Built for Diplomats Car Hire
Every hire on one record, from quotation to return.
The Car Hire Management System runs the whole business: customers, bookings, money, vehicles and the store. Nothing gets chased between the front desk, the finance office and the gate.
Built from the problems of a working yard
Diplomats Car Hire came to us already a hosting client, with their website, email and data on our servers. When they asked us to build the system for their operation, we started by studying where things went wrong day to day: double bookings, deposits that were hard to account for, arguments about damage on return, and certificates that lapsed without anyone noticing.
Each of those problems became a rule the system enforces. A vehicle cannot be booked twice for the same dates. A hire cannot go out without a driver whose licence is valid for the whole period. Deposits are tracked on their own, never mixed up with income. Condition photos are taken at release and at return, so the record settles the question.
The system is organised into five parts
Sales for customers, quotations and bookings. Operations for the fleet: releases, live tracking, returns and servicing. Finance for invoices, payments and deposits. Inventory for the store and its stock movements. Admin for users and permissions.
Each member of staff sees only the parts their role needs. Finance data can also be connected to QuickBooks Online.
A hire from start to finish
Every step below is recorded on the same hire record, so anyone looking at it later sees the whole story.
Register the customer
Record the customer's details, identity and emergency contact. Photos of documents can be taken with an ordinary phone camera; they are compressed before upload so they send quickly even on a slow connection.
Check every driver's licence
Each person who will collect or drive the vehicle is added to the hire, and their licence expiry is checked against the hire's end date. A hire cannot be released without at least one valid driver.
Send a quotation
Prepare a quotation for the vehicle, dates and extras, and send it to the customer. When they accept, it becomes a booking without anything being typed twice.
Book the vehicle
The booking reserves the vehicle for those dates. The system refuses a second booking that overlaps, which ends double bookings.
Invoice, take payment and hold the deposit
Issue the invoice and record payments as they come in. The security deposit is recorded separately and reported as money held, not as income, so the accounts are never inflated by deposits that will be returned.
Release the vehicle with a photo record
At the gate, staff photograph the vehicle and note its condition, mileage and fuel. The release is tied to the hire, so the record shows who took which car and in what state.
Track it while it is out
Live tracking shows where each vehicle is during the hire.
Receive it back and settle the deposit
On return, the vehicle is photographed and checked against its release record. The deposit is then released, refunded or partly forfeited, and the reason is kept on the hire.
Service, maintain and stay legal
Each vehicle keeps its own servicing and maintenance history. The system watches certificate expiry dates so no vehicle goes out with lapsed papers. Parts and supplies come out of the store through controlled stock movements.
Your own version, if you need one
Car hire firms can use the system as it is, or ask us to build on it for their own way of working, such as online booking or procurement. Where we build a system to your order, you own it, source code and database included, and we can host and maintain it on our infrastructure if you want us to.