Development of CRM for rental services: real estate, cars, equipment

The efficiency of the rental business is determined by the speed of processing requests, payment control, and the level of customer service. You can control this manually, but it is expensive, slow and does not contribute to growth in any way. A CRM system for renting is a comprehensive solution that automates key business processes: booking, invoicing, customer management, and financial flow control. Regardless of whether you manage real estate for rent, car rental or equipment rental, a specialized CRM system for the rental business will make it more efficient and take it to the next level.

A rental CRM program is a comprehensive platform that automates and optimizes all aspects of rental business management: from accounting for clients and rental objects to data analysis and launching marketing campaigns. It allows you to store and organize information in one place, improve communication with customers and the productivity of your team.

Unlike ready-made software solutions, development from scratch allows you to get individual software – for example, CRM for car rental, CRM for daily apartment rental, or CRM for renting special equipment.

The rental business seems simple from the outside: the client leaves an application, makes an advance payment, receives the property for use and returns it on time. But in reality, landlords face a lot of hidden problems that slow down work, reduce profits and complicate growth.

• The use of traditional methods of database maintenance is too time-consuming. Manual input of information into notebooks or Excel spreadsheets leads to errors and loss of important data (contacts, rental history, debts), confusion when transferring data between tables, the need to check the relevance of information. Operational analysis of order statistics and profitability becomes impossible, and mistakes are inevitable, especially when there are more orders.

• Without a single application processing system , you can easily miss a potential client. Applications are received through various channels — website, Instagram, instant messengers, calls, they are easily lost or remain unanswered for a long time. Therefore, customers do not receive a response on time, and the property is idle, generating no income.
• The lack of digital asset control, service history, and depreciation leads to a long processing process for the issuance and return of leased property. Without a program for the rental business, the property is lost, breaks, and hangs with customers.
• Complex financial accounting — in the rental business, it is not just accepting payments, it is important to record prepayments and collateral, control overdue payments and remind customers of payment, automate the formation of contracts and invoices.
• Different lease conditions for different objects — a tractor can be rented for a day, tourist equipment — for a month, an apartment — for a long time. It is necessary to monitor the deadlines, control returns, deposits and insurance fees for expensive equipment, and charge penalties for delay.
• It is difficult to build effective work with customers — to make mailings with profitable personal offers, to introduce a loyalty system (bonuses, discounts for regular customers), to analyze the seasonality of rental demand for goods.

If you have only a few cars or three apartments for rent and a small flow of customers, it is quite possible to manage the rental manually. But if the business grows, applications come from different channels, and the property is lost, it’s time to automate with the help of an individual rental program.

A CRM system for rent should have functionality that covers all aspects of the business. The main features include the following:

• booking management — integration with aggregator sites, synchronization with calendars, automatic confirmation of requests;
• financial accounting — automated invoicing, accounting for debts, payment reminders;
• control of the availability of objects — protection against overbooking, quick search for free units;
• customer data management — rental history, personalized offers, loyalty programs;
• contract automation — legally correct execution, digital signature, saving the history of transactions;
• analytics and reporting — control of income, expenses, profitability of each asset;
• marketing tools — newsletters, promotions, loyalty programs;
• integration with other systems — accounting programs, warehouse management systems, etc.

A modern rental business is more than renting out property for temporary use. This is a complex system of interaction with customers, payment accounting, logistics, asset maintenance, and analytics. CRM for rent and rental helps to solve many problems in this business, depending on the specifics of the rented objects.

Automation of real estate rental simplifies the management of daily, long-term and commercial facilities:

• thanks to integration with booking calendars, provides up-to-date data on available objects;
• allows you to accept and process reservation requests from different channels and fill out contracts;
• automatically generates invoices and sends reminders to tenants about payments and check-in/check-out;
• reminds the technical staff of the need to clean the room after the guest checks out;
• monitors the condition of real estate — keeps records of repairs and maintenance of objects;
• integrates with booking platforms (Airbnb, Booking, OLX);
• forms a database of objects with detailed characteristics, photographs, plans;
• maintains a database of customers with booking history, preferences, contact information;
• generates reports on the occupancy of objects for the month.

Automation of daily apartment rental reduces the time spent on frequent check-ins and outings, as well as simplifies communication with guests: it automatically confirms the reservation of the facility and accepts payment.

Car rental automation is an opportunity to effectively manage the fleet, rental agreements, and vehicle maintenance. CRM for car rental performs the following tasks:

• maintains databases of cars with information about the make, model, year of manufacture, condition;
• controls the availability and status of cars — rented, serviced, free;
• provides online booking and electronic signing of contracts;
• reminds customers of return times;
• automatically calculates the rental price, taking into account mileage, insurance and additional services;
• keeps records of maintenance and reminds of the upcoming service;
• tracks the location of cars in real time;
• Creates a report on the most popular car models.

