point to the 2017 - point of rental software · wayne’s letter upcoming training & events...

PointInsight for the Rental Professional

To T

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Meet Our 100th Employee

+INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2017:

Why You Need To Attend

Spring2017Published by

Decoding Rental Success

The Future of the Construction Industry: What it Means for You

Point of Rental Unveils New Elite DashboardSimplex Goes Live on Elite

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wayne’s letter

upcoming training & events

features

contactPhone: 800-944-RENTEmail: [email protected]

March 28-29QuebExpoDrummondville, CA

February 26-March 1ARA Rental ShowOrlando, USA

May 9-10HRIA ConventionSydney, AU

March 7-11ConExpoLas Vegas, USA

February 8-9Executive Hire ShowCoventry, UK

May 24-25Vertikal DaysMerseyside, UK

March 12-14NAXSALas Vegas, USA

April 22HAE AwardsLondon, UK

June 6-8PlantWorxLeicestershire, UK

March 11Prairie Regional Edmonton, CA

June 14-17InfoCommOrlando, USA

July 12SAIAIndianapolis, USA

the owner will each have their own perspective. Getting skilled experts to give input is how we keep the software relevant to the wide variety of users. With three offices around the world, we have our finger on the pulse of the global rental and hire industry. This enables us to gather groundbreaking ideas from the people who know rental best and build them into revolutionary features that keep the industry moving beyond its limits.

Take a look at some of our featured products in this magazine and see how you are helping us help the industry. Also, be sure to sign up for our International Conference (see pages 13-14) while the early bird rates are in effect. Every year, we hear how incredible this focused training time is for our users and see how powerful the ideas are when hundreds of rental experts are gathered together. We would also love to see you at our Annual Meeting at the Rental Show as we go over

the latest and greatest enhancements to your software. You are the key to our success, and we strive every day to be one of the keys to yours.

Wayne HarrisCEO of Point of Rental Software

A person can come up with a good idea, but a group can help refine it into a groundbreaking idea and then transform it into a revolutionary product.

At Point of Rental, we truly believe that it takes the entire rental industry to build revolutionary rental management software. That’s why we are committed to hiring team members with experience in the rental and hire industries all around the world, gathering valuable insights and rental knowledge to help develop the software from good to groundbreaking. [See our interviews with Employee of the Year, Andy Haas, who grew up working in his parents’ rental store, p. 3, and with our 100th employee, Pat Lawlor, who owned his own store and later worked as a manager for one of the UK’s most notable industry businesses, p. 5.] We have an amazing team of people at Point of Rental and we take great pride in our work. But when it comes to defining the key to our success, it’s not about us; it’s all about you.

When building new features and enhancements into Point of Rental products, we look to our customers for input and ideas. Each user has a different perspective which, when combined, transforms groundbreaking into revolutionary. One user’s perspective is from the counter operations, another one from a manager’s perspective, while the dispatcher, the parts manager, the delivery driver, the accountant, and

POINTOFRENTAL.COM / SPRING 2017

02Rental E-signEver wondered why there isn’t a electronic signature option just for the rental industry? Well, now there is.

The Essential AppIt’s called Essentials for a reason! You’ll defi-nitely want to get your hands on this new app specifically for Rental Essentials.

03Employee of the YearWith our reputation for the best support in the rental software industry, it’s no small feat to win Employee of the Year here.

04TutorialsAre you using these new features in Rental Expert v. 2016? It’s time to start!

05Meet Our 100th EmployeeWith three locations around the world, we are working hard to bring you the best rental knowledge from all parts of the globe.

07Looking Back at 2016With so many new things going on, we thought we should provide you with a quick recap of what we’ve been up to.

09Simplex Goes Live on Rental EliteAs one of the largest rental companies in North America, Simplex needed a system to keep them on the cutting-edge of the industry.

10Rental Elite’s New Launch PadWe are excited to announce that Rental Elite is getting a new online dashboard, connecting you to valuable data wherever you are.

11Technology and Telematics: How it is Changing the IndustryWith huge changes in technology, you can bet the industry is going to change along with it. Read about the latest advances for construction rentals.

13International Conference 2017The date is set and registrations are open, reserve your spot for special discounts and pricing!

Stay up-to-date with the latest Point of Rental information. Follow us on social media!

