Rental Inventory Management Using STAEDEAN Rental Management in D365

Rental inventory management has always been a challenging task. You need sophisticated inventory management software to track and manage your fleet, especially when it moves globally.

Cognizant of the significance of managing rental inventory, we at STAEDEAN, enable equipment rental companies efficiently manage their inventory with STAEDEAN Rental Management, a rental software solution embedded in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Supply Chain Management.

This article will share how you can manage your complete rental inventory, serialized and bulk, using STAEDEAN Rental Management for Dynamics 365.

We will share information on the following rental inventory management offerings in the solution:

• Ways to analyze and count rental inventory
• Ways to plan and schedule rental inventory

Ways to analyze and count rental inventory

1. Rental on-hand

By using the ‘Rental on-hand view’ in STAEDEAN Rental Management, you can analyze inventory based on the mutually agreed rental contract with your customers. The equipment inventory is updated based on the on-rent and off-rent dates using the rental contract dates committed to the customer.

The rental order dates trigger any changes (increase or decrease) in the inventory quantity, and you can count your fleet accordingly.

Example: Let’s say you have received a customer request for a forklift on March 25, 2023, and confirmed the rental order with March 28, 2023, as the on-rent date. This forklift is not available to rent for other customer orders as it has already been assigned. However, the rental on-hand for the forklift will decrease from your inventory at the on-rent date of March 28, 2023, rather than the day you assigned it to the customer (March 25, 2023).

2. Physical rental quantity

The ‘Physical rental quantity view’ in STAEDEAN Rental Management enables you to control your rental inventory based on real-time warehouse operations. You can check the available physical inventory of rental items based on the system date/time.

Any update to the inventory quantity is triggered by your current actions and represents the current state of the warehouse operations (such as picking list registration, packing slip, or returns).

Example: Let’s say you received a customer request for a cardiac monitor on March 25, 2023, with March 28, 2023, as the on-rent date, and picked the order on March 26, 2023. Using physical rental quantity, that particular cardiac monitor will show as ‘unavailable for rent’ for other customers on the same day, i.e., March 26, 2023, as the rental inventory decreases the moment you pick the rental order for the customer.

How rental on-hand and physical rental quantity help manage inventory

These two ways to analyze inventory in STAEDEAN Rental Management are essential for periodic rental counting and validating the numbers against your stock. Based on the rental counting and in-stock items, you can prevent negative stock by blocking certain rental operations (scheduling, maintaining, delivering, etc.) of the rental orders.

As a rental company, you can decide how to view, count, and analyze your rental inventory for different legal entities by selecting one of the two options above.

With flexible features to view the rental inventory from different perspectives, STAEDEAN Rental Management empowers rental companies to adjust their inventory view based on business requirements.

Ways to plan and schedule rental inventory

i) Asset availability

Also known as 'Fleet planning,' asset availability in STAEDEAN Rental Management is a flexible and comprehensive rental inventory management feature to plan and monitor your equipment. You can define the availability of the rental fleet based on individual parameters you set up.

It is used to manage serialized equipment and helps with short-term planning of your rental equipment by offering detailed information on each piece of equipment in your depot.

The feature allows you to define different statuses depending on the business needs and view inventory based on the equipment's status or rental lifecycle stage. It also provides data on the exact actions performed on your equipment.

You can change the status to 'assigned' if your serialized equipment is committed to a customer, and if you deliver the rental order, the status can be updated to 'on-rent,' and so on.

With an explicit knowledge of your fleet's stage – assigned, on-rent, off-rent, maintenance, and transport — you gain end-to-end visibility into your inventory and can make decisions about your fleet.

For instance, out of 100 pieces of equipment, you know that 50 pieces are on-rent, 10 are under repair, 30 are in transport, and 10 are rental-ready, based on checking availability across different depots. However, you have received a customer order for 30 pieces. Although technically, 40 pieces are off-rent, you can only assign 10 pieces as the remaining 30 are under repair. You can then decide to either sub-rent, purchase, or transfer from a different warehouse to fulfill the customer demand.

Asset availability form in STAEDEAN Rental Management for Dynamics 365
(Click on the image for a full-screen view)

ii) Business object availability

The ‘business object availability’ in STAEDEAN Rental Management allows you to see the availability of your rental inventory for a specific duration or period. It can be used to plan and manage rental equipment.

With insights from the business object availability, you can predict future equipment availability by setting up dates. Due to this, it is suitable for long-term planning of rental inventory (bulk and serialized).

This rental inventory management feature offers multiple filters based on which you can view information related to your equipment.

You can create ‘rental orders’ for a rental type directly from the business object availability, making equipment planning and assigning a quick process.

You can view your inventory using a grid or graphical view, and each piece of equipment can be viewed per business object or rental type.

For instance, you can plan and assign equipment for rental orders one month in advance, with an overview of your equipment’s on-rent and off-rent dates.

Graphical view of business object availability in STAEDEAN Rental Management for Dynamics 365

Rental inventory management with flexible viewing options

As an equipment rental company, you have great flexibility in viewing, analyzing, and planning your stock. You can use either the rental on-hand or physical rental quantity to analyze inventory and can leverage both asset availability and business object availability when planning your fleet.

You have the option to manage serialized and bulk rental inventory based on

• the rental contract/ commitment to the customer/ rental dates, or
• the real-time warehouse operations/ system date and time.

You can set up functionalities within STAEDEAN Rental Management depending on your preference for greater control over your inventory and maximize asset utilization.

Is STAEDEAN Rental Management the right inventory management software for your rental business?

If you want an automated rental inventory management system that offers flexibility with dynamic views, STAEDEAN Rental Management is a choice to consider.

Streamlining your end-to-end rental business processes, the solution offers a single source of truth for the entire rental lifecycle.

Schedule a demo with our industry experts to discuss how you can begin optimizing your rental business today.