This article will show you how to create or add a new customer when creating a new rental transaction. You have a customer that walks through your door wanting to rent everything they need for an upcoming wedding or event.  Thankfully, you have everything they need.  However, when you start to create the transaction and select the customer, they are not in your customer list.  No problem.  You can very easily add them as you are creating the transaction.

To start the new rental, click + New Transaction from the Workbench or New Rental from the Counter Menu.  From the customer search screen, click + New Customer. 

Note: If you have a 2D driver's license scanner, you can scan their licenses by clicking the Scan Driver's License button and all their information will populate for you. For recommended scanners, go to Configuration > Barcode Configuration.

 

Topics in this article include

• Basic Information & Address

• Advance Mode

• Driver's License

• Damage Waiver Exemptions and Tax Free

• Discounts

• Comments about the Customer

• Customer Source

• Credit Limits

• Payment Required

• Customer Contracts

• Marketing

• Attachments

• Customer History

• External Customer Search & Import

Basic Information & Address

Once you click + New Customer, you will be required to enter at minimum the customer's first name, last name and email address or primary phone number. You can also place the company name instead of the first and last name. You can fill in any additional fields as necessary. 

Note:  If this is for a company and the accounting department needs the contract/invoice to be linked to the company and not the contact person, you can leave the first name and last name fields blank if the company field is completed.

Advanced Mode

If you click Advanced Mode, you can add more information such as a driver's license number.
 

Driver's License

If you need to enter driver’s license information in the system, you can enter it in the relevant fields.

Damage Waiver Exemptions and Tax Free

Is your customer tax exempt or damage waiver exempt?  By clicking Advanced Mode, you can mark them as either or both.

Discounts

You can also add an on-going sale or rental percentage discount for the customer. 

Comments about the Customer

You can enter messages or comments about your customers, too.  Only the internal staff will see this message.

Note: When typing in "Warning’' in the comments section, it will show the comment in red on the transaction screen. 

Customer Source

You can enter the source of how the customer came to your business.

Credit Limits

You can establish a credit limit for your customers who pay on account.  

Payment Required

If you have certain customers who pay upon the rental and are required to pay a certain percentage upon reservation or send out, you can set this up here.  This can be different for each customer.  If you require a certain percentage to be paid by all customers, you can set this up within Configuration > Company Configuration > Configure Tax and Payment Options. You can also require a purchase order number, credit limit, and a deposit, if applicable. 

Please note that the Charge Deposit checkbox can only be edited if there is a value inside the Credit Limit field. This value can be $0.00. 

Customer Contacts

Are you renting to a city or a business that has multiple contacts? You can enter the contact information for that customer that is picking up the item in the customer contacts area. You can set them to Rent, Sales, and Online information using our storefront. You can even have a verification method so you can confirm it's them before you send out the item(s).

Marketing

Do you send out marketing emails for promotions and such? Do you have customers that want to be a part of these promotion emails?  Just be sure to check the option "Customer has agreed to receive marketing info" and the customer will now receive any marketing promotional emails you send. 

Note:  The Point of Rental Essentials system is not a CRM and cannot be used for sending marketing emails.  You will need to export your customers to a third-party marketing email system to send these emails.  The newly collected field will simply allow you to identify customers who have already opted to receive such emails.  You are responsible for recording your customers' preferences correctly and respecting their wishes according to the laws of your country and/or state of operation.

Attachments

Once the new customer has been saved, you will see a section to upload PDF documents.  These can be anything from insurance forms, tax exempt forms, damage waiver exempt forms or any other document you are required to have on hand.  To upload the PDF document, click Upload Document.  You can add as many documents as you need. To view the documents, click the view icon next to the document or remove them by clicking the "X" next to the document or selecting the box next to the document and clicking Delete Customer Documents.

Customer History

At the bottom of the customer record, you will see Customer History - Transactions, Payments, and Credit Notes. This allows you to see the last 12 months of historical customer contracts, including canceled, payments and credit notes. You can view the contract by clicking the contract number. This will also allow you to create a single payment for multiple transactions (see our Multiple Transaction Payments video or help document for more information) and statements (see our Customer Statements video or document for more information). You can also check any of the contracts, and then email up to 25 contracts at a time.

You can also add this customer directly from People > Customers.  Click the + New Customer button and you'll see the customer fields to complete.

External Customer Search and Import

If you are using External customer search and import (defined in company configuration/customer options), then you can import your customer in the customer lookup process in a transaction. If it’s missing the required information, then it will bring up the customer input screen for you to complete those required fields.

If you want to make changes to the customer’s information later, you can do so either directly from the contract by clicking the edit icon next to their information or from their customer record within the customer list.

Note: If you make any changes to the customer information from the transaction, this will also update the customer record.  If the customer has more than one transaction, this change will only update on the transaction you are making the change for as well as the customer record.  For any other transactions the customer may have, you will need to go to each transaction and change the customer by clicking the search icon.  You want to select the same customer which will have the updated information.  

Note:  If you update the customer record, you will also need to update the contract by switching the customer from the search icon on the transaction and choosing the same customer with the corrected information.