Rentals

Oilfield equipment rental software

Count the days a unit was actually out, bill them at your daily, weekly, two-week and monthly rates, and know what is still on the ground before the month closes.

Rental units · on rentLive
HT-114Coyote Rim 8-12 · out 23 daysMonthly
Tank CC-T1Red Desert 17-2 · out 9 daysWeekly + 2
GEN-7Red Desert 17-2 · out 3 daysDaily

Out there, not yet invoiced

$4,120

Example data

Where the money goes

Rental days are the easiest money to lose.

On paper

TueHT-114 goes out. Somebody writes the date on the whiteboard. Somebody else wipes the whiteboard.
Day 12It gets swapped for HT-118. The only person who knows the real dates is the driver who hauled it.
Day 40It comes back. Maybe. The invoice is built from memory and whichever rate somebody remembered.
EndThe days are an estimate. And when you have to guess, you guess low.

On Iron Dispatch

TueThe rental starts when the driver taps Delivered. Nobody writes anything down. The delivery ticket makes itself.
Day 12The swap continues the rental. One run, not two partial ones. The customer agreed to one rental.
Day 40The rental stops when the driver taps Picked up. Photo, time, and a signature if somebody was there. The pickup date is a record, not a memory.
End40 days bill as 1 month + 1 week + 3 days. The lowest combination of your daily, weekly, two-week and monthly rates that covers the days. Nobody typed it twice.

Your rates

Set the four rates once. The math stops being a monthly argument.

Set a daily, weekly, two-week and monthly rate for a unit. When it comes off rent, the app covers the days it was out with the lowest combination of those rates — the same way you would work it out on paper, if you had the time to do it for every unit every month.

A unit out for 40 days at $100/day, $500/week and $1,800/month bills as 1 month + 1 week + 3 days = $2,600. Straight daily would say $4,000 — which is not what the customer agreed to. It works the other way too: six days with a $500 week costs the customer the week, not six days at $100, because that is the deal.

How this compares to a spreadsheet →

Rates · HT-114Applied
Daily$1003 days
Weekly$5001 week
Two-weeknot used here
Monthly$1,8001 month

40 days out · billed

$2,600

Example data

What you get

Every unit, every day it sat there, every dollar it earned.

Every unit you own: where it sits, how long it has been there, and what it has run up so far.

  • Rental days come off the deployment — a unit goes out on a job and the clock starts there. Nobody writes the date on a whiteboard.
  • What is still on the ground, and what it has run up — a running list of every unit out right now and the charges it has built up since it left, before you build the invoice. Usually the number you only find out afterwards.
  • A swap does not restart the rental — pull a unit and drop its replacement and the rental continues as one run, because that is what the customer agreed to.
  • Pickup tickets prove the off-rent date — the driver logs it on the phone with a photo, and the date it stopped earning is a record rather than a recollection.
  • Different rates per customer — the customer who agreed to different weekly and monthly numbers gets billed at those numbers.
  • More than one yard Command — units, crews and jobs kept straight across separate yards or separate companies.

How pickup tickets work →

Out there, not billed3 units
HT-114Coyote Rim 8-12 · since Aug 12$1,840
Tank CC-T1Red Desert 17-2 · since Aug 3 · no rate set$0
GEN-7Red Desert 17-2 · since Aug 15$2,280

Example data

$2,600What a unit out 40 days bills against your daily, weekly, two-week and monthly rates — it lands on 1 month + 1 week + 3 days. Charged straight daily it would be $4,000 — the bill the customer argues with.Example data
$4,120Accrued on three units nobody has invoiced yetExample data
23 daysSince HT-114 left the yard — counted, not rememberedExample data

Rental billing

Rental billing, from delivery through pickup.

Busy season is where rental billing goes wrong: units go out fast, get swapped when one quits, some get fuel dropped into them every few days, and they come off rent when the pad says so — not when the truck gets there. Iron Dispatch keeps all of that on one line per unit.

