Marquee hire is a year's work squeezed into a summer. A wedding booked eighteen months ago and a festival confirmed last week land on the same August weekend, and both need a crew, a wagon and a complete structure that has not quietly been promised to someone else. The kit is bulky and arrives as parts: frames, roof canvas, linings, flooring, heaters, lighting. Half the sites are fields with no useful address. Software earns its place here by holding the forward book honestly, reserving whole structures rather than loose components, planning build and dismantle runs against real crew availability, and making sure what came back short in October is charged for.
Equipment categories we support
Common challenges in marquee hire
A season that arrives at once
Two-thirds of the year's work lands between May and September. Every wagon, every crew and every clearspan is committed on the same handful of Saturdays, while the same stock sits in a barn from November to March.
Quotes that sit for a year
Wedding enquiries arrive twelve to eighteen months out, then go quiet. Holding provisional dates without blocking real bookings, and remembering which quotes still need chasing, is where a lot of confirmed work quietly gets lost.
Structures go out as parts
A marquee is not one item. It is a frame, roof canvas, side walls, lining, flooring, a heater and a run of festoon. Book the frame and forget the lining, and the crew finds out on site.
Crews and wagons, not just stock
A build needs four people for six hours, a wagon that can carry the load, and a dismantle slot two days later. Stock availability tells you nothing about whether anyone is free to put it up.
Sites without a usable address
Half your installs are a field, a paddock or the back of a hotel garden. A postcode drops the driver a quarter of a mile from the gate, and the ground conditions are only in someone's head.
Damage found weeks later
Canvas comes back wet, gets rolled, and the tear surfaces at the next build. Stakes, ratchets and lining panels go missing in ones and twos. By the time you count properly, the event is long invoiced.
How Renttix helps
Forward booking calendar
The booking calendar shows reservations weeks and months out, so you can see which Saturdays are already committed before you quote another. Availability is checked against the dates you enter, not against a spreadsheet.
Quotes that convert without rekeying
Build the quote in Renttix with the structure, extras and hire dates, set how long it stays valid, and convert it to an order when the deposit lands. Status history shows what was sent and when.
Bundles that expand into every part
Define a marquee package once — frame, canvas, lining, flooring, lighting, with a quantity for each — and add it to an order in one action. Renttix expands it into a separate line per component, each carrying its own quantity, rate and tax, with the bundle discount stamped on those lines. Nothing hides inside a headline item, so every part is picked, dispatched and charged in its own right.
Dispatch board for builds and dismantles
Every order raises a delivery job on the dispatch board. Assign a vehicle and driver, split a big load across two wagons, and pin a time-critical stop so the route optimiser cannot move it.
Crew rota with clash checking
The workforce rota rosters shifts against real staff availability and warns you before you double-book someone. Holiday and unavailability are recorded, so a crew you have committed to a Saturday build is actually there.
Damage reports and shortage charges
Off-hire compares what comes back against what went out and flags the difference. Damage reports carry photos, a responsibility decision and a charge, and go through an approval step before anything reaches the customer's invoice.
Key workflows
Enquiry and quote
Take the enquiry, build a quote with the structure, flooring, lighting and furniture, and set a valid-until date. Availability is checked at the event dates before anything is promised.
Site visit and confirmation
Book the recce as a job on the dispatch board. Record the site address, access codes, special requirements and site contact on the order, then take a deposit and get the hire agreement signed.
Loading list and prep
The order appears on the warehouse picking queue, soonest first. The yard scans each frame section, lining bag and flooring pallet against the order lines, then marks the load prepped for dispatch.
Build day
The crew works from the job on the dispatch board with the site location, contact and notes. Proof of delivery captures photos, a signature and the receiver's name when the structure is handed over.
Dismantle, book-in and invoice
The collection job runs on the agreed date. Kit is scanned back in with its condition, and the hire goes onto the next invoice run.
Relevant integrations
HubSpot
Customers push through as HubSpot contacts and companies, and each order becomes a deal carrying its value, a summary of the lines and the stage it has reached. Once invoices exist against the order, the invoiced total and the amount still due are stamped on the deal as well.
Google Maps
Address lookup and geocoding on orders, and the map behind route planning. Delivery coordinates are stored on the order, so the run is planned from a real point rather than a rough postcode.
Twilio
SMS is sent through your own Twilio account. When the driver marks the job en route, the customer is sent an ETA and a live tracking link.
Calendar feed
Subscribe to your dispatch schedule as an iCal feed, so build and dismantle jobs appear in the crew's Google or Outlook calendar alongside everything else.
Xero
Push hire invoices, credit notes and customer records into Xero so the summer's invoicing lands in the books without being typed twice.
Stripe
Take card payments on deposits and balances. Customers can pay an invoice from the portal, which matters when a wedding balance is due the week before the build.
Frequently asked questions
Not as one line, but as one action. You define a bundle — frame, roof canvas, lining, flooring, lighting, heaters — with a quantity against each part, and adding that bundle to an order expands it into a separate line per component. Each line carries its own quantity, rate and tax, and the bundle discount is stamped on it with the bundle named as the reason, so the paperwork explains the package price rather than burying it. Keeping the parts as real lines is the point: the lining is booked, picked and returned in its own right instead of hiding inside the headline structure. Kit definitions are a separate feature — they record what a complete kit contains, and the components attached to an asset are checked against that list at return inspection.
As far ahead as you need. Quotes carry a valid-until date and a status history, so an enquiry taken eighteen months out is still traceable when the customer comes back. Confirmed hires sit on the booking calendar with their dates, and availability is checked against those dates whenever anyone quotes the same weekend.
Yes, through the workforce rota. You roster shifts against each staff member, and Renttix checks for clashes before the shift is saved. Staff availability and holiday are recorded, so the rota reflects who is genuinely free. Separately, the dispatch board holds the delivery and collection jobs, with a vehicle and driver assigned to each.
You cross-hire. Renttix has a sub-rentals record that links a supplier, the kit hired in, the agreed rate and hire period, and the order it is covering. Transit legs between the supplier, your yard and the customer are tracked with proof of delivery, so you know where borrowed stock is and what it cost you.
Each order carries a delivery place name, address, site contact and driver notes, plus coordinates. Pick the site from the address lookup and the coordinates that come back are stored on the order; type the address by hand and it is geocoded when the order is saved. Those coordinates, the site name, the contact's name and number and the access-code and special-requirement notes are all copied onto the delivery and collection jobs, so the crew opens the job with what the office recorded rather than ringing in for it.
When the hire is off-hired, the returned quantity is compared against what went out and any shortfall is flagged. A damage report records the items, photos, a description and whether the customer is responsible, with a charge that needs approval before it is applied. Everything stays against the order and appears in the documents list.
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