Josh Lewis, President of MCS Rental Software US, has spent years in the rental industry and software space and has had thousands of conversations with rental business owners. He has seen firsthand how quickly a seemingly simple software project can become much bigger than expected.

“I’ve talked to rental companies that have tried to build their own system,” Lewis said. “It’s an ambitious task.”

The challenge is not usually knowing the rental business. It is knowing everything required to
turn that knowledge into secure, scalable and reliable software.

Most Companies Don’t Know What They Don’t Know

One of the biggest reasons building custom rental software seems manageable at first is that
the hidden complexity is difficult to see until development is already underway.

“Most people don’t know what they don’t know,” Lewis said. “They know a lot about their
business, but they may not know everything that needs to be considered when designing and
building a comprehensive software solution.”

A rental management system has to do much more than create contracts or show what
equipment is available.

There are questions around:

• Data security
• System architecture
• User permissions
• Billing
• Maintenance
• Availability
• Logistics
• Accounting
• Integrations
• Reporting
• Data integrity
• Scalability
• Ongoing updates

And those are only the obvious pieces.

Security, in particular, can easily become an afterthought when a company is focused on making
a system functional.

“You can’t just build a solution, put all your data into it, connect it to the internet and assume it’s
going to be safe,” Lewis said. “Security has to be considered from the beginning.”

For a rental company, that system may contain years of customer information, contracts,
invoices, asset records, pricing and financial data. Protecting that information is not an optional feature.

It is part of the foundation.

That is also one of the advantages of cloud-based rental software, where infrastructure,
backups, disaster recovery and system management are handled as part of the platform rather than becoming another internal responsibility.

Rental Software Is Not the Same as an Inventory System

At first glance, rental software can look like inventory management.

It is not.

“A basic inventory system is designed to bring something into inventory and then take it back
out,” Lewis said. “It’s sold, and you’re probably never going to worry about that item again.”

Rental is completely different.

A rental asset leaves the business with the expectation that it will return. Then it may be inspected, serviced, cleaned, repaired, transported and rented again.

That cycle can continue for years.

“Rental is all about motion,” Lewis said. “You have assets in motion, and you have to keep up
with where they’re going, what they’re being used for, what’s happening to them and how they get from A to B.”

A mature rental system has to follow an asset throughout its entire lifecycle.

That can include:

• Where the equipment is now
• Where it needs to go next
• Who has rented it
• When it is due back
• Whether another customer has reserved it
• Whether it needs maintenance
• Whether it is rental-ready
• What transportation is required
• How it should be billed
• How much revenue it has generated
• How much downtime it has experienced

That is why equipment asset management within a rental business goes well beyond knowing
whether an item is simply “in stock.”

A sales system may only need to record one transaction.

Rental software has to manage the entire life of an asset.

Maintenance Is Often One of the First Things That Gets Missed

When companies begin building their own system, contracts, quotes and invoices naturally
receive a lot of attention.

They directly affect getting equipment out the door and getting the business paid.

Maintenance can become an afterthought.

“Maintenance is probably one of the first things that gets missed,” Lewis said. “It tends to be the problem nobody really wants to deal with.”

But neglecting maintenance inside a rental management system can create a much larger
operational problem.

Equipment has to be rental-ready when the next customer needs it.

Delayed or deferred maintenance can mean equipment sits unavailable for days or weeks,
creating both repair expenses and missed rental revenue.

“There’s massive importance in making sure equipment is always rental-ready and that there
isn’t prolonged downtime because maintenance was delayed,” Lewis said.

A dedicated equipment maintenance management system can help rental companies schedule routine service, maintain workshop histories and keep maintenance activity connected to the rest of the rental operation.

The issue is not simply whether the machine eventually gets repaired.

It is whether the company knows the condition of that asset before someone promises it to the next customer.

Home-Built Systems Often Create More Systems Around Them

A custom-built rental system may work well in the beginning.

Then the rental company grows.

