the quote to the customer, they will see all of the items you put on the quote and the total pricing for those items. In addition, there will be a section for optional items that will list all of the items from the second quote. Since they are in the optional section, their prices do not affect the quote price.

Mobile Workforce:

Now your crews can record where and what quantity was delivered to the customer. When the pickup is scheduled, your representative will have the option to use the GPS location of one of the items in place of the original delivery address. Your crews can record the quantity and make notes for each line item as they pick them up from the customer location Note: This feature requires the Fulfillment Module.

Another exciting new addition to Mobile Workforce is the Capture Route Begin/End. Your drivers can log the time that they left and returned to the rental yard. These entries let the route status report provide a round-trip total for billing based on complete drive time. This also allows the dispatcher to see that the truck is back in the yard.

Point-of-Rental is always looking for ways to help you operate your business more efficiently. If you have a suggestion for a product enhancement, please let us know by emailing [email protected]. To find out more about how these exciting new modules will give your rental operations a new innovative advantage, please contact us at [email protected].