Rental asset availability

Rental availability does not work like the rest of your inventory. A rental item is bookable because a physical Asset exists and is not already committed, not because a stock level says units are on hand.

Use this to work out why a rental shows as unavailable, to build in turnaround time between bookings, or to take a unit off hire while it is repaired.

Before you start

• Configure the product as a rental, with Purchase Type set to Rent and an Asset record for each physical unit you hire out. See Configure rental products.
• Assign each asset to a Stock Location that the outlet draws on. See Add an outlet stock location.

How StoreConnect decides a rental is available

When staff open the booking screen for a rental product, StoreConnect counts the Asset records that match both the product and the stock locations belonging to that outlet. It then subtracts the holds and the bookings that overlap the dates being requested.

:::warning Both halves of that calculation are scoped to the outlet, and they are scoped differently. Assets come from the outlet’s stock locations, while bookings are counted from orders taken on that outlet’s own registers. A booking made at another outlet is not counted here.

So two outlets that draw on the same stock location can each book the same asset for the same dates, and neither screen will show the conflict. If you run rentals across more than one outlet, keep each outlet’s rental assets in stock locations that only that outlet uses. :::

A date becomes unavailable once the overlapping bookings reach the number of assets. Five identical units allow five concurrent bookings, and the sixth request for those dates is refused.

Two things follow from this:

• Assets are the prerequisite. With no assets at that outlet’s stock locations, the product cannot be booked at all and POS reports that no items are available. No setting on the product substitutes for an asset record.
• Availability is per outlet. An asset assigned to a stock location that the outlet does not use is invisible to that outlet’s booking screen, even though the asset still exists.

See Configure rental products for the asset and serial number setup, and Add an outlet stock location for which locations an outlet draws on.

Stock levels do not control rental bookings

Count on Hand, Available to Sell, Out of Stock Level, and Backorderable have no bearing on whether a rental can be booked. Those fields govern products a customer buys. A rental is gated by assets and bookings instead.

This matters when you are troubleshooting. A rental product showing plenty of stock on hand can still be unbookable, and enabling backorders on it changes nothing. See Manage stock levels and Backorders for the fields that do apply to products you sell.

Build in turnaround time for cleaning or servicing

Two fields on the product reserve time after each booking ends, so a unit is not re-hired before it has been cleaned or serviced.

Field	API name	What it does
Rental End Buffer	s_c__Rental_End_Buffer__c	The number of days reserved after each booking ends. The asset cannot be booked during them.
Rental End Buffer Unit	s_c__Rental_End_Buffer_Unit__c	The unit for the buffer. Days is the only value.

:::warning The buffer is ignored entirely if Rental End Buffer Unit is blank. Entering a buffer count on its own does nothing, with no warning, and the asset stays immediately re-bookable. Always set both fields together. :::

Example: a generator that needs a day between hires

Reserve one day after each hire, so the unit can be checked over and refueled:

• Rental End Buffer — 1
• Rental End Buffer Unit — Days

The booking calendar then treats the day after each hire ends as unavailable.

An early return does not free the asset

Availability is calculated from the booking’s end date, and that date is set when the booking is created. Bringing an item back early does not shorten it.

An asset returned four days into a seven-day hire stays blocked in the booking calendar until the original end date, plus any buffer. Marking the item as returned records that you have it back, but does not make it re-bookable sooner.

Plan turnaround around the booked end date rather than the physical return date. Where a customer regularly returns early and you want the unit back on hire, the booking has to be created for the shorter period in the first place.

Take an asset out of service

There is no status that marks an asset as under repair. Because availability counts assets at the outlet’s stock locations, the way to remove a unit from the booking calendar is to move it out of those locations.

1. Open the Asset record for the unit, found by its serial number.
2. Change Stock Location to a location the outlet does not draw on, such as a workshop or a holding location. See Stock locations.
3. Note why in the asset’s Description, so staff can see the unit is out for repair rather than lost.
4. When the repair is finished, set Stock Location back to the outlet’s location.

The unit disappears from that outlet’s booking screen while it is out, and the remaining assets carry the bookings. Existing bookings already made against the product are unaffected, so check the calendar before you remove a unit that is committed for dates you cannot cover.

Where a unit is written off rather than repaired, delete the asset so it stops being counted. There is no stock adjustment to make: rental availability is counted from assets, not from stock levels, so removing the asset is the whole of it. If you also track the fleet’s value, that is a matter for your fixed-asset records rather than for inventory.

Rentals are a POS feature

Rentals are booked at POS only. A customer cannot book a rental on your website, and the register must be online: availability and holds are both checked against the server.

The connection requirement goes further than the booking screen. A cart containing a rental cannot be queued offline at all, so an outage stops a rental sale outright rather than deferring it. Ordinary sales queue and sync later, which makes this worth telling counter staff about before they meet it mid-transaction.

Click and Collect does not change this. Click and Collect is a shipping method that draws on stock levels, and a rental is gated by assets and bookings instead, so there is nothing for it to reserve. At POS the fulfillment picker locks a rental line, so staff cannot move it onto pickup or delivery there.

Take rental requests from your website

You can still start the process online. Hiding the price turns the product page into a request rather than a purchase, and staff complete the booking at POS.

1. Select Quotations Enabled on the store record. See Enable customers to request product quotes.
2. Edit the Price Book Entry for the rental product and select Hide Price.
3. Set Hide Price Text to something that reads as a rental, for example Request a rental.
4. When a request arrives, book it at POS as a reserved rental with the customer’s start date.

Hiding the price does more than change the wording. One quotable item turns the whole cart into a quote request, so a customer cannot buy the rental unit outright, and no order reaches checkout without an availability check behind it.

That is also the trade-off: a customer who adds a rental request alongside ordinary products cannot check out with any of it. Tell them to request the rental separately, or accept that the whole cart becomes an inquiry.

The booking is then taken at POS like any other rental, and paid in full at checkout, including a booking with a future start date. The deposit options offered on other products are hidden for rentals, so a reservation is not a way to take part payment. See Process rental products at POS.

This gives you the shape of an online rental, a request on the website and a collection in store, without a customer ever reaching a checkout that cannot verify an asset is free.

Once assets are in place at the outlet’s stock locations, staff can book any date range where an uncommitted unit exists, and each booking blocks that unit for its dates plus any buffer you have set.