Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions are an excellent way to manage your core business functions within a single, integrated system. For equipment rental businesses, ERPs are particularly vital as they can help you overcome industry challenges such as managing various reservations, maintenance and logistics all in one place.
At Columbus, it’s no secret we’re huge fans of Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) but let us explain! If you’re looking for the right ERP for your equipment rental business, D365 Finance and Operations is the one. Here’s why:
Enhancing your financial insights and processes
D365 Finance can transform your global financial operations by bringing you the benefits of automated processes, the ability to monitor performance in real-time and make more informed decisions. Let’s break that down further…
1. Better financial decision making
AI insights can help you:
- Make more accurate predictions of customer payments as D365 Finance will use data on previous customer payments to draw up patterns which you can use to improve your knowledge of if and when customers will pay their invoices
- Accurately project cash flow as you can monitor cash flow in real-time, discover trends and more
- Use intelligent budget proposals to create your forecasts and it gets even better - years of historical data can be automatically and quickly collected and analysed by the D365 system
2. Centralised and automated financial processes
Manual tasks can be automated, leaving you with more time to focus on other tasks. For example:
- Role-based workspaces and an Office 365 integration will help you prioritise fiscal tasks
- It’s easy to customise documents, like invoices, according to changing business requirements, thanks to the Office 365 integration and its accompanying templates
- Automated recurring billing means you can easily adapt to revenue recognition standards, lower audit costs and accurately calculate and create financial statements
3. Global financial complexity and risk is reduced
Keeping up with one country’s revenue regulations is already a complex task. It gets worse when you’re a global company that monitors multiple countries’ regulations. Until D365 Finance gets involved:
- Adjusting to ever-changing global financial requirements is much easier, thanks to a flexible, rules-based chart of accounts and dimensions
- You can easily stay compliant with regulatory requirements, with no-code configurable tax, payment and other reporting formats
- D365 Finance can help you remain compliant across 37 countries and 42 languages out-of-the-box
Helping you build a more resilient supply chain
The stability of your supply chain matters. It only takes one unpredictable and somewhat uncontrollable incident to test its strength. D365 Supply Chain can help you build a more resilient supply chain that ensures business continuity while boosting cost efficiency. Let’s dig deeper…
4. Accelerate time to market
If you’re going to introduce a new machine/equipment to your customers, you’ll want the time to market to be as speedy and efficient as possible. The sooner that new piece of equipment is out there, the sooner it can start earning you money, right? D365 Supply Chain can help speed up the time to market by:
- Helping to resolve product quality issues with engineering change management to ensure your production lines are consistently running
- Ensuring your new equipment complies with regulations by identifying changing customer specifications and managing any product revisions
- Reusing configured products to reduce future product innovation costs
5. Meeting customer demand is easier
If you can gain planning agility, you’ll find it easier to meet customer demand. D365 Supply Chain helps by:
- Reducing overstocking and stock-outs by rightsizing product levels based on changes in customer demand and capacity constraints
- Improving your supply and distribution planning process
- Using AI-driven demand forecasting and sales and operation planning to ensure customers receive their equipment on-time and your inventory isn’t overstocked
- Enhancing your resource scheduling process
6. Enhance inventory visibility and logistics
When you gain full visibility of your inventory, you can maximise the usage of your equipment and improve profit margins. Here’s where D365 comes in:
- Cross-channel inventory visibility in real-time can reduce overstocking and stock-outs
- Improve cost management, thanks to the ability to seamlessly manage multiple cost-account ledgers - even globally
- Simplified procurement processes so collaborating with vendors, managing contracts and more become easier tasks
- Warehouse process heatmaps and workflows help you enhance the capacity, layout and flow of equipment in your warehouse (plus visibility of your inventory)
- Ensuring on-time shipments becomes easier, thanks to real-time freight monitoring, route management and transportation planning
7. Maximise asset performance and lifetime
Your business revolves around your equipment so it’s vital they’re operating as effectively as possible. D365 Supply Chain can help you maximise your asset performance and longevity by:
- Allowing you to perform all types of maintenance, such as predictive, corrective and preventative
- Automating resource scheduling to reduce travel time and maximise the time it takes to conduct maintenance on your geographically dispersed assets, thanks to an integration with D365 Field Service
The right technology can help your rental and leasing business operate more cost efficiently. Essential especially if the equipment rental industry continues to grow in popularity.
We’ll vouch that D365 Finance and Operations is the ERP of choice for many rental and leasing businesses but if you’d like even more reassurance that you’re choosing the right solution, check out our guide to rental industry solutions. We cover 12 essential qualities your perfect rental solution should include.