Automation of equipment rental prevents losses and simplifies document flow. Equipment rental program:

• monitors the condition and status of equipment — rented, in a warehouse or under repair;
• automatically draws up acts of acceptance and transfer;
• takes into account depreciation and reminds of planned maintenance;
• CRM for equipment rental allows customers to book equipment online;
• monitors the status of returns, records damage and charges penalties for late returns;

Leasing automation makes it easier to manage contracts, payments, and legal documents, and allows you to analyze the profitability of transactions. With CRM, you can:

• maintain databases of contracts with information about the object and terms of leasing;
• automatically generate payment schedules and reminders;
• generate and store all documents in electronic form;
• calculate the profitability of transactions and take into account risks;
• track payments, generate invoices and control debts;
• integrate with banks and accounting services;
• manage the data of clients-lessees with the history of leasing transactions, contact information in a single database;
• handle customer feedback and requests;
• generate reports on the profitability of the leasing portfolio.

The use of a CRM system allows you to significantly increase the efficiency of the rental business, reduce operating costs, improve the quality of customer service and increase profits.

Automation of rental accounting is becoming more and more in demand among various categories of businesses. The greatest benefit from CRM is received by:

• hotels and apartments – if the manager spends hours on room allocation, reservations and cleaning control, and customers complain about slow service;
• owners of commercial real estate who rent out offices, warehouses, retail space and who are tired of endless negotiations, forgotten payments and the loss of potential tenants;
• car rental companies that constantly have overlays with the availability of cars, and the control of damages and insured events takes longer than renting out vehicles;
• realtors and real estate agencies who need to process dozens of applications every day, maintain communication with owners and customers, without missing important details;
• leasing companies, when it becomes impossible to manage dozens of contracts and financial transactions in ordinary tables.

If you recognize at least one of these problems, it’s time to think about implementing CRM for your rental business.

A custom CRM for a rental business is more than just a customer accounting system. It will become your smart assistant that takes on important tasks, optimizes business processes, automates routine tasks, allowing you to focus on strategic development.

Thanks to the rental business program, owners can not only minimize the human factor, but also scale their business quickly and painlessly.

• Reduce the risk of errors , such as double entries and overlaps, by automating bookings.
• Control the availability of objects and quickly find free options.
• Maintain financial records by automatically generating invoices and calculating payments.
• Optimize personnel management by controlling the workload of employees.
• Improve the quality of service and customer loyalty — quickly respond to customer requests and personalize communication with everyone, thanks to integration with chatbots, call centers, and email newsletters.
• Analyze business performance based on real-time reports and dashboards, make informed decisions, and plan business development.
• Contribute to business growth and increase profits by optimizing processes and improving customer service.

To create an effective, convenient, reliable software product, you need a team of specialists in various areas:

• Business analysts study and analyze rental business processes, identify bottlenecks, and help make the system as useful as possible for business.
• UX/UI designers develop a user-friendly and attractive interface, think over user scenarios, and create the visual part of the CRM.
• Developers write program code for the user and server parts to implement CRM logic and ensure the stability of the system.
• Testers (QA engineers) check the CRM for errors by testing its operation in various scenarios.
• The project manager coordinates the work of the team, monitors the deadlines for completing tasks, communicates with the customer, and monitors that the development moves in accordance with the technical specifications.

Ready-made CRM systems can cover the basic tasks of the rental business, but they often do not take into account all its features. Individual CRM development allows you to create a solution that is fully adapted to business processes, the type of leased property, and the requirements of the company. They have the following advantages:

• the ability to add new features and integrations as the company grows;
• support for several rental areas (real estate, cars, equipment) in one system;
• taking into account the specifics of the business: the duration of the lease, pledges, fines, the condition of the property;
• the ability to connect only the necessary modules and services;
• control of employee access and delimitation of rights to work with the client base;
• the ability to store information on your own servers or cloud hosting with the required level of protection.

If the business is developing rapidly, there are specific requirements for rental accounting, complex business processes, and increased requirements for data protection, you do not need universal software, but an individual flexible system without restrictions.

Automation of a car rental point or real estate rental business is carried out in several stages and requires a professional and consistent approach.

1. Analysis and definition of goals

At the initial stage, specialists delve into the specifics of your business, analyzing first of all:

• types of leased objects (real estate, cars, equipment, etc.);
• the processes of booking, concluding contracts, payment;
• interaction with customers (search, consultations, support);
• features of accounting and management of objects (availability, condition, maintenance);
• strategies of competitors in the market, their strengths and weaknesses.

Identify the main “pain points” of the business. For example, how to speed up the processing of rental applications, or how to reduce the number of late payments. They also identify key business processes that need automation and formulate functional requirements for the future CRM system for rent.

2. Terms of reference

The terms of reference are a document that clearly describes what a CRM system for a rental business should be: what tasks to solve, what processes to automate, and what business indicators should improve after its implementation. This reduces the risks of misunderstandings between the customer and developers, and also helps to avoid expensive improvements in the future.

