I’ve read through this forum, parts of the Tryton documentation, and the German Tryton Book. I’m still not sure whether Tryton and its currently available modules can model my business.
I’m running a business in equipment rentals. There are three possible workflows:
Sale of consumables. This is easily done with Tryton.
Sale of services, both billed hourly and flat. From what I read, Tryton does not support flat fee services, only hourly billed?
Rent out equipment from inventory (not calling this stock as it’s not sold). This should also integrate into inventory management so I cannot rent out equipment that’s already out. It should also allow me to reverse-pick the equipment when it comes back in. A module to print barcode stickers for inventory items would be extremely handy, with integration into picking and reverse-picking.
Sometimes, it can happen that not all items a customer is asking for is available. In that case a sub-hire is usually called for where I procure the missing item from another rental company and pass it on to my customer. So the quoting and invoicing module needs to allow lines not backed by inventory as well.
The business is in Germany so needs to follow the German accounting and tax rules, from reading through the German Tryton Book this seems to be covered.
Is this currently possible with Tryton and if so, which modules will I need?
I use flat service fee by having the unit of measure be Units (pcs), service price per Unit, and a price for the service. Perhaps you could explain your requirements and why you think tryton does not support this.
Regarding the third point, someone else will have to help as I do not have experience with this topic.
Nice to hear someone reads our “Das Tryton-Buch”. Please let me know any issue you’ll find with it. Unluckily, I never had the “rental” task, but more competent people than me already jumped in - good to see.
That’s great news! Is there a timeline for this module? Is there anything I can do to help with it? Unfortunately, Python is a read-only language for me so I won’t be of any help when it comes to coding.
I currently have three workflows to handle (this is for event management):
A customer has done all the planning already and only needs the equipment (dry hire). Look up the items in my inventory, possibly substitute some (e.g. they’re asking for an 8 channel mixer, quote them a 16 channel mixer), add sub hire if necessary. Add consumables (sale only). Add delivery and pick up if applicable.
Provide a quote based on this.
When the customer places the order based on the above quote, pick all items from inventory, ideally using barcodes, and ship out or prepare for pick up. Optionally, process a down payment.
When the items return at the end of the rental period, inspect and place them back into inventory, again using barcodes.
Invoice the customer, taking the optional down payment into account.
As above, but the customer also needs labour, either hourly billed or flat fee.
The customer has an idea and needs help planning/designing. Add service as such and then continue with either 1. or 2. above.
Sub workflows for customers asking to extend the rental period and for customers failing to return their rental on time would be helpful as well.
In addition, the equipment in inventory would need to be inspected from time to time, check if it’s still working, perform regular electrical equipment tests and document the tests. In my dream, an integrated inventory management would provide a report on items needing inspecting or testing based on schedules and then help with the documentation as well, again facilitating barcodes.
So far, I have read through the book and found it very helpful and easy to follow. The only issue I found so far was that to me as a reader it sounded like services can only be billed hourly. I would suggest updating the wording to make this more clear.
Once I actually install Tryton and start using it I might have more feedback and will share.