u/Great-Ice-2600

Hi Team
Need some advice on the best workflow approach for rentals.

We’re starting a rental business for heavy equipment/machinery and I’m trying to figure out the cleanest way to manage this in Odoo.

Our use case is:

• Rentals don’t always have an end date
• Customer gets charged monthly or daily (kind of like a hotel/subscription model)
• Need recurring monthly invoices
• Need ability to add extra charges anytime (extra work, consumables, additional items, transport, etc.)
• Customer can end rental anytime
• Once ended, we organise pickup and issue final invoice

Main thing I’m unsure about is the best app/workflow approach:

• Rental module?
• Subscription module?
• Sales Orders?
• Combination of apps?
• Or is this something that realistically needs customisation?

Would love to know how others are handling long-term/open-ended rentals in Odoo, especially if trying to stay mostly out-of-the-box.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently trying to work out the best workflow/process for a heavy machinery rental business and would really appreciate some advice from people who have done something similar.

We’re planning to rent heavy machinery to businesses, and a typical rental order would include 3 main sections:

1. Rental items (the actual machinery/assets)
2. Transport/logistics – where we need to create a PO for a logistics company
3. Machine setup/install – either creating a work order for internal staff or sending a PO to a subcontractor

One of the bigger challenges is invoicing.
For rentals, we need to charge two different rates:
- Standby time
- Runtime usage

I’m not really sure what the best structure/workflow is for this.

I also need to track the profitability (PNL) of each rental order because sometimes we lose money once transport, setup, labour, and subcontractor costs are included.

A few questions I’m hoping to get guidance on:

1. Is there a good way to create purchase orders directly from a rental order?
2. Should I use Rental Orders together with Projects/Jobs to manage costs properly?
3. What’s the best way to track PNL per rental/job?
4. For asset management and maintenance, should I use the Product module only, or should I connect it with the Fleet/Maintenance app?

Would really appreciate any feedback, workflow ideas, or examples of how others are handling this.

Thanks!
Porty