Stuart91 Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 I'm wondering if anyone knows of any specific textbooks or online resources dedicated to best accounting practices for equipment hire companies? We're doing a bit of a spring clean of some of our bookkeeping procedures, and whilst there's nothing obviously amiss, we have a hunch that there are probably beneficial tricks and techniques that we are currently overlooking. At the moment we are using SAGE for our books, and it feels at times like it doesn't quite match our requirements, for example it struggles with stock that leaves the building and then returns again, the assumption is that everything disappears once it generates income. Googling isn't getting me very far, since there are so many other kinds of "hire" and "rental" within broader business practice. Whilst our own area of dry hire is relatively niche, the tool/plant hire market is huge and there are doubtless other markets with similarities. I'm someone somewhere will have addressed it but I just can't find anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junior8 Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 A pity you've just missed the Retail Business Technology Expo - there were a few interesting alternatives to Sage on show. You might get some leads from the exhibitor list on their site http://www.retailbusinesstechnologyexpo.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Have you considered having Sage customised to your needs? A hire company I know has just had a module written to deal with splitting a customer's order for consumable into multiple orders on suppliers for direct from supplier shipments. If you have a particular way of working it might be easier to keep Sage as the core accounting module and get data in and out via your own interface. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart91 Posted May 28, 2015 Author Share Posted May 28, 2015 At the moment we are using a bespoke invoicing database that I've cludged together, data from that then moves into Sage for the actual bookkeeping. This means that cancelled jobs don't appear in Sage and only our bookkeeper needs to touch the program. I guess my original question was more theoretical than software-based. What I'd love to find is "The Big Book of Wizard Accounting Wheezes for Equipment Hire Companies" which alas appears not to exist. I'm pretty sure that there are accounting techniques or methods that we're not exploiting at the moment, stuff that would work irrespective of what software we're using to actually keep track of the books. Or useful metrics that would give us insight that we're missing at the moment. I can't help but think that there must be something out there in the wider world of plant/tool hire that would apply to our market too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 As far as using Sage in a hire business goes I know of at least one company using just Sage to do this so it must be possible. If you look around the sage website there are loads of third-parties who do hire modules for it, just one example... http://www.proteansoftware.co.uk/Hire-Module-pg58.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeilW Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Whilst not directly focussing on accounting, you may find a lot of useful business information from Tom Stimson, a US based management consultant who works with rental and installation companies and has a background in live events. His websites trstimson.com and av-matters.com are full of blog posts, webinars and information about the business of running a rental company. Neil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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