January 2, 2024
The exact number of companies that offer equipment and event rental-specific software changes as companies enter and exit the market, but today there are more than 30 companies to choose from.
To help readers navigate through the variety of options when it comes to equipment and event rental-specific software, Rental Management is producing this Rental Software Series, which will provide profiles of software suppliers on a regular basis. This month, we profile BCS ProSoft, San Antonio and Tulsa, Okla.
Company name: BCS ProSoft
Company location(s): San Antonio and Tulsa, Okla.
Number of employees: 40
Year the company was founded: 1986
Founder: William Vespe
Current software products available: Automated Rental Management (ARM)
Target customers: Rental companies that serve the following industries: heavy equipment, oil field equipment, medical equipment, general tool, trench shoring and safety, party and event rental, portable toilet, portable building, audio/visual and scaffolding.
What makes your product “rental-specific”?: “ARM is a unified rental software suite designed to manage financials, customers, orders and rental inventory for all your locations on a single database. We understand that one size does not fit all. Our solutions are purpose-built to fit the unique needs of your rental business,” says William Vespe, president and CEO.
What do you believe are three key reasons an equipment or event rental company should be using rental-specific software?: “One: lastminute changes are a fact of life. You need to make sure your operations and fulfillment teams are keeping up with the changes your sales department is making in real time. Two: rental inventory only makes money when it’s utilized. You need to make sure you have enough inventory available and on hand to satisfy tomorrow’s future rental orders. Knowing when you can turn a piece of equipment versus buying or subrenting is critical. Three: rental companies face relentless pressure to cut costs and do more with less, yet you still need someone to proactively mine your data for exceptions and issues,” Vespe says.
How does your product make a rental company more efficient?: “ARM increases a rental company’s efficiency through easy change-order processing to let operations and fulfillment teams, as well as dispatchers, instantly see the changes sales is making in real time; powerful and flexible contract management eliminates manual processes and duplicate data entry; and automating key business processes and proactively monitoring business data with a robust and customizable alerts and workflow engine,” Vespe says.
Why should a rental company choose your software?: “ARM is a unified and fully integrated rental software suite designed to manage your accounting/financials, customers, orders and rental inventory all in one place. No technology partner understands the realities of running a rental business better than BCS ProSoft and ARM. We have served the rental industry for nearly 30 years, and we understand the business issues that are most critical to your profitability,” Vespe says.
What is your most-used new feature available with your software package?: “Real-time inventory availability status effectively reduces subrental expenses and having to hurriedly scramble to find available rental items,” Vespe says.
Currently, how many rental companies use your software?: Approximately 65-85 companies, according to Vespe.
What do you think is next for rental-specific software? “Data mining and the ability to turn data into revenue, either via spotting emerging markets before the competitors or leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to find patterns that may be costing you money,” Vespe says.
View the Rental Management Software Series library
Rental Management will profile a rental software company in each issue. This profile will include basic information about the company, a written article and a video. Click here to view the entire Software Series library of articles and videos as they are published. The videos are also available on Rental Management‘s YouTube channel, which you can find by clicking here.
ARA Rental Software Reviews available to ARA members
The American Rental Association (ARA) has created ARA Rental Software Reviews, an online tool available exclusively to ARA members via ARArental.org.
Members can access the tool by clicking here.
The tool is generated from an ongoing survey of ARA members, which asked members to rate their current rental software system as well as the importance of common rental-specific software features.
The tool includes survey results detailing features ARA members are using, features ranked by importance, market share according to reviews, software comparisons, software reviews and software feature comparisons.
Reports also can be filtered by industry segment and by the size of rental company.
