Guide / hire and rental stock
Free rental inventory software, assessed honestly
Rental stock is different: the unit comes back. Availability, reservations and service history decide the software choice — here is what free covers and what BSimple actually does.
The short answer
- A spreadsheet tracks a small hire fleet — until double-bookings and service history outgrow careful maintenance.
- Free rental software is usually a trial or a limited tier; genuinely free means a spreadsheet or open source you maintain.
- The rental-specific requirements: per-unit availability, reserving without consuming, and a service history per item.
- BSimple is not hire-specific and not free — from $180/month (AUD) with a trial — but its projects feature reserves items and tracks assets per customer.
- 01The short answer
- 02What rental stock does that sold stock does not
- 03The free options, in order of realism
- 04Where BSimple fits
What rental stock does that sold stock does not
Sold stock leaves; rental stock promises to return. The software question follows from that promise: availability per unit (which units exist, which are out, which are due back), reservations (a unit held for next week without vanishing from stock today), and lifetime history (every job a unit went to, and every service and repair between). A system built only for selling answers none of those — the unit "sells" and the record ends.
Around the core sit the ordinary needs: customers and quotes, invoicing per job, and accounting handed off. The failure pattern in rental is buying a booking calendar with no stock record behind it, or a stock record with no notion of a unit coming home.
The free options, in order of realism
The spreadsheet works while the fleet is small and one person keeps the calendar: unit, out date, due date, condition. It fails at the promise point — a unit booked twice because two views of the sheet disagreed, and maintenance that lives in someone's memory. Free trials of real systems are the honest test: load the actual fleet, run a fortnight of hires, watch where the record fights. Record-limited free tiers sit between, with caps that tend to arrive as the fleet grows.
What no free path includes is the joined loop — reservations tied to live stock, invoices per job pushed to Xero or MYOB, history surviving staff turnover. That joining is the paid product. The free stock management guide covers the crossover; basic free tools cover the small end.
Where BSimple fits
We build BSimple, so weigh that — and be clear about the boundary: it is not a rental or hire management system. There is no booking calendar and no hire-billing cycles. What it does have, honestly relevant to rental-style operations, is the projects feature: group inventory and on-site assets under a customer, reserve items without consuming stock, install and consume on invoice approval, and keep warranty, maintenance and service history per job. For trade businesses whose "rental" is really equipment out on jobs — boom gates, pumps, tools — that is the shape of the problem.
For pure hire businesses needing availability calendars and per-day billing, a dedicated rental platform fits better and we will say so. For businesses whose stock, jobs and assets need one record, the free trial tests it — and the inventory management overview shows the record the projects feature sits on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does BSimple handle rentals?
Not as a hire system — no booking calendar, no per-day billing. It handles the asset side through projects: reserve items for a job without consuming stock, consume on invoice approval, and track service history per asset under each customer. If hire billing is the core need, a rental platform is the better fit.
Is there a truly free rental inventory system?
A spreadsheet, genuinely. Software with per-unit availability, reservations and history is paid across this market — free versions are trials or capped tiers. The pattern to inspect is the "free" booking tool with no stock record underneath: the calendar works until the question is which unit is actually free.
Can BSimple reserve stock without selling it?
Yes — that is what the projects feature does: items are reserved to a job without consuming stock, and consumption happens when the job is invoiced and approved. Availability stays truthful throughout: reserved is visible, sold is deducted, and neither quietly lies about the other.
What should a rental business trial first?
The promise cycle: reserve a unit for a job, take it out, bring it back, service it, reserve it again — and check the record stayed truthful at every step. If the software survives that loop with your real fleet, the rest is pricing; if it loses the unit on the way home, no price fixes it.
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