Overview
RCM has a variety of additional features and integrations that you can choose to implement into your system. They are designed to enhance and stream-line the running of your business as well as provide your system with further capabilities. The additional features include integrations with payment gateways so that you can easily charge your customers online, APIs that allow agents and customers to create their own bookings, improved rate and availability features, and a variety of analytics.
Note: Most of these additional features are associated with an additional cost. Please contact
support@rentalcarmanager.com if you would like to use these features.
Apply ID
Apply ID is an online identity check service that you can send as an SMS message to your customer prior to pickup. This link will take the customer to a page where they will have to take a picture of themselves and their driver's license or passport. Apply ID will then verify whether the customer's image matches their passport or license and will automatically send you the results.
The results of this identity check will appear in specific ID Check Reports inside RCM as well as the Daily Activity Reports and the Booking form itself. For more information, please see the Online Identity Check article.
Agent API
RCM has extensive functionality involving Agents; third parties who make bookings on your behalf and take a payment form the customer. The Agent API allows Agents to check availability, and get information on rates, insurance and extra fess cost, then create quotes, unallocated bookings or booking requests that are sent through to your RCM system. They can also update and cancel their bookings.
The Agent will be responsible for writing code to interact with the Agent API. For more information, on Agents and Agent bookings, please see the Agents article.
Automations
The Automation feature allows for the automatic sending of emails, web requests (webhooks) or notifications after pre-defined events are triggered in RCM and the API's. There are a huge variety of triggers including the creation, update and cancelation of bookings, damages, payments and subscriptions: each of which can trigger a number of events based on certain conditions. For example, this can allow you to automatically send out an email to you customer 2 days before the booking is due to be picked up, if there is still a large balance owing and you require this to be paid before the hire. Or you can send an alert to a location operator when a vehicle change happens, so they know to perform an inspection for new damages.
Availability Engine
This is an optimisation engine that works in the background, managing unallocated, allocated and maintenance bookings to increase the utilisation of your fleet and allow for the most bookings possible. It has a variety of rules that can be specialised for you needs, including: utilisation, overbooking, contingency spots, vehicle sharing between locations, turnaround time and overriding. The Availability Engine can be integrated into both your Agent and Web API, as well as your RCM system, to provide accurate information about vehicle category utilisation and availability at each location during the booking period.
Branding
RCM allows you to run multiple brands within one system. With this, you can run different brands that share the same fleet, with each one able to have its own extra fees, categories and availability rules. You can also create different document templates for each brand that display different logos and company information on them. A number of the reports in RCM can be run for a specific brand, such that you can obtain and compare the relevant financial or booking information for each brand. For more information, please see the
Different Brands within one RCM System article.
E-Signatures
This feature allows you to take and accept electronic signatures against your rental agreements. This includes the main Agreement Terms and Conditions, as well as any extra signable section you want to set up. This ensures that you have a digital copy of the customer signing the agreement.
This feature can be used Over the Counter, which allows you customers to sign the agreement in store, and it can be implemented into the Online Check-In and Kiosk, as well as RCM Lite, such that the customer can sign their agreement as a part of any of these workflows.
Financial Integration
The Financial Integration feature within RCM allows you to develop invoices against reservations, and then post them to an accounting system. Through various Financial Integration pages and reports, you can also create and view payments, create and email statements for accounts due, run audits and view various information on the invoices themselves. For more information on its setup and functionality, please see the
Financial Integration Guide article.
GPS Integration
RCM provides an integration with a GPS Provider, who supplies plug-and-play GPS devises to install into your vehicles. Your RCM system will then be able to track your vehicles, and constantly provide both a current location and a recent location history.
For more information, please see the GPS Integration article.
Google Address Complete
This allows the customer's address fields on the booking form to be either filled in with or checked against a valid address in google maps. When you enter the address information into this field, a search will be done to find any matching, valid addresses, and selecting one of these will automatically enter the address information into all the fields including Suburb, State, Country and Postcode. This ensures that the correct information in used in all customer records and documentation.
Margin Fuel
RCM integrates with MarginFuel; "a cloud-based solution designed to manage all your revenue management requirements." They are a price optimisation engine that will provide you with booking rates based on numerous factors including locations, demand and utilisation.
This integration allows for the automatic use of the MarginFuel rates by any booking made in your system, and this helps reduce the workload required in manually managing Daily and Seasonal rate that are appropriate for the current market. For more information on this, please see the
MarginFuel Overview article.
Online Check In
This is a series of steps that you can provide to your customer to prepare their booking prior to pickup. You are able to personalise these steps according to your needs and they can include adding personal details, applying and changing extra fees, creating a payment, uploading images and signing the rental agreement. This can be used to ensure that your customer gives you all the information you need before they can hire out the vehicle.
It is a link that can be sent to you customer in an email that is either manually or automatically sent a set number of days before pickup. For more information on the Online Check-In, please see the
Online Check-In article.
Online Kiosk
This is very similar to the Online Check-In mentioned above, but instead a booking specific link that are emailed to your customer, this is a page that can be used for all bookings. You could add it onto your website, or have it on a tablet in store, such that your customer can update their booking either through your website or in store. Again, please see the
Online Check-In article for more information.
Secure Card Vault
This allows you to store credit cards against bookings as a token, such that is meets the Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance requirements. Within RCM, there is an email that can be sent to customer to allow them to enter their card details into the vault, and there are steps can be integrated into your Web and Agent APIs, Quote Conversion and Online Check-In to do this as well.
