5 Ways Booqable Makes Pickups and Returns Easier for Rental Businesses

When customers arrive to pick up or return items, they expect the exact product they booked, ready at the right moment, and checked out by someone who knows what’s happening with their order. If you run a rental company that manages a lot of foot traffic, even a small delay such as searching for the right item or missing a return can disrupt the entire day.

Booqable brings every part of the pickup and return process into one place. Whether you run a bike shop, an event rental company, or a camera rental studio, these five tools help your team stay prepared without juggling multiple systems. Together, they support your team across your entire workday so customers walk away confident and your staff stay focused.

Automatic scheduling on the dashboard

A clear overview of the day helps teams stay on track, especially when many orders share the same pickup window. In Booqable, pickup and return times are automatically added to the dashboard the moment an order is reserved, so your team always sees what’s coming up without entering anything manually.

When those dates update automatically and staff can open a same-day pickup list instantly, you stay prepared before customers walk in. Without this, businesses often rely on scattered spreadsheets, loose notes, or memory, which leads to preparing the wrong items or realizing too late that something hasn’t been returned.

If you run a rental company that offers bikes for local tours, your team can check the pickup report directly from the dashboard or the mobile app instead of flipping through paper schedules. This stops mistakes like preparing the wrong frame size or missing a return that needs to be checked before the next rider arrives.

What this achieves:

• Automatic pickup and return dates added to every order at reservation

• Quick access to the daily pickup report on desktop and mobile

• Fewer mix-ups as multiple team members handle customer handovers

With a single source of truth, customers get what they booked without delay. Your counter becomes calmer, and staff spend less time sorting out confusion.

Using Booqable’s order statuses

Order statuses in Booqable give your team a clear picture of where every booking stands, and each status is color coded so you can understand progress at a glance. The four main statuses are draft, reserved, pickup, and return. These appear directly in the order list, allowing staff to scan the day quickly without opening each booking.

This also ensures that the right actions happen automatically. Items are held for customers when an order reaches the reserved stage, and they are released back into stock as soon as the order is moved to return. Without a structure like this, many businesses rely on verbal updates or outdated spreadsheets which can lead to confusion or promising a product that is not actually available.

If you run a rental company that provides decor and lighting for events, seeing these statuses in the order list lets you know instantly which bookings are still drafts waiting for a customer reply, which ones are fully reserved, which items have been picked up, and which have come back. As soon as an order reaches the return stage, Booqable makes the associated items available for the next customer without manual work.

What this achieves:

• Clear, color coded visibility of each stage: draft, reserved, pickup, return

• Automatic reservation and release of products at the correct step

• Reduced risk of double booking during busy periods

This keeps products moving accurately through your day and gives your team the confidence to help customers quickly and correctly.

Automating security deposits

Security deposits are an important safeguard when renting out valuable items. In Booqable, you preset how deposits are calculated and when they are charged when setting up your account. You can decide if they are fixed amounts or a percentage of the order total, and whether they are collected at reservation or at pickup.

Once these rules are configured, your staff do not need to make decisions on the spot, and customers experience a consistent process every time. Without these preset rules and automatic reminders, it is easy for staff to forget to take a deposit during busy handovers or to delay the refund later. This creates confusion for customers and increases financial risk for your business.

If you run a rental company that supplies professional camera gear, Booqable prompts you to charge the deposit you have preset when the order reaches the pickup stage. When the same customer returns a lens or camera body, the system prompts the team to refund it or record a reason such as damage found during inspection.

What this achieves:

• Reliable deposit calculation based on the settings you configure during account setup

• Consistent staff handling because the system knows when to collect and refund

• Clear documentation when a refund is withheld

Presetting these rules saves time and ensures fairness for every customer. Your team follows the same process with no guesswork, and your rental business stays protected.

Assigning stock items to orders

Assigning the correct physical item to each order is essential for avoiding mix ups and keeping your inventory under control. In Booqable, you can choose to individually track items so you prevent loss and build up a clear history of revenue, maintenance needs, and past rentals for each unit.

If you run a rental company with individually tracked items, Booqable allows you to assign a specific stock item to an order when moving it to the pickup stage. This ensures the correct unit leaves the building and helps you build a detailed history of that item over time, including maintenance needs, repairs, and revenue earned.

You can also assign a barcode instead of selecting a stock item manually. This is especially useful for products with long or confusing item numbers. Staff can simply scan the item using the Booqable mobile app, which pulls up the correct stock item instantly. This prevents typing mistakes, speeds up the pickup process, and reduces the chance of selecting the wrong item.

What this achieves:

• Accurate assignment of each item through individual or bulk tracking

• Faster pickups and check-ins when scanning barcodes

• Fewer selection mistakes and a reliable maintenance and revenue history for each item

This protects your assets, saves staff time, and ensures customers always receive the correct item they booked.

Printing packing slips in bulk

Preparing for a busy day becomes easier when you can print or download all packing slips at once. Without this, teams often print slips individually, slowing down mornings and increasing the chance of missing an order or handing out incomplete details.

Packing slips contain the essential information your staff need to prepare an order quickly. They show customer details, the items included in the booking, quantities, and any accessories or variations that must go out with the main product. They also include any notes added to the order, such as special instructions or warnings about fragile items.

Booqable allows you to add custom product fields to appear on packing slips, such as warehouse location, shelf number, or bin assignment, which helps staff find items immediately instead of searching through storage.

If you run a rental company that provides decor items or furniture for events, you can print the day’s packing slips in one batch from the Orders page. This helps your team prepare each booking before customers arrive, preventing last minute scrambling. With warehouse location fields visible right on the slip, your staff can pick items faster and reduce preparation mistakes.

What this achieves:

• Faster morning setup

• Complete customer and product details ready to go

• Higher accuracy when assembling multiple orders

Your team starts the day prepared, and customers experience faster, more confident handovers.

Making every customer interaction count

Pickups and returns shape how customers feel about your rental business. With Booqable’s tools such as calendar automation, color coded statuses, deposit prompts, item level assignment, and bulk documentation, you build a workflow that works every day.

Whether you rent bikes, cameras, decor, tools, or anything else, these features help you run your equipment rental business in a way that supports both your team and your customers.

By Catrin Donnelly · Updated November 25, 2025

Catrin is a rental software expert with a digital marketing background. She’s interviewed over 1,000 rental businesses to create insightful, actionable content.