SIGN

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Rental Essentials now has its own mobile app, turning mobile phones into portable checkout counters, return counters, and delivery assis-tants.

Starting out in mid-2016 as a one-stop delivery app – delivery drivers could see the addresses of their intended deliveries, notify the office that items had been delivered or picked up, and take condition photos on-site.

Now, we’ve added two more features to help businesses untether them-selves from the counter – Quick Receive and Quick Send Out sections, which join the delivery section to make the app a truly…well…essential part of Essentials. With Quick Send Out, users can find contracts via search or by scanning a barcode with a Bluetooth scanner or with their phone’s camera. Once a contract is selected, users can add items to the contract (or remove them) via the same scanning procedure they used to open the contract.

Quick Receive has similar functionality; a user can scan a room full of items and it will assign each item to the proper contract. It’s also possi-ble to receive part of an order and recalculate the amount owed for the items received.

The Rental Essentials app is set up nicely to handle future planned up-dates, which will help businesses run even more aspects of their opera-tions through their phone. Also, did we mention it’s free and available on both Android and iOS platforms? You might want to buy an extra battery.

The Essential App

INTRODUCINGRental e-Sign

When we first added an electronic signature option to Rental Expert, we looked out at the market and found a few companies that would work out a deal with our customers. Over time, we discovered that because these businesses were created for lawyers and real es-tate agents, their costs and processes were not ideal for the rental world.

So, we decided to design one just for rental.

The application works just like every other electronic signature application without the huge per-signature fee. You start off with a small startup fee to get the

application set up and integrated within your system. Then you simply choose the number of signatures per month you’re likely to get.

This feature solves issues in both the equipment and events industries by ensuring that the correct person is signing for the equipment while keeping you from paying fees every time there is a small change in the contract.

While e-Sign is set to officially be a part of the 2017 Rental Expert release, you can add it with v2016 by con-tacting our sales team at [email protected].


THE BUILDING bloc

ks OF SUCCESS

Employee of the Year: Andy Haas

We’re nothing without our support staff, which connects daily with our customers to provide training, coaching, technical assistance, and sometimes even moral support. We have over 500+ years of rental industry experience within our office, and everyone in the office is working toward our customers’ success. So it’s no small achievement to earn Employee of the Year honors at Point of Rental.

Andy Haas was voted Point of Rental’s 2016 Employee of the Year by his co-workers. Whether it’s his willingness to take on any task, his friendly face welcoming new employees with computer setup, or his great taste in formal wear, Andy’s a pretty popular guy in the office. We caught up with him after he received his award to find out what makes him tick.

Q: Why do you think you were selected to be Employee of the Year?A: I’m always saying “yes” when I should probably be saying “no.”

Q: What is it you do around here?A: My actual title is Software Support, so I provide Tier II support for Point of Rental Expert and Elite. Otherwise, I’m doing internal IT, whether it’s helping set up computers for new employees or helping wire up the new side of the office when we expanded. When we’re going to The Rental Show, I’m help-ing set up all the computers and get everything ready. I also do Web Support, helping Point of Rental interact with RentalHost-ing.com and troubleshooting when issues arise there. I help our software development team, using my rental experience to help provide that in-store perspective when they’re enhancing and creating new software.

Q: Why do you like being here? What inspires you to put in the work to become Employee of the Year?A: I’ve always been a hard worker, and I like to be known as a hard worker. Ever since I was 11 or 12, I’ve worked. When I started, I was working for my parents at their rental store [Crown Rental, which serves the greater St. Paul–Minneapolis metro area], cleaning canopies and equipment. Within a few years, I got to the point where I was interacting with custom-ers, and before coming to Point of Rental, I’d been promoted to become a warehouse manager. While I was there, I was learn-ing to always be there when others need me – if someone calls late at night, I’m always up to help answer questions. For example, right now I’m helping the Australian office with soft-ware support calls. So if our Australian offices call at 11 p.m., I’m still there to help. They appreciate the extra assistance.

As for working at Point of Rental, I moved down to Texas [from Minnesota] two months after graduating. I left my family and the job I’d worked at for nearly a decade to come here. It’s definitely tough to be away from my family, but the people and the culture here have made it so much better than it could have been.

