Predictive Equipment Scheduling

There are two main ways to configure RentalPoint to calculate availability of your inventory.  

Pooled Stock

Using this method, all bookings are considered equally when determining stock allocation. 

• if one booking is short then all bookings in the same time period will display as short. 
• By default, sub rentals are applied to any bookings within their date range. This can be useful if you wish to sub-rent some items for one booking and then apply them to others before sending them back to the vendor.

The Pooled Stock method is used when First Come First Serve is OFF in Operational Parameter #6

First Come First Served

This method will reserve stock in the order bookings are added to the system. 

• You may also use the Manage Reservation window (viewable from the running balance) to view bookings in reservation order and change the order if necessary. For instance you may want to give priority to a longer booking and sub-rent equipment for a shorter booking or vice-versa. 
• When using first come first serve the running balance / plot sheet (which show shortages based on the warehouse out date) will not directly reflect the shortages seen on the booking because the shortages are assigned based on the order they were booked as opposed to the date they leave the warehouse.

Use Operational Parameter #6 'Equipment Availability Checking' to set First Come First Serve option

Once parameters are set, reload software settings before continuing

Other Parameters to consider:

• Prevent checkout of short items
  • Prevents users from checking out short items that would steal reservations from other bookings. The availability is recalculated both when checkout opens and before save to ensure no shortages have come up during the checkout process. Operators with rights can override and check the short items out anyway; in that case the reservation is set to Jan 1 1990 to push the reservation to the top. In addition any bookings overlapping the checked out booking will be flagged to recalculate. 
• Fixed Sub Rental Assignments 
  • This will ensure sub rentals assigned to a specific booking will only cover the shortages for that booking. Only sub rentals NOT assigned to a specific booking will be applied to any bookings within the time period. (Note: When using this option, assigned sub rentals must be tagged to a specific line in order to cover the shortage)
• Early Checkouts 
  • With the Checkout Affects Availability option enabled, the availability of items will change to reflect the actual time they were checked out (instead of the scheduled out date). Also the booking dates will be changed to match the date of the checkout (if a final checkout is done before the booking is scheduled to go out).  
• Early Returns 
  • Enable the Early Return Affects Pickup Date to update the ‘Pickup for Return’ date of a booking when a final return is completed earlier than the scheduled Warehouse In date. The ‘Pickup for Return’ date will be updated to reflect the Final Return date and time.
• Late Returns 
  • With this option enabled, all items that have not been returned by the scheduled return date will be unavailable for ever until they are actually returned.  
• The quick turnaround option 
  • allows the prep and de-prep periods of a booking to be used to cover shortages. So instead of having to sub-rent or purchase stock you would speed up the deprep/prep of your own equipment so it can be ready to go out on the next booking. • Additional columns in the equipment grid will display the quantity available for quick turnaround and let the operator specify a quantity to apply. • The quantity available for quick turnaround is the sum of the products that will be returned to the warehouse during the prep time of the current booking. • Lines with a quick turnaround quantity will can be viewed in the shortage grid so it's easy to see which items need a quick prep/de-pre time.
• Racked Components Affect Availability
  • Set Operational Par #65 (count assets for quantity) in order to use this option You may have components that will always be contained (or physically attached) to a rack or road case. Selecting Racked Components Affect Availability will separate the racked components from the free stock available for single rental, essentially creating two piles of stock for a single product. 
  • Here’s how it works: Products added as components of a rack will be excluded from general availability. Specify a product as a rack in the ‘Shipping’ section of the product properties. Then build a road case for the rack to specify the items that are attached to the rack. Products added to a booking as a separate item will NOT count the availability of the items attached to racks. 
• Allow Extra Days (Only Use if Advised) 
  • IF ENABLED, stock will only be free for re-rent/re-hire X days after it is scheduled to be returned from previous rental. For example, 1 extra day means that anything rented from Thursday morning until Thursday night would not be free on Friday. This option is only applicable to companies that need to clean stock after return before renting/hiring again. If this option is DISABLED then stock will be available when it is scheduled back from a previous rental.
  • Try using Prep/De-prep to add preparation time to the booking instead of extra days (see operational #88)  
• Operational #27 - Allow multiple suppliers per heading 
  • Allows headings to be marked as outside supplied. Outside supplied equipment doesn't affect availability and doesn't take any stock.
• Operational #89 - Heading may have their own dates and times
  •  Allows warehouse Out and In dates to be set for each each heading so items on a single booking can be sent out / returned at different times.
  • NOTE: When prep and/or de-prep time is enabled on a booking those times will override the heading date/times.  
• Operational #127 - Allow Generic Items 
  • When generic items are allowed on a booking there are two ways they can be treated for availability
    •  Same as Regular Items - These are not different from normal items 
    • Always Short Until Assigned to Transfer - These cause generic items to be treated as never having any stock and so must be assigned to a transfer / cross rental to cover them.
•  Operational #160 - Set Date to Remove Shortages from the List 
  • Removes shortages from the shortage grid after either the warehouse out date or the warehouse in date. Only affects which rows display in the shortage grid.
• Barcoding #14 – P.A.T. Testing – Assets Unavailable until Tested 
  • When enabled an extra tab in product properties will be available to determine whether test type maintenance records should be counted towards the available quantity. Only products that require testing and have been marked to affect availability will be included. Look for the P.A.T tab in product properties  
• Transfer Options - Auto-Transfer from Satellite Locations 
  • The Satellite location type can be set in the Location setup window.  This option is available to any location except the main/0 location. Locations marked as satellite will automatically produce a transfer booking for any shortages on the booking.
    • When entering a booking at a satellite location a transfer is generated with all the shortages 
    • The 'Cross rental' column becomes the 'Transfer' column 
    • Short lines are assigned to lines on the transfer so the transfer booking # will appear in the stat column