There are more customers, more assets, more employees, more branches, more contracts and more exceptions to the original workflow.

When the software can no longer handle everything the business needs, employees usually find another way to get the job done.

That is when spreadsheets start appearing.

Then paper forms.

Then separate maintenance systems.

Then Word documents.

Then another tool for scheduling.

Then another application for invoicing.

“When the software can’t keep up, ancillary systems start getting built around it,” Lewis said.
“Usually that means spreadsheets, paper, forms, Word documents or other tools that are filling the gaps.”

Each workaround solves an immediate problem.

Collectively, they create a larger one.

“It becomes a Band-Aid on a bigger problem,” Lewis said. “The information starts spilling out of the main system, and that’s how you end up with siloed systems.”

Instead of one source of truth, employees have to determine which system contains the most
current information.

That makes reporting harder, creates more opportunities for errors and makes it increasingly
difficult to understand what is actually happening across the business.

Even when outside platforms are necessary, strong rental software integrations help keep
information connected instead of forcing employees to repeatedly move data between
disconnected tools.

AI Does Not Fix a Bad Software Foundation

The accessibility of generative AI has also changed the conversation around building software.

AI can now help generate code, automate tasks and make development faster.

But there is an important distinction between using AI inside mature rental software and using AI to build an entire rental management system from scratch.

“There’s a huge difference between having software that includes and leverages the power of AI versus using AI to build the entire solution,” Lewis said.

AI is powerful.

It is not perfect.

Rental businesses have countless exceptions, workflows and industry-specific requirements
that can be easy to overlook during the development process.

“There’s so much to consider,” Lewis said. “There are inevitably going to be gaps along the
way.”

AI becomes especially valuable when it can work from reliable, structured business data.

That is where the underlying software matters.

Your Data Has to Be Connected Before AI Can Understand It

AI can analyze enormous amounts of information much faster than a person ever could.

But it can only analyze the information it can access.

For rental companies using disconnected systems, that creates a limitation.

A company might use one platform for maintenance, another for contracts, another for invoicing and multiple spreadsheets for everything in between.

“If those systems are not connected, AI can only do so much,” Lewis said.

By contrast, when contracts, invoices, customers, assets, maintenance records and rental
history exist within one connected rental management system, AI has a much stronger
foundation to work from.

“The value of having one system with AI layered over it is that it has access to everything,”
Lewis said.

That can create insights that would be incredibly difficult to uncover manually.

For example, AI may help a rental company understand:

• Which customers are most profitable
• Which assets are performing best
• Which equipment experiences the most downtime
• Whether one equipment model is outperforming another
• Where revenue opportunities may be getting missed
• What patterns exist across thousands of contracts and invoices

“You’re trying to understand what the data is actually telling you,” Lewis said. “What is the story behind the data?”

AI can help answer that question.

But the quality of the answer still depends on the quality and structure of the system underneath it.

That is one reason MCS focuses on bringing sales, operations, equipment management,
logistics and accounting together within one connected rental software platform.

MCS Is Configurable, Not Custom-Built

There is also an important distinction between custom software and configurable software.

MCS Rental Software is not a different piece of software built from scratch for every customer.

Instead, it is a highly configurable rental management platform.

“Custom software would imply that every customer has a version of the software that is entirely unique to them,” Lewis said. “That means updates would potentially have to be handled on a one-off basis.”

A configurable platform takes a different approach.

The core software remains supported and continually developed, while configurations and
available tools allow the platform to adapt to the workflows of individual rental businesses.

“With MCS, we have different tools in the toolbox and configurations that allow us to tailor the implementation around how the workflow actually moves through the business,” Lewis said.

That matters because no two rental companies operate exactly the same way.

A business should not necessarily have to redesign every internal process simply to
accommodate its software.

At the same time, it should not have to become a software development company just to get
flexibility.

Forty Years of Rental Knowledge Is Difficult to Recreate

MCS has worked in the rental industry for more than 40 years.