Basically, I’ve always learned that people aren’t just going to give you the answer you like. You’ll have to jump over hurdles, work through it, and troubleshoot.

Q: What’s your favorite part of the job?A: Working with customers. It’s that feeling you get when you take someone who’s calling in and feeling frustrated, and you’re able to take that bad situation and turn their bad day into a good one by helping them get past their points of frustration.


POINTOFRENTAL.COM / SPRING 2017 4

Have a question for our support team but don’t want to make a phone call? Check out our help menu within Point of Rental, which includes NetHelp, “Did you know?”, and an online forum where you can get information from Point of Rental staff and Point of Rental users who have been in the same situation.

Here are a few new features in the most recent Expert update we’d like you to know about:

Self Service: Save time for your back-office staff. Now employees can change their own user information in the Counter Systems > Tools menu. Just select Operator Information and the employee can set their own email, cell phone number, and desired contact method. They can also change their own password or request a new one if they’ve forgotten (the password is sent via their default notification method).

Customer Contacts: A new field has been added to the Customer Contacts for the contact’s title. Examples: Vice President, Operations Manager, or Parts Procurer.

Event Reservation: The Event Reservation Date entry screen has been revamped to always show the calendars to easily see the surrounding days. In addition, event times are now convenient drop-down boxes.

Void Purchase Orders: Previously you could not void a pending purchase order. When a counter guy created a pending PO when he shouldn’t have, you had to approve the PO before you could void it. Now you can void it without taking that extra step.

Customer Task List: A new tab has been added to the Customer record that lists all the current and historical tasks assigned to this customer. But don’t use this to send them notes saying, “We know what you rented last summer.”

Breakout to Two Lines: A new option has been added to the Contract Processing screen. When you right-click on a line, you will now have the option of “Breakout to 2 Lines”. This option will allow you to take a line with a quantity of 125, for example, and break it into two lines, one with quantity of 100 and the other with quantity of 25. This is handy if you need to group your items by setup area.


100 Employeeth

Our


Employee

PatLawlor:From your greatest competition to your greatest ally.

Pat Lawlor sits comfortably in an office chair, drinking tea as he clears the jet lag from his mind. His neatly-trimmed graying beard, short hair, and Scottish accent has turned the heads of his new co-workers who ask, “Is that Sean Connery?”

Lawlor, who became Point of Rental’s 100th employee on January 8, doesn’t pine for the cameras or the travel schedule of an actor, however. In fact, his three-week trip to the States is the longest he’s been away from his wife, Jacqui, and kids Sean, 17, and Grace, 14.

Like many of Point of Rental’s employees, Lawlor started his career in the hire industry. As a teenager in Glasgow, he started working at a local hire shop within a mile of home. There, he swept the workshop, cleaned the yard, and loaded vehicles. Within two years, he was managing the store. From there he moved on up to a bigger hire shop, where he worked the

While with Martin Plant Hire, Lawlor met Mark Goodrum, then a Syrinx salesperson (now a Managing Director with Point of Rental), who had grown up in the hire industry as well.

“I knew Pat would make a great addition to the team the first time I met him. It is unique to come across someone in the hire industry who knows the business from hire controller to CEO and understands IT to the level Pat does,” said Goodrum.

After a couple of missed opportunities, one due to organizational changes, another because of the 2008 recession, Goodrum and Lawlor finally got Martin Plant Hire on the Syrinx system. Lawlor was ready to move onto new horizons and he wanted to ensure Martin Plant Hire’s information side would be in capable hands.

“ It is unique to come across someone in the hire industry who knows the business from hire controller to CEO and understands IT to the level Pat does.”

front counter. After hours, though, he was laying the groundwork for an even more successful future: Jacqui encouraged him to return to school for night courses, where he took business studies, accounting, and sales courses after work each day for years.

By the time he’d earned his degree, Lawlor was ready for a new challenge. And life handed him one in 1992, as the owner of his store was retiring. He and a partner bought the business, Power Plant Hire, and suddenly Lawlor was a business owner.

He turned to data to guide his new business at a time when few were.“We were quite innovative with what we were doing; we put a network in, we put computers into the business, we put a system in that ran all the asset management. More and more, I found I was doing IT support rather than working on the hire side,” Lawlor said.

