Generator hire runs on two clocks. There is the calendar clock the customer books against, and the hour meter that decides when a set actually needs servicing. A 20kVA set on a housebuild might do thirty hours in a fortnight; the same set on standby duty does four hundred. Add fuel, bunded tanks, tails, distribution boards and the occasional call at two in the morning, and the paperwork gets away from you quickly. Software earns its place at three points: knowing what is genuinely free before you promise it, capturing meter and fuel readings at the door so the invoice stands up, and getting sets serviced on hours rather than on hope.
Equipment categories we support
Common challenges in generator rental
Servicing driven by hours
A set on standby might do twenty hours in a month; the same set on a crushing job does four hundred. Date-based service intervals either waste workshop time or let a machine fail on site.
Fuel that never comes back
Refuelling runs cost a driver, a vehicle and the diesel itself. If the litres are not written against the hire at the time, they get forgotten by invoicing and the margin on a long job quietly disappears.
Emergency callouts out of hours
When a site loses power the call comes at any hour. Whoever picks up has to know what is free, where it is and who can drive it, without opening a spreadsheet or ringing the depot manager.
Sets that move off site
Generators are portable, valuable and often left unattended overnight. A set that is lifted, or quietly moved to a second site by the customer, is usually found out weeks later when the collection driver arrives to nothing.
Cables and boards going astray
The set comes back but the 63A tails, the spider box and the bunded tank do not. Accessories are cheap individually and expensive in aggregate, and nobody notices until the next hire goes out short.
Peak demand beyond the fleet
Winter storms, festival season and a big shutdown all land at once. Cross-hiring from another supplier keeps the customer, but the hired-in set, its cost and its return date sit outside your own fleet records.
How Renttix helps
Service rules on engine hours
Set an interval per product — 3kVA petrol at 100 hours, 250kVA diesel at 500 — and Renttix watches each asset's hour meter. Crossing the interval marks the set service due, raises a notification naming the asset and the rule it crossed, and fires an asset.service_due webhook out to whatever you plan workshop work in.
Refuelling billed as scheduled visits
Add refuelling to the hire as a service line on its own schedule — daily, weekly or every few days — charged per visit or per unit per visit. Renttix works out how many visits fall inside the hire, prices them onto the order and shows the schedule, the rate and the total on the customer's copy.
Same-hour order and dispatch
Quick Order raises a hire in a couple of fields against a live availability check. The dispatch Today board shows every job, driver and vehicle for the day, so an emergency set can be allocated and on a route in minutes.
Geofence alerts on live sets
Where a set carries a telematics device, Renttix compares its position against the delivery site. Leave the radius you set and an asset moved alert fires, with a cooldown so a jittery GPS signal does not page you all night.
Kit definitions and handover checks
Define what a complete set ships with — tank, tails, board — and Renttix checks the live composition against that definition when the set is inspected on return, so a missing item is flagged at the bench. The driver's checklist, fuel level and meter reading are captured on the proof of delivery.
Cross-hire with automatic POs
Raise a sub-rental against the order line, pick the supplier and Renttix generates the purchase order. Transit legs record supplier to site and back again, with tracking numbers and PODs, so hired-in kit is not lost track of.
Key workflows
Enquiry and sizing
The call comes in with a load, a duration and a site. You quote the set, the fuel arrangement and any distribution, and send it out for the customer to accept online.
Allocation and dispatch
Accepted quote becomes a hire. Availability confirms the set is genuinely free for the dates, a specific asset number is allocated, and the delivery joins the day's route with the site pinned on the map.
Siting and handover
The driver arrives, sites the set and works the handover checklist on the app. Hour meter, fuel level, photos and a signature go on the proof of delivery before they leave.
On hire and refuelling
Refuelling and service visits run as recurring jobs on the dispatch calendar. Each visit is closed off by the driver with the quantity delivered, the time on site and any notes, recorded against that asset. The customer can request an extension or an off-hire from the portal.
Collection and final invoice
Collection captures the closing meter and fuel reading. Any overage against the included hours, and any approved damage report, is priced onto the final invoice for the hire.
Relevant integrations
Samsara
Pulls engine hours, odometer, ignition state and GPS position for every mapped set on a polling cycle you control, feeding the service clock and the geofence alerts.
Trackunit
Widely used across plant and power fleets. Connect with your Trackunit Manager credentials and mapped assets report engine hours and location into Renttix alongside the rest of the fleet.
AEMP telematics
The ISO 15143-3 OEM feed, so sets from JCB, Caterpillar or John Deere report through their own portals without a third-party box fitted to every machine.
Google Maps
Address autocomplete as you type the site, and the address geocoded to coordinates when the order saves. Those coordinates pin the job on the dispatch map and match it to the round whose geofence covers the site.
Twilio
SMS to the site contact when the driver is on the way, and to your own phone when a maintenance alert fires on a set that is due work.
Xero
Sales invoices, credit notes and journals push across to your ledger against the customer's mapped Xero contact and your nominal codes, so hire charges, hour overages and damage found on return land in the accounts without re-keying.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. You set a usage service rule per product — for example 250kVA sets every 500 hours — and Renttix tracks each asset's engine hours against it. Crossing the interval marks that set service due and notifies the workshop. Marking it serviced resets the clock from the current reading, so intervals accrue from the last service rather than from the machine's whole life.
Yes. Set an hours allowance on the rate definition, so consumption beyond the included hours bills as overage on the final invoice. Refuelling can also be put on the hire as a service line with its own schedule — daily, weekly or a custom interval — charged per visit or per unit per visit; Renttix counts the visits that fall inside the hire, prices them onto the order and shows the schedule and total on the customer's copy.
Quick Order takes a customer, a product and dates, checks availability live and raises the hire. From there the job goes onto the dispatch day board with a driver and vehicle, and the site address is geocoded so the job pins on the map. Most out-of-hours callouts are a couple of minutes of typing.
Not if the set has telematics. Renttix pulls engine hours from Samsara, Trackunit or an AEMP 2.0 OEM feed and writes every changed reading to a history trail. Where there is no device, the driver enters the meter at book-out and off-hire on the handover checklist, and that reading is stamped with who took it.
Two ways. Accessories can be their own products hired on the same order, and a kit definition records what a complete set ships with — tank, tails, spider box. Renttix checks the live composition against that definition at return inspection, so a missing item is caught at the returns bench rather than on the next hire.
Raise a sub-rental on the order line against a supplier. Renttix creates the purchase order, and the transit legs record the set going supplier to site and back, with tracking numbers and proof of delivery on each leg. The hired-in cost sits against the job.
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