  • The delivery ticket starts the days — the driver taps Delivered on the pad, the ticket is made with the photo, and the count starts on that date.
  • A swap is the same rental — HT-114 out 12 days, swapped for HT-119, 11 more: one line of 23 days at the rate the customer earned, not two rentals restarting at daily.
  • Fuel into the unit lands on the same invoice — with the Fuel Operations add-on, every drop into a fuel-burning unit at that pad is logged against it and billed beside the days.
  • The pickup ticket is the off-rent date — or, when the customer says it came off earlier, stop the charges on the date you choose with the reason on file.
  • Hot-shot deliveries are dispatches like any other — a rush unit goes on the driver’s phone, makes its delivery ticket when it lands, and starts counting from that date; the round-trip travel bills at your rates on the same invoice.

How fuel drops work →

Unit HT-114 → HT-119 · one rentalAug 1 – Aug 24
Aug 1 · DeliveredHT-114 · Coyote Rim 8-12 · ticket + photoDay 1
Aug 6 · Fuel60 gal into HT-114 · same padOn invoice
Aug 13 · SwappedHT-114 out, HT-119 in · same rentalContinues
Aug 24 · Picked upHT-119 · ticket + photoOff rent

23 days · 3 weeks + 2 days

$1,700

Example data

Rental tracking

From the yard to the pad and back — one status at a time.

1

In the yard

Available on the equipment list, with its rates, its serial and its service history.

2

On the board

Assigned to a delivery. It is on the driver’s phone as soon as it is assigned, and the office can see when it showed up there.

3

On rent

The driver taps Delivered at the pad; the ticket is made and the days start counting. It shows on the “out there” list with what it has run up.

4

Swapped

The replacement takes over the same rental. Nothing restarts.

5

Picked up

The driver taps Picked up; the pickup ticket carries the photo and the off-rent date. The days stop.

6

Back in the yard — or in the shop

Available again, or flagged Needs service so nobody sends it out broken. Either way the record of where it has been stays with the unit.

What you can rent through it

Anything you deliver to a pad and pick up later.

A rental unit is a unit with rental rates and a location; the app does not care what it is. Companies in this business rent rig and frac heaters, generators, light towers, fuel tanks, frac tanks and storage tanks, air compressors, pumps, hose packages, pipe racks and manifolds, containment and berms, rig mats, crew and office trailers, and sea cans — and every one of those is a unit, a delivery ticket, a day count and a pickup ticket in the same system.

Fuel-burning units get one extra thing, with the Fuel Operations add-on: the fuel you drop into it logs against the same site and lands on the same invoice as the days.

Getting started

Set the rates, record the moves, build the invoice.

1

Set the rates

Add your units — from a spreadsheet or by hand — and set the four rates on each. Different rates per customer if you have those deals.

2

Run one week on it

Drivers tap Delivered and Picked up on the phone. The clocks start and stop from that, with photos on the tickets.

3

Build the invoice

The days, the rate and the tickets are already on it. Once QuickBooks Online is connected, approved invoices go across with a button.

Questions

Questions rental companies ask first.

What happens to the rental when we swap a unit out?
Nothing, and that is the point. Pull HT-114 and set HT-119 in its place and it is still one rental — the days keep counting from the original delivery, so the customer is billed at the rate they earned, not two short rentals restarting at daily.
The customer says it came off rent before our truck got there. Now what?
Stop the charges on the date you choose, with the reason on file. The pickup ticket still records when the truck actually picked it up; the invoice bills to the date you set. Both are kept.
Can two customers have different rates for the same unit?
Yes, on every plan. Set the daily, weekly, two-week and monthly rates on the unit, then different numbers for the customer who negotiated them. The invoice uses the customer’s rates.
What if a unit goes out with no rate set?
It earns nothing until a rate is set, and the app says so: the unit shows on the “out there, not billed” list flagged with no rate, and the owner sees it under what is not billing and why. Nothing bills until you set one.

Plans

Rentals are included in every plan.

Rentals, the four rates, different rates per customer and the not-yet-invoiced list are all in the base plan; multiple yards come with Command. One flat price for the company either way, never per user and never a percentage of what you invoice.

The same app also dispatches the crews and trucks that deliver and pick up the iron.

See it with your own units and your own rates.

Bring your rate sheet and your unit list. We will show you a month counted from the record, and say honestly whether it fits. No card to start.