Plant hire
Plant, tool and welfare unit hire software
The fleet on one screen. What is out, who has it, which site it is on, how long it has been there, what it is earning, and when the thorough examination on anything that lifts is next due. Built for the way your yard already runs, hosted in the UK, and looked after by the people who built it.
What a hire firm actually tracks
Five records, one machine
- What is out, and the days it has been out
- The agreed back date, and who has extended
- Off hire called, and collection actually done
- Thorough examination and service dates
- Rate per hire, utilisation and revenue per item
Five records describing the same machine, usually kept in five different places.
A hire system answers "where is that machine, and what is it earning us" without anybody going to find out. One item is one record: which machine, whose account, the site it went to, the days it has been there, the rate it went out on and the examination that covers it.
Plenty of firms run all of that on a spreadsheet or a whiteboard, and it got them this far. Plenty more have software for part of it and a sheet for the rest, because the software was bought to raise contracts and never covered the examination dates. The question is whether the record is written as the work happens, or afterwards.
A first system might cover one yard and thirty items. The same system two years on can carry three depots, cross-hire in from other firms, damage recharges and the workshop feeding it.
What you would be looking at, in the order a day happens
Six screens from our own example system. Real screens rather than mock-ups, and the firm, every machine, account, site and rate in them is invented. Yours would carry your asset numbers, your rate bands and your words for things.
The examination side of it, plainly
Lifting equipment has to have a thorough examination by a competent person, and the interval is the part that catches firms out: six months for equipment used to lift people, and for lifting accessories, twelve months for everything else, or in line with a written examination scheme. The report has to be kept and produced when somebody asks. Separately, work equipment has to be maintained and inspected, which is where the service dates and the pre-hire checks sit.
| A record per item | Not per category and not per site. Each machine carries its own last examination, next due date, service date and the report itself. |
|---|---|
| Dates that reach you | Amber at thirty days, red once gone, and a machine out of examination cannot be booked out on the hire screen. |
| Kept and producible | Findable when an examiner, an insurer or a customer's site manager asks, which is the part a lever arch file in the yard office fails at. |
None of that is hard once it is captured against the machine. It is only hard when it lives on a separate sheet that one person keeps, because then the fleet list and the examination list can disagree and nobody finds out until something goes out of date on a site.
We build the records, not the legal advice. No system makes anybody compliant on its own. Check your own obligations under LOLER and PUWER with the HSE or your own examiner, and the examination itself stays their job.
Who it suits, and who it doesn't
Where this kind of system earns its keep
- Plant, tools or welfare units going out of one yard or several
- Machines that lift, so examination dates with real consequences
- Off-hire calls that need chasing into an actual collection
- Drivers who need the same picture the hire desk has
- Utilisation and revenue per item that get assembled at month end
Where we fit best
A small yard can run on a sheet for a long time. The system earns its keep once more than one person needs to know what is out, who has it and when it is due back, and a first step can be the hire board or the examination dates on their own.
If you run a large fleet on established hire software, it is likely doing the hiring well. What usually still sits beside it is the examination dates, and that is the part we build, joined to the software where it allows.
And if what you want is one system across hire, transport, workshop and accounts, that is a real project with a real budget, quoted as one.
AI features can be built in where they save time, such as a hire enquiry taken by phone or website chat and logged with the dates and the kit, or an examination report read and its next date put on the item. More on AI and automation.
Usually built alongside asset and equipment registers, compliance and inspection records or scheduling and run sheets. The rest are on the services page.
Ask about our free Business Systems Assessment
An hour with whoever runs the day to day. Clear recommendations to act on.
We look at how the work actually runs and what it runs on, then send you a list of what we would change, what each change would do for the business, and what it would take. In person or online, whichever suits you. Nothing to pay, nothing to sign.
- One hour
- In person or online
- Recommendations we talk you through
Honest answers
- Does this make us compliant?
- No system does that on its own. What it does is hold the dates and the reports against the machine they belong to, in the shape the regulations describe, and put the ones running out in front of somebody. The examination stays your examiner's job and the obligation stays yours.
- We raise contracts in our accounts package.
- Then it carries on doing that. Where an accounts package or a workshop system has an export or an interface, the hire, the rate and the dates land in it rather than being retyped. We hold the fleet and what it is doing, not your ledger.
- My drivers won't use it.
- They use a phone all day already. There is nothing to install, the run sheet is less writing than the paper one, and taking the condition photo on it is quicker than remembering to take one. We take them through it before go-live rather than leaving you to explain it.
- We cross-hire in from other firms.
- That fits. An item that is not yours carries the supplier, what you are paying and what you are charging, and it appears on the same board as your own, because the customer does not care whose machine it is and neither does the collection.
- How long does it take?
- A first system is weeks rather than months, and bigger ones go live in pieces so the useful part arrives early. Scope, price and dates are agreed in writing before anything starts, with what is not included written as plainly as what is.
Talk to us
Tell us how the fleet is tracked now and what you would want to see that you cannot. That is usually enough to say whether we can help.
Ring, 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday and Saturday mornings, or use the form below. Pick what you'd like to keep track of, add a line if you want to, and leave a name and a way to reach you.