Short-term Rental: Inventory and Preference Setup

Rent Out Equipment | Rental Returns

Pro

Use this procedure to set up inventory and preferences to track short-term rentals. This example is for bicycle rentals by the hour; adjust for your needs.

1. Add your rental bicycles to inventory in the normal manner, recording the actual cost and a sales price (not rental price). This adds the bicycles value to your inventory and allows you to sell the bicycles at any time, should you choose to do so.

Unit Tracking: If you want to track rentals by specific unit, identify each unit with a unique serial number and select the Serial Number Tracking field in inventory for this item.

2. Define a service item with a description of "Bicycle Rental Charge", with a cost of $0 and a price equal to the rental charge for one hour.

Tip: Map the rental charge item to the QuickBooks financial software income account you prefer on the Additional Info tab of the item form.

3. On the Sales Order page of company preferences, define:

- A custom sales order status of "Rented."

- Sales order deposit requirements per your business practices.

- Optionally, printed sales order message, such as your policy on equipment damage, late charges, or injury liability.

Related Topics

Add inventory items

Use service items

Map item financial accounts

Sales order preferences

Short-tern rental overview