The technical specifications describe the functional requirements:

• key CRM modules (management of leased objects, customer accounting, payments, integrations, etc.);
• capabilities for each user role (administrator, manager, accountant, client);
• requirements for integrations with external services (payment systems, booking platforms, advertising accounts);
• a list of technologies and development stacks (frameworks, databases, programming languages);
• requirements for security, storage and backup of data;
• determination of requirements for server infrastructure (cloud or local storage, scalability, failure protection);
• expected load on the system (how many users and rental objects it should support at the same time);
• definition of user interface (UI/UX) requirements.

3. Design and prototyping

Before developing a system, it is important to carefully design its logic and architecture. At this stage, they determine how users will interact with the system — from logging in to performing key operations:

• determine the entities that will be in the system (lease objects, customers, contracts, payments);
• develop the logic of processes based on the scenarios of using the system: how the user will book an object, pay rent, receive notifications;
• create schemes for the interaction of modules, design databases where information will be stored and processed.

Then a prototype of the system is created, which allows you to demonstrate the functionality of the future product to the customer and make the necessary adjustments. The interface should be user-friendly so that they can quickly find the information they need, process applications, and perform operations. Modern tools are used to create prototypes: Moqups, Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD. This stage helps to avoid unnecessary adjustments in the future, ensuring high quality development.

4. Design Development (UX/UI)

At the UX/UI design stage, designers create an interface that makes working in CRM for rent convenient, and the rental process is quick and clear. The design should correspond to the brand identity, be intuitive and adaptable for different devices.

UX designers are engaged in the development of the structure of pages, buttons, input fields, filters and navigation, the development of a user-friendly interface for mobile users, and the optimization of controls for touch screens.

UI design includes everything related to the exterior design:

• selection of color scheme, fonts and visual elements in accordance with the corporate identity;
• design of buttons, forms, tables, graphs — everything used in CRM;
• Switch dark and light themes (optional).

5. Programming

This stage covers the direct writing of the code and the implementation of all the functionality defined in the terms of reference. Both the client (frontend) and server (backend) parts of the CRM system for rent are being developed, the approved design and integration with other business systems via API are implemented. The frontend is developed using modern frameworks and libraries such as React, Angular, Vue.js. For the backend, they use programming languages — Python, Java, Node.js, PHP and databases — PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB.

6. Testing

Comprehensive testing of the system is a mandatory step necessary to identify and eliminate errors in the operation of the system. Before implementation, it is important to check not only functionality, but also security, stability of work under load, as well as interaction with other business systems. For testing, tools such as Selenium, JUnit, TestRail are used.

7. Release and implementation

After successful completion of testing, the CRM system is deployed on the client’s server or in a cloud environment (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), data from existing systems is transferred and new software is implemented in the production environment. To avoid interruptions in work, the implementation of a CRM system for rent is carried out in stages. Staff training is mandatory so that each user can work effectively with the system. For this purpose, training sessions are held, instructions and video lessons are created.

8. Support and development of the project

After launch, the CRM system requires constant maintenance, optimization, and refinement. In the first months after launch, active monitoring of the system is carried out, user feedback on possible problems is analyzed. Regular updates are aimed at improving the stability of CRM operation and data processing speed, updating security mechanisms and adapting to new legal requirements. As the business grows, additional integrations, new automation modules, and advanced analytics capabilities may be required.

CRM support and development is a process that never stops. Business evolves, new technologies appear, customer needs change, and the system must respond to these changes.

Before ordering the development of a CRM for rent, business owners usually think about problems such as:

• Development costs, but in reality, CRM development is an investment that will pay off quickly.
• The risk of information leakage, however, modern security and privacy technologies, regular security updates make it impossible for the program to be vulnerable to cyberattacks. Automatic backups, delimitation of access rights, logging of user actions eliminate the risk of data loss due to user errors.
• Employee resistance and the complexity of adaptation — intuitive UX/UI design, employee training before launch, step-by-step CRM implementation with testing on a small group of users help solve this problem.

Any technological solution is associated with risks. But with a professional approach to development and implementation, a custom management system brings only benefits, and possible risks can be controlled. The main thing is to choose a reliable and experienced team, correctly formulate automation goals.

Now the success of the rental business is determined by speed and personalization, so it needs tools that allow you not only to keep up with trends, but also to stay ahead of them. Our specialists understand the specifics of this area and have experience in developing management systems of various types, including CRM for equipment rental, CRM for car rental, and CRM for commercial real estate rental.

We guarantee an innovative approach, efficiency and compliance with modern market requirements. Automation of vehicle rental or real estate rental with AVADA MEDIA is not just the development of a management system, but the implementation of a strategic tool that helps to turn every contact into a loyal customer, and each operation into an optimized process.