Packages in APIs
Packages can be used as the basis of creating a new booking with certain rates and specific extra fees added at a set cost. This feature can be accessible through your APIs, such that on the website or through the Agent API, all the package options that match the booking search will be shown. For more information on packages and their integration into your APIs, please see the
Package Deals article.
RCM Analytics
RCM Analytics is a fully fledged Business Intelligence (BI) solution that uses your RCM data to provide insights into your business's operation and lets you build and view your own reports using RCM booking data. This allows for the collating and processing of large amount of data without the long wait times and impacts of your RCM system.
You will be provided with a library of default reports designed to serves your essential needs, and you can build your own reports, charts, tables and summaries to provide the information most important to your company.
These reports and dashboards can be embedded within RCM and restricted to specific users to same as any other report, so they can only view the information relevant to them. For more information, please see the RCM Analytics Overview article.
RCM Lite
RCM Lite is a scaled down version of (RCM), which has been optimised for use with either a Mobile or a Tablet. It provides you with quick and ready access the key functionality while at the depot with your customer, including viewing booking documents, signing the agreement, recording payments and uploading images.
Additionally, it allows you to setup and use a number of workflows for hiring out a booking, returning a booking, performing a vehicle change and doing an inspection. These workflows are customisable for your specific needs and can be set up to include every step that is required before this action is completed. For more information, please see the RCM Lite - Overview article.
Rate Import
The Rate Import allows for the importing of seasonal rates into RCM from a CSV file. This provides as quicker and more efficient way of adding a large number of new rates, than manually doing it in RCM. For example, a single uploaded file can add the rates for an entirely new season across every location and category. It also means that if you get your rate from some external source, you can easily apply them in your RCM system, so long as the file is in the correct format.
For more information, please see the
Rate Import article.
RTM Integration
Rental Toll Manager, or RTM, is our tolling solution that allows you to manage the importing, payment, and cost recovery of every toll charged to your fleet of vehicles. To use RTM, you will need to have a Payment Gateway setup (Stripe or Windcave), as RTM will process toll payments through these gateways.
Once a Linkt invoice had been uploaded into RTM, it will locate the matching revenue booking against the vehicle. It will then automatically charge the customer the toll amount through the payment gateway, using their re-billing token, and will send an email to the customer about the toll charge. For more information, please see the
Rental Toll Manager - Overview article.
Stripe
RCM has partnered with Stripe to make their platform the default payment processing option in RCM. This allows you to save customer card against bookings in the form of a token. These tokens can then be used to take payments, record pre-authorisations, and create refunds that are taken through this card and recorded against the booking in RCM. Stripe Card Readers can also be setup in your system and be used to take payments and save credit card tokens.
As well as being used within your RCM system itself, the Stripe Gateway can be integrated into the Agent and Web API, RCM Lite, the Online Check-in, and Converting a Quote function to allow your customers to enter their card and make payments. Additionally, your customer can make payments through Stipe using a link in the Invoice email or can enter a card through the Credit Card email.
Stripe Subscriptions
In addition to the functions mentioned above, RCM allows you to create Stripe Subscriptions against your bookings. This allows the setup of recurring payments of a specific amount that will be automatically invoiced to the customer at set intervals. This feature is useful if your company handle a lot of long-term bookings.
Once a subscription is applied to a booking, the payments with be automatically invoiced and processed through Stripe with almost no management required through your RCM system. For more information, please see the
Stripe Subscriptions article.
Vehicle inspections
RCM allows you to create and save a paperless vehicle inspection against your vehicles. The Inspection Sheet allows you to record any damage to a vehicle with a clickable, interactive diagram and this damage will be carried over for that vehicle's next inspection. You can also check off item needed for the collection of the inspection, record the current Kms, Fuel Level and Next service information, mark the vehicle as Ready To Rent and add any other notes.
Each inspection will then be saved against the next booking due to be picked up against the vehicle. They can be viewed against the booking itself and in a number of reports, including the Daily Activity Report. For more information, please see the
Vehicle Inspections/Vehicle Condition Reports article.
We Integrate
RCM allows you to use We Integrate to upload and store images for a booking or a vehicle. These can include images of the vehicle and its damage, images of the customer, their license and any documentation relevant to a booking or a vehicle. For information on how to set it up, please see the
How do I link to 'We Integrate' ? article.
Web API
The Web API allows your customer to make queries about vehicle availability, rates and fees, and then create quotes, booking requests or unallocated bookings. You can use this API by either setting up your own booking pages to make requests from your own website, or you can use RCM's formatted Web Step Version. We generally recommend using our standard formatted version initially as this is a quick solution to getting a set of booking steps up and running on your website.
Many of the feature mentioned above, can be integrated into your Web API to create greater functionality for your customers. For more information, please see the
Web Booking Module article.
Windcave
Similar to Stripe, RCM integrates with the Windcave Payment Gateway to allow you to save cards against a booking, and create authorisation, payments and refunds. There are, however, some Stripe functions that RCM does not allow through Windcave, like subscription payments and integration with card readers.
Additionally, if you are using the Secure Credit Card Vault, RCM allows you to seamlessly use these card token to create payments and pre-authorisations through Windcave. For more information on its setup and use, please see the
Windcave Setup and
Windcave User Guide article.