Shepherd’s Rental Swap Functionality

Published on 二月 13, 2023

The Rental module is used to assign specific equipment and, on some occasions, accessories for rental. This allows you to service your equipment whilst rented, track its location, as well as your equipment’s rental statuses, which can be conveniently tracked using NetSuite Dashboard. Being native NetSuite SuiteApp, the Rental module also takes care of billing your customers based on the rental period set in the rental contract.

The Rental Swap

In this blog, we will go through the “Rental Swap” feature. Roland is a technician that Shepherd’s client has scheduled to replace a Propane Gas Tank with serial number: PG-10005, which currently is being rented by a customer’s company, at a gas station they manage.

There might be several reasons why one would have to replace already rented equipment. The most likely is when equipment has broken down. There are 2 options available: either repairing it on-site or exchanging it for different equipment. Since Roland wouldn’t want to interrupt the customer’s work, the easier and better solution for everyone would be to replace it.

Logging in to the application, Roland chooses the required Service Order assigned to him on that specific date. Service Order SO00006123 includes all the details about the required service as well as the serviced equipment.

Shepherd CMMS Screenshot: Service Order Assigned to Rental Contract.
Shepherd CMMS Screenshot: Replace Rule Options
The Rental module view makes all the relevant details available and easy to navigate

Different options for different situations

As gas tank PG-10005 is currently rented, the application offers Roland an additional “Optional Action” called “Rental Swap”. The rental swap feature allows Roland to choose between the following Replace Rules: “Reassign Equipment”, “Add Equipment” or “Continue Service”.

Reassign Equipment would replace the existing “Assigned Equipment” with an item of “Replacement Equipment”, which in our case is a second Propane Gas Tank with serial number PG-11120. The Service Order would then swap these tanks with each other, and Roland would continue the service on the new gas tank. In the NetSuite system, this process would automatically set the initial equipment’s (PG-10005) Rental End Date to the date when it was replaced with PG-11120. The new equipment would then continue the rental period instead of the previous one.

Shepherd CMMS Screenshot: Rental Swap Form
The technician can create a clear paper trail of what happened to which rental items

If the situation requires adding additional equipment to the rental contract, Roland would choose the “Add Equipment” replace rule, to simply start the rental period of the new equipment together with the older one. The “Continue Service” rule is similar to the “Reassign Equipment” rule, but it wouldn’t remove the replaced equipment from the Service Order and instead would add the new PG-11120 as additional equipment to that Service Order. Rather, Roland would continue providing a scheduled service for both pieces of equipment at the same time.

Shepherd CMM Screenshot: Every realistic action is available in the rental module so the technician's actions are clearly recorded
Every realistic action is available in the rental module so the technician’s actions are clearly recorded

After filling in all the required fields in the Rental Swap Form, Roland is free to proceed with his service report, end his time entry and then complete the trip.

Shepherd CMMS Screenshot

To make it possible for your rental operations to be as easy to plan, track and bill, why not book a demo and see what Shepherd can do for you.

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