Equipment Rentals

The Rentals module turns reusable equipment into a paid, time-based offering. A rental is the paid cousin of an equipment loan: same reserve-and-return shape, plus rates, deposits, and invoicing.

Rentals are their own subscription module. If you only loan equipment for free, you don't need it — use loans in Inventory instead.

Starting a rental #

Rentals → Rental Agreements → New rental agreement. The same button is on Rentals → On Rent, which is the list of units that are out right now.

Picking a rental up checks its units out, so rented equipment also appears in Inventory → Checkouts — tagged with the agreement number it went out under. A plain checkout with no agreement reserves nothing and charges nothing, which is the reason to make an agreement whenever dates or money are involved.

In this section #

Detailed guides for everything covered here:

• Rental Agreements — A Rental Agreement tracks the full paid-rental lifecycle — from draft through reservation, pickup, return, and final close-out — and generates a Customer Invoice with the actual duration, late fees, and any damage charges when you close it.
• Rental Rates — The per-period price you charge to rent a Product — daily, weekly, or monthly — optionally overridden for a specific customer or location, with the most specific active rate winning at reservation time.

Rental rates #

Define rates per Product for daily, weekly, and monthly periods, with optional minimum periods and customer- or location-specific overrides. The best matching rate is snapshotted onto the agreement when you reserve.

If no rate matches, the rental is refused at reserve, at pickup and again at invoicing rather than quietly billing $0 — the message names the product and the period that is missing. To rent something out free of charge on purpose, type a rate of 0 on the line; that is a decision the system records and keeps. See Rental Rates.

The rental lifecycle #

A rental agreement moves through: Draft → Reserved → Picked Up → Returned → Closed (or Cancelled). Reserving holds the equipment for the date window; picking up checks the units out; returning checks them back in; closing generates the invoice. You can also return part of a rental — the agreement sits at Partially Returned until the last unit is back, and each returned unit stops billing on its own return date.

Availability and double-booking #

Reserved and picked-up rentals hold their equipment for the overlapping dates. That availability is shared with loans, so a single unit can never be promised to a rental and a loan at the same time.

Reserving checks every line on the agreement, including against each other — two lines cannot each be promised the last unit — and names every line that came up short rather than stopping at the first.

A reservation also holds the stock against the counter. A plain checkout of a unit that would leave a booking short is refused, naming the agreement and its dates. Every checkout has to state a due date, and that date is what decides it: one due back before the booking starts doesn't clash, so it goes ahead.

Returning equipment early releases it straight away. An agreement holds only what it still has out, so a machine back three days ahead of schedule can go out again immediately — you do not have to close the agreement first.

Deposits, late fees, and damage #

Take a security deposit (refunded as a credit memo on close), apply a late fee percentage on overdue days, and add damage charges that net against the deposit refund.

The deposit is collateral, so a damage charge is settled against it first and the customer is only ever charged once. On a $200.00 deposit with a $75.00 damage charge, the refund credit memo comes to $125.00 and no damage line is added to the invoice. If the damage exceeds the deposit, the deposit is used up in full — no refund — and only the shortfall is billed: a $250.00 damage charge against that same $200.00 deposit leaves a single $50.00 line on the invoice.

Billing #

On close, Knowledge ERP generates a customer invoice priced by the actual duration. For long rentals you can enable cycle billing (weekly or monthly) so the customer is billed periodically rather than only at the end.

Calendar and self-service #

A reservation calendar shows what's booked when, and customers can view their agreements and invoices through the customer portal, where each agreement opens to a detail page with the return date and line items.

Due-date reminders & extensions #

Set a reminder lead time under Location → Rentals — a card the location form shows once your plan includes Rentals — and customers are emailed once before a rental is due back — with the equipment list and a link into the portal. From the portal a customer can request an extension of 1 or 2 weeks, or 1 month, and sees a live estimated additional cost for the choice. Extending only moves the return date — the extra time is billed through the normal cycle/return billing, so no separate invoice is created. Requests wait for staff approval (an Extension Requests queue with a pending badge) unless the location turns on auto-approve.

Doing it from the API #

# List rental agreements
curl "https://your-domain.com/api/v1/rental-agreements" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"