Business boomed as Lawlor kept innovating. Power Plant Hire won several Hire Association of Europe awards, including Hire Company of the Year, and keyed in on new technologies. In the late ‘90s, Power Plant Hire’s business cards were on custom-shaped CD-Roms, featuring contact information, videos, and other relevant business information.Eventually, Lawlor sold his business to Martin Plant Hire, who asked him to take over their IT infrastructure. He oversaw developments like digital signature capturing, digital proof of delivery, order tracking, etc. even before such services were available from hire software companies in the area.

Even with everything squared away, Lawlor wasn’t ready to join Goodrum with Syrinx yet. He became an operations manager for a builders merchant, controlling operations in the north of England and all of Scotland. Within four years, he turned a company making £1-2 million annually into a £7 million profit-making machine.

Yet again, however, he found himself at a crossroads.

“I felt like I’d plateaued there unless I wanted to relocate to Northampton,” Lawlor said. Not wanting to uproot his family from Scotland, but seeking a new challenge, he turned to his old friend in 2016.

Lawlor now gets the best of both worlds: He’ll be stationed in Glasgow and spend time with his family, but he also gets to explore the world as he visits clients in Europe, the Middle East, and South Africa to help them innovate with Rental Elite.

Lawlor is excited about his future. “You don’t get too many opportunities at something new,” he says with a confident smile.

With that, he finishes his tea. After a minute or two of chatter about family and travel, Point of Rental Employee One Double-Oh returns to the training room for an afternoon spent on the intricacies of Rental Elite.


A Quick Look at

1st Australian Office Established

Located in Melbourne, AU we planted an office to help provide superior support for our customers in Australia

Acquired Syrinx SoftwareNew Office in UK

Recognized as the leader of hire management software in the UK market, Syrinx has been serving the industry for over 20 years and now combines with Point of Rental to continue to provide world-class service

Rental Elite is Released

This new product was built as a new ERP software that serves rapidly growing rental companies or large corporations needing a customized solution for rental management

Expert Integrated with Bing Maps

Being fully integrated with Bing Maps has its advantages. For instance, Bing knows every route’s maximum bridge height and roads that trucks aren’t allowed on and then takes the information stored in Point of Rental to create the best dispatch routes

1st Kiosk Integration with Management Software

The kiosk is perfect for reducing wait times and improving customer satisfaction by offering a self-help option with Rental Essentials and Expert

For the full storiesand more,please visit PointofRental.com/blog and remember to stay up-to-date onall of our news by following us on social media, subscribing to our blog or getting on our email list.


5th Annual International Users Conference

Located in Dallas, TX, nearly 200 Point of Rental users gathered for training, networking and learning better business practices (see pg. 13 to see what this year’s conference holds)

Rental Elite Honored with RER Innovative Product Award

For many years, RER has recognized the best of class in new technology and products. This year, they recognized Rental Elite for its customizable programming options and shared coding platform to help keep all users on the cutting-edge of technology

Rental Essentials Named Cloud Awards Finalist

Essentials is no stranger to the Cloud Awards hosted by Google. Participating in its 3rd

straight year, Essentials will compete against hundreds of other cloud software all around the world


