Tools and Equipment rental software have been around for sometime, and they have been so useful. When asked which people use item rental software, most people mentioned video rental stores, game rental outlets, costume rental outlets, and machine rental outlets. There is a new addition, and an interesting one ­­— colleges. Why are they using equipment rental software? I will tell you all about it.

To Reduce Expenses Students Incur

Many students, in their days in college, need to use one or more equipment or tools, but some don't use it for more than a semester. Many only have to use these items only a few times. However, some of these items are quite expensive, and so purchasing them can be quite prohibitive, having a toll on the budget of college students. To solve this problem, many colleges have purchased these items, and have been renting them out. Students pay just a little, and they do this only when they really need to use these items, saving them a lot of money. When they finish using them, they return them, so other students could also hire them. To manage these rentals, colleges have been acquiring video or equipment rental software, an all in one module which manages these rentals.

To Keep Track of Renters

Equipment rental software is so good at keeping track of renters or customers. It tracks customer data such as names, addresses, phone numbers and emails. Most of them are equipped with powerful search modules, so as characters are typed the customers are filtered, so that only customers whose names or contact details contain the letters typed appear, making it so easy to locate customers or students. They are also equipped with barcode readers. When students or customers are being entered into the database, the barcode scanner just captures student identification numbers which are then used as ids. Some colleges use cell phone numbers of students as ids, instead.

To Keep Track of Rental Items

Colleges are using rental software to keep track of rental items. They don't rent out all items at the same price, so the software keeps track of not only rental items available but also their rental prices. Aside this, equipment rental software stores the state of the items. For example, defaced or broken equipment rental items are so marked so that they won't be rented out. Without software, keeping track of these details for so many rental items would have been a daunting task.

To Manage Inventory

Aside renting out items, some outlets within colleges may want to sell sundries to the students. Equipment rental software allows them to do that. Equipment rental software usually has a simple inventory management system that allows them to keep count of such sundries. There are also reports which give them more than enough information about such sundries and their sales.

To Track Rentals

A good equipment rental module makes renting out items so easy. The rental module allows the user to easily locate a student who wants to rent an item, and when the student's record is located, it informs the user of all items the student previously rented that are still in his possession automatically, and any late fee to be charged. The main rental screen will usually have a picture of the student, quick buttons to access the students data and rental history, as well as history of all transactions.

From this screen, the user can easily rent out items. If an item a student wants to rent out has been previously rented and is therefore unavailable or is in disrepair, the user of the software would easily see it. The software can also generate a report of all students who haven't returned items they rented and their contact information. Some can automatically send text or email notifications to these students.

To Make Accounting Easier

While some colleges don't charge students anything at all when they rent items, most do charge a small amount. At the end of the day, the accounting has to be done. Tools and equipment rental software automate all this. A user of this software can generate a report of all earnings over any time period anytime.

Colleges are being smarter by making life easier for their students, who often go for loans or work part time just to pay for college. From the preceding, it shouldn't be too difficult for anyone to understand how really useful tools and equipment rental softwares are to colleges and other businesses that use them.