Standard Rental Car Manager Procedures

Standard Rental Car Manager Procedures

Standard Rental Car Manager Procedures

Rental Car Manager has many features and functions and can be used in many different ways.

At its most basic Rental Car Manager will provide you with a comprehensive booking system via the Reservation Sheet. While this is a major step forward from a manual system, to ensure you gain the maximum benefit from Rental Car Manager we recommend that you follow a regular set of procedures and processes. 

Below are a series of steps that we believe will enable you to make use of not only the basic booking processes but also leverage all the reporting options and hence give you a more detailed analysis of how well your Rental Business is running.

Step 1.  The Daily Reservation Cycle.

When making reservations in the system it is important to ensure that all reservations are updated to the correct status throughout the booking process.

The diagram below shows the critical steps from making a reservation  through to completion.  
  1. Reservation  - Colour coded Orange on the Reservation Sheet
  2. Hired  - Colour coded Purple on the Reservation Sheet
  3. Returned  - Colour coded Green on the Reservation Sheet.
  4. Closed  - Colour coded Green on the Reservation Sheet
By following these steps you will ensure that the Vehicles are located correctly, that Hireage Revenue is recorded accurately and finally that Reports are accurate. (A lot of reports depend on these steps being completed correctly)


The Status or Type is updated from the Booking Form and  should be set correctly as the Vehicle is Reserved, Hired and Returned.  The Reservation is finally closed once the balance due is zero and the car has been returned.  This last step is important as it releases the Hireage Revenue to the GL Posting and Sales Reports.

Step 2.  The Daily Reporting Cycle

It is important that a standard set of reports are run on a daily basis. By doing this you will be able to reconcile your fleet status and gain an accurate view of your days activity.  The following reports should be produced on a daily basis.


  1. The Vehicle Overdue Report
    1. To be run every evening for the same day.
    2. This Report quickly shows what vehicles are overdue. It also helps to highlight any cars that have been returned but not updated on the system.

  2. The Vehicle Activity Report
    1. To be run every evening for the next days activity.
    2. It shows all pickups and drop-offs for the depot and lets you plan your next days activities in advance.

  3. The Vehicle Availability Report
    1. To be run every morning for the same day.
    2. The availability report shows cars currently available and  when any bookings on these cars are next due.

  4. The Reservations Due Closed Report
    1. To be run every evening for the same day.
    2. The due closed report identifies vehicles that have been returned but not closed on the system. 

  5. The Daily Receipts Report
    1. To be run every evening for the same day.
    2. The daily receipts report shows a summary of all tenders. It should match your till and electronic sales summaries,

Step 3. The Weekly Sales Reporting Cycle




On a weekly basis you should be producing the following suggested reports. These include financial and utilization reports that should be reviewed to assess trends and to make comparative analysis on figures from the same time last year.

  1. The Vehicle Activity report  
    1. To be run at the start of the week for the week coming
    2. Allows you to see activity for the week and access required staff levels, and plan pickups and dropoffs. This is the same as the Daily Activity report but run for the week coming instead.

  2. The Hired Revenue Report
    1. To be run at the end of the week.
    2. Gives you either a summary or detail view of both rental revenue and extra revenues.

  3. The Utilization Report
    1.  To be run both weekly and monthly.
    2.   Allows trends in Vehicle utilization to be tracked.

  4. The GL Posting Report (Optional if not running a Financial interface)
    1.  To be run once a week.
    2.  Allows you to see the required summary postings to packages such as MYOB .. etc.

  5. The Fleet Status Report  (Optionally daily if required)
    1. To be run weekly.
    2.  Identifies cars on the ground by location and allows effectively a stock take against actual vehicles and what the system considers correct. 

  6. Booking Status Report
    1. Can be run at any time.
    2. Allows you to see the current status of your bookings.

Step 4. The Monthly Sales Reporting Cycle

On a monthly basis you should be producing the following suggested reports. These are primarily designed to show you the sales and hireage figures along with the source for these. 


  1. The Monthly Hireage and Sales Report
    1. To be run Monthly
    2. Can be run for the current month or for any of the preceding 12 months.

  2. The Hireage Revenue by Source Report
    1. To be run Monthly
    2.  Shows Revenue by source category.

  3. The Monthly Sales Revenue Report
    1. To be run Monthly
    2. Show sales figures by category of vehicle. Depends on reservations being closed correctly after the booking is completed. 

  4. The Future Rentals Report
    1. To be run Monthly
    2. Provides a snap shot view of utilization across vehicle categories for the current month.



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