Now that it’s being used at Location d’outils Simplex’s 41 branches in Quebec and eastern Ontario, Rental Elite can now be called Location Elite. Location d’outils Simplex (which we’ll call Simplex for the rest of this article - although Rental Elite speaks French, our mar-keting team doesn’t) has been listed by the RER 100 as one of the largest rental companies in North America for the past four years. They provide tools and equipment for individuals, businesses, and the construction industry. With an inventory of over 50,000 tools and assorted equip-ment, a staff of over 500 employees, and a few dozen branches, Sim-plex needed robust software that could better handle the processes that had gotten them this far. Point of Rental’s customized ERP soft-ware proved to be the right solution. Euclide Véronneau, Simplex’s Deputy Chairman and CEO, said, “Simplex wanted a supplier who knew and understood the rent-al business, and Point of Rental has a highly-qualified team in this field. Point of Rental Software is designed for rental business.” What influenced Simplex’s decision? Véronneau highlight-ed Rental Elite’s “intuitive navigation and fluid processes, simple and fast contract creation, an impressive quantity of useful reports, and convenient drill-down functionalities.” He added, “Information is easily accessible in one place on the ‘Day-at-a-Glance Screen. [Over-all,] the Point of Rental system provides us with dynamic and predict-able leasing inventory management, which allows us to maximize the use of our rental fleet and to have better planning.” “It is an honor to partner with a bedrock of the industry like Simplex Equipment Rental,” said Point of Rental CEO Wayne Harris. “Their processes have made them successful for more than a century, so we focused on customizing our ERP software to support their op-eration. Changing software is a difficult transition for any business, particularly one the size of Simplex,” continued Harris. “But the cus-tomizations we did allowed them to maintain their current processes. Integrated with their operational methods, our software now forms the foundation for growth across every facet of their business. We know it’s critical, which is why we call it a partnership. We are in it for the success of their business.” The company is already recognizing benefits after im-plementing Point of Rental Elite Software, including a significant reduction in training time for new employees as well as strategic decision-making based on reports and KPI’s the software provides. When Rental Elite’s new web-based dashboard (see opposite page) is released later this year, each of Simplex’s employees will be able to ac-cess the system’s new, sleek dashboards that put data that’s important to them at their fingertips as soon as they log in. Transition is always a critical step in the implementation of a new system, but Simplex seemed to sail smoothly through the process. “In this respect, the user-friendliness and robustness of the Point of Rental system greatly helped to ensure a smooth transition for employees,” Véronneau said. “Beyond the intuitive side of the sys-tem, there is a real desire for partnership on the part of the Point of Rental team that facilitated the transition.”

SIMPLEX GOES LIVE ON RENTAL ELITE


RENTAL ELITE GOES WORLD WIDE (WEB) You can do just about anything online these days. Research a paper. Order dinner. Go to college. File your taxes (don’t forget to do that, by the way). Book a vacation. And in 2017, Rental Elite users will begin to be able to manage their businesses via their web browser. Since we’re starting off with new code, we upgraded the looks to match what other web applications provide. With a streamlined interface, each employee will be able to log in and see a front-side dashboard that lets them immediately see what’s in store for them that day. “The whole center console is open to whatever is most important at the time. You’ll al-ways have these hot links on the left, other important things on the right, and the center will show whatever you’re working on,” Taylor Cook, one of the software developers working on Elite, said. On the left-hand side of the screen, you can easily access the program menu and counter menu, displaying the parts of the software you need based on your job. The menu on the right side of the screen keeps track of what’s been happening or what you’ll be doing soon: It houses a searchable list of reports and an individualized task list. The center console, however, is where the action happens. This is where users will set up their personalized dashboards, using widgets that access different parts of the database. Each person can set up multiple dashboards to manage every aspect of their jobs efficiently. The web interface interacts with Rental Elite software on the back end; with a server connection, you’ll be able to quickly access all parts of the software, and changes and additions made within familiar applications will instantly be reflected in the web interface. This means reports are always up-to-date and task lists will always keep you on top of things. In short, Rental Elite v2017 is going to bring your business into the future and look gorgeous while doing so.

HOW DID WE GET HERE? Before Rental Elite came to market, we knew that changes were coming to the rental management world. We’d already helped take business on-the-go with Rental Essentials, our first cloud product that would take straight-forward rental shops online and enable them to easily manage their day-to-day inventory. Because it is web-based, no extra hardware is required, it works on any mobile device, and can be used over Wi-Fi or mobile broadband. Rental Elite v2017 builds on what we learned developing Rental Essentials as it becomes a fully web-based platform. We worked with a design firm to come up with what would eventually become Rental Elite’s new look, then we figured out what kind of programming talents we would need and hired the group cur-rently bringing the vision to life. “Our team is really excited as we have been ‘re-imagining’ Rental Elite,” said Director of Application Develop-ment, Jason Albus. “Our Rental Essential team’s years of experience with the Angular framework for javascript user interfaces and back-end technologies like .NET and Symfony PHP, allow us to use RESTful web services. With these interfaces, the user has access to a responsive system without having to wait for communication from the server. Everything is immediately at their fingertips and the system manages the communication with the back-end systems to guarantee consistency and security. We think our users will find the new interface to be game changing.” If those terms are Greek to you, that’s okay; our developers are experts at translating coding languages into a language any business can understand: Efficiency.

