What should I ask about a rental yard’s online booking and dispatch system?
Ask who owns the booking and dispatch system, what it tracks and how customers use it, then check how it handles double bookings and outages. Also find out whether the data, the website and the accounts transfer to you, and who knows how to run it.
Begin with a demonstration. Ask the seller to take a booking from start to finish, then dispatch a unit and process the return. Watch for manual workarounds, such as staff re-keying orders or checking a spreadsheet on the side. Those show where the system falls short.
Ask what it records: equipment availability, customer details, rates, deposits, damage notes and maintenance. Confirm that you will receive the customer and rental history in a usable form. Ask how often it fails, how bookings are handled during an outage and who the staff call for help.
Then ask about ownership. Is it a subscription in the seller’s name, a custom build or a service run by an outside developer? Find out whether the contract can be assigned, what it costs to keep and whether the website domain and payment account sit with the business. Ask who holds the logins. Your lawyer can read the contracts, and your accountant can check what is paid for the system now. Also ask how customers pay, how deposits and damage charges are handled, and whether the system connects to the accounting records. Ask what changes the seller has wanted and not made, because that often points to the system’s weak spots.
Key takeaways
- Watch a booking, dispatch and return handled live.
- Confirm you will receive customer and rental data in a usable form.
- Check who owns the system, domain and logins and whether contracts transfer.
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Sources
This answer is checked against primary sources. Links were last confirmed on the dates shown.
- 01Business Development Bank of CanadaGovernmentHow to conduct due diligence when buying a business
- 02Business Development Bank of CanadaGovernmentWhat are the steps to buying a business?
- 03Business Development Bank of CanadaGovernmentEquipment valuation: How to do it
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