Four months of a heater nobody needed
A contractor hired two site heaters and a dehumidifier in November, open-ended, for drying out a refurbishment. The job moved on. The heaters were put in a container in January. In March the monthly invoice finally gets looked at by the contractor's quantity surveyor, who asks why they are still paying for heaters in spring. The site manager says he off-hired them. He did not. You issue a credit note to keep the account.
Why open-ended hires drift
- There is no return date, so overdue reports never catch them.
- The person who hired the item has moved to another site.
- The monthly invoice goes to accounts, not to the site where the tools are.
- Nobody at the depot checks long-running hires until there is a dispute.
- Tools sit in containers or corners where they are easy to forget.
The cost of a forgotten hire
Credit notes when the customer disputes it, and the bad feeling either way. Tools earning nothing for you while sitting in a container. A trade account that starts auditing every invoice. And stock you cannot hire to someone else because it is out on paper but idle in reality.
An on-hire statement the site actually sees
- On a schedule you choose, such as fortnightly, each site contact receives a list of everything on hire to their site, with hire start dates.
- The message is a text or email with a link to the list; each item can be confirmed as still needed or off-hired with one tap.
- Off-hires made this way go into your off-hire log with a number, and collection is booked.
- Items not confirmed within your time limit are flagged for your account manager to call.
- Items on hire beyond a length you set, with no confirmation, go to the branch manager.
- The contractor's head office can receive a summary across all their sites if they want it.
What the site contact sees
| Item | On hire since | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Site heater | November | Still needed / Off-hire |
| Site heater | November | Still needed / Off-hire |
| Dehumidifier | November | Still needed / Off-hire |
| 110V transformer | February | Still needed / Off-hire |
Invoices the customer recognises
Site contacts confirm what they need while they can still see it. Forgotten items come back to the shelf. Disputes over long-running hires become rare, because the customer confirmed the item was still needed. And your account managers know which sites to call.
Making it easy for the site to reply
The statement only works if the site contact can deal with it in the time it takes to read a text. That means no login, no password, and a list that shows exactly what is on hire to their site, with a clear button for each item. Site managers who can off-hire a forgotten heater from their phone in thirty seconds usually do.
It also helps to send the statement to the right person. Contracts often name whoever came to the counter, who may be an operative who has since moved on. Part of the setup is agreeing with each account who should receive statements for each site, and updating it as jobs change.
For your account managers, the unconfirmed list becomes a reason to call a customer about something useful, which is a better conversation than a dispute months later.
Is this happening with your trade accounts?
- You issue credit notes for tools customers say they forgot or off-hired.
- Long-running hires are only checked when disputed.
- Invoices go to accounts but never reach the site.
- You have found idle tools in site containers months into a hire.