Changing the Way We Manage Rental

&


TECHNOLOGYTELEMATICS

Rental companies, especially in the construction industry, are taking advantage of new technology to improve the way they manage business. Incorporating rental management software that not only provides cut-ting-edge features, but also integrates with many other applications (like AEMP telematics), is no longer optional; it has become a must for rental businesses that want to remain relevant in their markets. So what is this new technology and what does it do for rental businesses?

Telematics have taken the construction industry by storm. While they’ve been available for years with add-in devices, more manufacturers are now producing large equipment with built-in telematics features. Rental management software connected to those devices tells rental stores where their machines are, how much they’re being used, and whether they’re due for maintenance. Fleet tracking integration also allows stores to remotely turn their equipment on or off, lock or unlock it, and even restrict it within a geofence to prevent unauthorized site removal. Stores can also cap usage to prevent equipment from being overused if a con-tract has capping requirements.

Small tools are also equipped with RFID technology; stores that use rent-al management technology with integrated RFID can scan for precision


Q & A With Our VP of Sales: Greg Bennett

What are the biggest changes your rental software for the construction industry has undergone in the

last year?First, the construction industry is changing. Companies

aren’t settling for the inefficiency of having equipment sitting unused on a lot – not when they could be renting it to another

job site, renting it to a subcontractor, or even making it available for general rental.

Point of Rental is changing as well – we’ve moved quickly to provide several software options that will take care of any type of rental opera-tion. Rental Essentials is our quick, on-the-go software that can handle smaller, straightforward operations, and it’s getting more robust each de-velopment cycle. Rental Elite is a full ERP solution we brought to market in 2016 that can handle the largest fleets in the world. The speed of rental is really fast; we’re always working to ensure our customers are keeping ahead of the pace.

Do you see any trends with rental software? Are people using it more for fleet tracking/telematics or for their everyday work flow?Companies are forever looking for ways to streamline their businesses and cut unnecessary costs. Offices want to go paperless. Dispatchers want to find the most efficient routes, and some companies are even creating distribution points at job sites to cut down on having to make deliveries so often. As I mentioned earlier, construction companies are figuring out ways to make money on equipment that’s currently sitting idle, and I think fleet tracking and telematics are going to be critical in those endeavors.

Rental software can play a big role in those processes, but it comes down to overcoming the fear of change. That’s why it’s so important for us to be easy to use, for our customers to have immediate access to critical data, and for us to provide training as people get through that transition and consistent, knowledgeable support throughout our partnership.

What’s next for your company or how do you see the industry chang-ing even further when it comes to rental software in the next five years?Well, as a company, we’re working on an international level now. We’re integrating some functionalities from Syrinx, the UK company we acquired in 2016, to add operator hire abilities. The U.S. market hasn’t had much need for people to rent a trained operator to go with the equipment, but it’s a necessity in other countries. We’re working on new dashboards to make information even easier to access in Elite.

As far as the industry goes, in addition to construction companies moving into rental, rental periods are probably going to be shorter as it becomes easier to track rentals (and as customers demand it because they’ve been conditioned to borrow things only when they need it). Instead of people renting equipment for a month at a time, they’ll expect to rent by the day or even the hour. Companies, like consumers, are also moving away from self-hosted products and investing in cloud infra-structure, and we’re already moving to meet them as they head in that direction.

Point of Rental is in a great position to help rental companies negotiate industry changes. We have customers worldwide constantly pushing for more out of their rental software. They’re constantly innovating on their sites and in their warehouses, then telling us how to support those new processes. When we support that innovation, we help the best ideas move forward with the rest of our customers.

and speed when filling contracts. For example,

in Point of Rental Expert Software’s 2016 update, the

Contract Fulfillment module allows employees to add over-

prepped items, sell missing or dam-aged items, and use either of two new

scanning features: blind or double-blind scanning. Blind scanning allows customer

service representatives to scan incoming items without opening a contract – the items

will automatically be assigned to the correct con-tract within a customer’s account. Double-blind

scanning performs the same functions, but across the accounts of several customers, closing all fulfilled

contracts automatically.

Analytics and KPI’s are an important by-product of the functionality created by embedded technology. With advanced

reporting, rental management software now allows managers and business owners to mine data gathered from specific items.

