April 20, 2009 - Enrich Software Corp. (ESC) has announced that the enrich Lease/Rental module will only be supporting Rentals 2 going forward.

The original development of the Rentals 2 module took place in early 2004. Since that time, both versions of the Rental system have been supported; however, all new development in the Rentals area has been performed only in Rentals 2. At this time, no new training or modifications will be handled in Rentals 1.

Rentals 2 Highlights

This approach is designed to increase control of your rental fleet, reduce your credit and insurance risk, and improve customer service and satisfaction . . . leading to opportunities to increase the utilization of the rental fleet.

Rentals 2 allows for expanded use of 'in' and 'out' dates and, when combined with the ability to more easily view both reservations and equipment availability across all locations, provides you with the information you need to satisfy customer demand and make the most of available equipment.

Insurance, credit, and equipment availability checking are all available at the time of reservation, allowing you and your customer to ensure that everything is in place well before a driver arrives to pick up a truck.

What are the features of Rentals 2?

• The streamlined process of Rentals 2 combines the rentals and reservations processes into a single step and allows you to reduce the number of administrative steps required to efficiently manage the complete rental life-cycle.
• You have the option of centralizing reservation functionality and allowing all reservations to be taken from one central reservation desk.
• You have accurate reporting of the physical location of a unit (may not be the assigned facility).
• Rates can be determined and billed based on the customer-requested equipment type and/or the actual equipment type rented to the customer.
• You can assign revenue split between locations to track the revenue generated from owned and loaned units.
• Separate contract types are no longer required for outside rentals.
• At the point of reservation, whether centralized or local, you can enter and retrieve driver information.
• At the point of reservation, whether centralized or local, you can enter miscellaneous charges when a unit is defined.
• In the rental scope, you can define rates for only one period (day, week, or month).
• At the point of reservation, you can deduct a discount from or add a surcharge to a rental rate (a percentage or a dollar amount).
• You can track surcharges or discounts to a separate general ledger account.
• At the point of reservation, the system will automatically calculate sub-total, taxes, and total for all charges, except for mileages.
• At the point of reservation, you can enter payment information, e.g. type of payment (cheque or credit card), payment date and time, payment amount, full cheque and credit card details.
• You can copy reservation information; e.g. to create a new reservation from existing data, or to create multiple reservations if a customer requires more than 1 vehicle or 1 vehicle on several dates.
• You can enter reservations for non-revenue use of vehicles; e.g. company use, workshop use, location transfer, in the same way as rental reservations.
• Once a Rental Agreement has been created, you can enter fuel ticket details, which will bill with the rental agreement charges (one invoice for both the fuel and rental charges).
• You can create agreements for non-revenue use of vehicles; e.g. company use-workshop use, location transfer and progress, in the same way as Rental Agreements.
• At the point of vehicle return, you can enter and process outstanding payment information and process refunds.
• There are additional search and retrieval functions. Search criteria include level (i.e. location, regional or national), vehicle type, revenue type (i.e. rental, lease, or off lease), outside units, deleted vehicles, vehicle status, registration number and agreement number, reservation status, reservation location, customer name, vehicle type, etc.

A Few Key Features Detailed

Here, we highlight three key features included in the Rentals 2 functionality:

• Define a Surcharge or Discount at a Rental Contract level – allowing you to either view these charges as part of the rental revenue, fixed or variable, or as a separate general ledger account to track the revenue generated from this function.
• Company Use and Transfer Use Contract Types with Revenue Accounting for Outside Rental – to account for the mileage associated with Company Use or Transfer Use contract types without having to create a separate entry. The Revenue Account for Outside Rental eliminates a separate contract type for an outside rental.
• Substitute Units and Sub Billing on Lease – to assign all revenue generated by a rental unit to the rental department and the associated expenses to the lease department.

How do you make the change to Rentals 2?

The decision to upgrade to the Rentals 2 screens is permanent, and users need to be aware they will be unable to utilize the functionality of Rentals 1 after the implementation.

Customers must be at enrich version 603 to turn on Rentals 2. Please contact Client Support for activation of Rentals 2 and to coordinate the required training for you to utilize these advancements immediately.