Over that time, the company has worked across numerous rental industry sectors, each with its own workflows and complications.

“There’s a lot to know and a lot to understand,” Lewis said. “Part of what’s unique about rental is that every segment has its own nuance.”

Renting temporary fencing is not the same as renting a skid steer.

Renting a skid steer is not the same as renting portable toilets.

Each business may have different requirements around transportation, recurring billing, servicing, scheduling, contracts and asset management.

“The way a company rents fencing is entirely different from the way a company rents a piece of equipment, and that’s completely different from portable sanitation,” Lewis said.

For example, portable restroom rental software may need to accommodate recurring servicing schedules, route planning, contracts and complex billing in ways that look very different from a traditional equipment rental operation.

Understanding rental software therefore requires more than understanding how to build
contracts or track inventory.

It requires understanding the operational realities behind multiple types of rental businesses.
That knowledge builds over time.

The Real Cost of Building Rental Software Comes Later

The initial development cost is only one part of building software internally.

The business also becomes responsible for everything that happens after launch.

That includes:

• Security
• Hosting
• Backups
• Updates
• Bug fixes
• Integrations
• Compliance
• New technology
• Mobile functionality
• Employee access
• Scalability
• Ongoing development

“You’re entirely responsible for the upkeep, the safety, the security and all of the new
developments that come along,” Lewis said.

And that responsibility does not go away once the first version is finished.

In many cases, it grows.

Every new business requirement becomes another development request. Every technology
change creates another potential update. Every integration has to be maintained.

Even processes that sound straightforward can become complex. Rental billing software, for
example, may need to account for rental periods, transportation fees, discounts, consumables, proof of delivery and different invoicing requirements.

Likewise, rental logistics can involve route planning, driver communication, collections,
deliveries, resource scheduling and real-time updates.

The question eventually stops being Can we build this?

It becomes Do we want to own this forever?

You Also Lose the Advantage of a Rental Community

One of the least obvious benefits of established rental software is that the platform is influenced by more than one company.

“When you’re using established rental software, you’re part of a community of business owners who are dealing with many of the same problems you are,” Lewis said.

A challenge experienced by one rental company may lead to a solution that ultimately benefits many others.

That collective experience is difficult to recreate when a company builds an internal system in
isolation.

“You’re not out on an island trying to figure out what the next problem is and hoping you’ve built the right solution for it,” Lewis said.

Good rental software evolves alongside the rental businesses using it.

Three Questions to Ask Before Building Your Own Rental Software

Before deciding to build rather than buy rental management software, Lewis recommends
asking three questions.

1. What advantage are we actually gaining?

Building software because existing processes are frustrating is different from building software because there is a true competitive advantage.

Ask whether the benefit is significant enough to justify the cost, risk and long-term responsibility.

2. Are we prepared to own the security and liability?

A company developing software internally also takes responsibility for protecting the system and its data.

Businesses considering AI-generated or internally developed applications should also speak
with their cybersecurity, legal and insurance advisers about how those systems may affect their risk profile and cyber liability coverage.

3. Are we comfortable building alone?

Rental businesses encounter many of the same operational challenges.

Established software gives companies access to decades of accumulated rental knowledge and a broader community of users solving similar problems.

A home-built system does not automatically come with that experience.

Before You Build, Consider What You’re Really Signing Up For

There may be situations where building software internally makes sense.

But rental companies should understand the full scope of the decision before starting.

You are not simply building a way to write contracts or see what equipment is available.

You are building a system that may eventually need to manage the entire lifecycle of every
asset in the business while handling maintenance, billing, logistics, customer information,
security, reporting, integrations and future growth.

And then you have to keep building it.

“Rental looks simple until you start trying to account for everything that actually happens to an asset,” Lewis said.

The goal should not simply be to create software that works today.

It should be to have a system that can continue supporting the rental business as it grows,
changes and encounters problems it has not even thought of yet.

If your current systems are beginning to create more work than they solve, explore how MCS Rental Software connects your rental operation in one platform.