Rental, although not a typical reason for opting for a CMMS, is in fact very well suited to such a solution. Shepherd CMMS, with its highly configurable design, is just as apt for giving a client oversight of their rental activities as it is for clients with field service or maintenance management operations.
A wide range of actions covered
The renting of equipment, the inclusion of accessories in those rental agreements, defining custom or standard billing criteria and frequencies are all aspects of the client-service provider relationship that Shepherd can help monitor, track and document.
In addition to that, there is also the credit for the return of an early rental, prorated initial rental, but above there is simply the fact that the client is maintaining the object that they are renting out, and what better use of a CMMS than to manage the maintenance of a company’s business equipment and assets, no matter who uses it?
A full cost and revenue report is therefore as possible for that rental asset as it would be for any other asset, making profitability reports possible and with that, gaining the information needed to make sound business decisions.
A sector fit for CMMS
Those in the industry can be glad that Shepherd is the first to have made that connection in offering to help with this type of business. Indeed, it is probably the only one to do so within the NetSuite environment.
With Shepherd having such a flexible approach to configuring its product to suit a company’s needs so as to appear almost bespoke, rental companies can feel fortunate too: the only company that is native to NetSuite and offers a CMMS for their business also happens to be the best in the business.
It really boils down to one question which barely needs answering: Why use one application to manage an asset and another to maintain it, when you can do both with a single product?
The only logical response would seem to be because a company simply had not yet heard of Shepherd, but once the possibilities are made clear, there’s precious little reason to opt for something else. Even getting something as fundamental as the profit picture mentioned above will require significant work using any other method.
The catalyst for NetSuite’s full potential
With all that said, for a rental organization looking for an ERP solution to make the most of NetSuite would be a very messy affair to say the least, without having access to Shepherd. In that respect, the symbiosis of Shepherd and NetSuite is perfectly illustrated in the context of a rental business.
The organization will need Shepherd to manage its rental assets as efficiently as is possible, but will also need NetSuite to handle the invoicing; invoicing that is probably higher then it would be without either, due to the increased efficiencies that are made possible with the combination of Shepherd and Oracle’s ERP.
NetSuite is the receptacle for all the information generated by Shepherd and allows for that information to be applied to the client lists it contains as a customer relationship management tool, or CRM.
Shepherd extends the features of rental operations to NetSuite. It collects information about the rental assets, in other words information about the lifeblood of a rental company. It transmogrifies that into data that can then be turned into analyses and reports.
Taking a classic example of a car rental company in some sunny holiday destination: Shepherd’s extensions allow for pre- and post-rental checks to ensure that no damage is done to the vehicle. Any that is can be logged with the correct client’s record and not wrongly to the next. Kilometers driven can be recorded and any up-and-coming service due will be flagged as soon needed, or as outstanding if the kilometers are too high.
Too many benefits to overlook
Beyond the stereotypical example above, rental can encompass anything that one entity owns but allows another to use in exchange for payment: industrial machinery, medical equipment etc.
The Rental Planner board is the crux of Shepherd’s rental management environment: it can show information about what’s available and when in virtually any format: numeric, visual, geographical, even verbal.
Once a rental has been organized, executed and paid for, Shepherd then pulls together all the necessary information that NetSuite needs to compile an invoice that accurately represents the true nature of the rental service that the rental customer had made use of.
If your company runs a rental operation and you want to avoid the uncertainty or sheer number of hours lost to invoicing customers manually, if you want to be able to capture every billable asset from the main product to additional ancillaries, ask for a Shepherd demo today.
All your rental records, fed into NetSuite in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost.
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