Trend reports provide insight into seasonal trends, to help you know when to defleet or refleet, buy or sell items. Quantity Compare Analysis reports allow you to see utilization to know whether to purchase more or sell off, as well as track sales to forecast future revenue. Integrations with technology that offers benchmark metrics also provide KPI’s that allow stores to compare performance against market competitors. Key information from this type of technology equips owners and managers to make decisions based on real market data.

Other technologies manage the rest of your business, such as online shopping carts, automated parts ordering, and CRM functionality, are in-tegrations rental stores should look for in a rental management software. As contractors and construction businesses demand the convenience that today’s technology provides, rental stores are pushed to comply, so track the trends before it’s too late. In today’s market, having up-to-date technology helps ensure your store turns a profit.


We asked, you answered! With an overwhelming survey response regarding which dates worked best for you, November 6-8th has been named as this year’s International Conference dates. We will be hosting this event at the Omni Hotel in downtown Fort Worth, TX - and you can say we’re pretty excited.

For those of you not familiar with our International Conference, this event is our 6th annual training and networking opportunity for our customers. Hosted near our offices in Grand Prairie, TX, customers have the opportunity to see our offices and put names to faces with our support staff, choose classes that will best benefit your operation, network with other customers, and learn from our integrated partners such as Rouse Analytics, SmartEquip, Rental Hosting and many more!

The conference is over three days with classes from 8 am - 5 pm Monday and Tuesday, and 8 am - 12 pm on Wednesday. One of the major highlights of the conference is our night events (which are included in the price) so plan on hanging out with us Monday and Tuesday nights! On Wednesday, we will have optional store tours after classes that typically end around 5 pm. So book your flights accordingly!

Early bird registration won’t last long, so be sure to secure your spot and get all of the information at conference.PointofRental.com. If you have any suggestions for class topics, please visit this website and share your thoughts! We can’t wait to see you all there!

Why should you plan to attend the 2017 Point of Rental International Conference?

We asked our staff and dozens of people that attended last year to come up 10 reasons you should show up in 2017.

1. Hundreds of wise and talented rental store owners take the time to visit DFW each year for the Point of Rental International Conference. Shouldn’t you be one of them?

2. You have questions? We have answers. Reserve 25-minute blocks of one-on-one training, learning, and interaction with a software trainer. Then you can head back to your of-fice with answers to the questions you always wanted to ask.

3. This year we’re at the Ft. Worth Omni. If you joined us in 2015, you’re aware of how fun downtown Ft. Worth can be. We’re still finalizing night events, but you can bet they’re going to be full of laughter, great food, and time spent with fellow industry experts.

4. Increased chances of winning the International Innova-tion Award, presented annually at the International Confer-ence. (We want to be able to personally give you the award!)

5. If you leave the conference with one good idea to improve your business’s work-flows and efficiency, the conference pays for itself.* Customers last year told us they were leaving with dozens of pages worth of ideas. Bring your notebooks.

6. Classes from the experts: Need to know about an applica-tion? Remember hearing about how to do something during initial training, then skipping that part of the software because you didn’t want to call and tell us you forgot? Point of Rental trainers are here to take you through it again.

7. Prizes! We have some lovely gifts for a few lucky attend-ees. You might even win the opportunity to attend 2018’s conference for free!

8. See new features first: Our annual update comes out in the summer, the industry’s busy season. You might not have time to see all the updates and figure out how they can benefit your business. The International Conference is the first opportunity to really check out the new options and see how they can be implemented.

9. November in DFW brings average temperatures near 70 degrees. We’ve seen what happens to the northern U.S. and Canada in late fall and winter. Enjoy a few extra days of nice weather.**

10. It’s an opportunity to not only get a bunch of informa-tion about Point of Rental software and its updates, but it’s a welcome chance to network with other professionals in their industry. Point of Rental serves rental stores in just about every industry, so there’s always someone around who understands exactly what you’re going through. Sometimes they’ll even have a great idea you can implement at your store!

*Not our words! Several of last year’s attendees said this.**Our software gives business managers the power to control a lot of things. Unfortunately, the weather isn’t one of them, so we can’t guarantee the weather will be perfect.


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point to the 2017 - point of rental software · wayne’s letter upcoming training & events...

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