Overview - what is BRM all about?

Overview

This article is all about introducing you to the main BRM concepts and the key tasks that you will perform in the system.

Fundamentally BRM is a combination of inventory tracking software and reservation management software.  This means it lets you track all of your assets; bikes, GPS and other kit, so you know where they all are at any one time.  Secondly it lets you put these assets into the context of specific rentals (or reservations) so they can be managed. Additionally there is an in-built maintenance function to help keep your kit in tip-top shape.

So what do you do in BRM, and how do you go about doing it?

It is all about creating rental tickets & managing those rental tickets around the rental lifecycle.

creating rental tickets

Here is how you do the first part of that, creating reservations - on the create RESERVATION page.  Don't forget this is the admin console (or back-office) we're describing here.  So you may be making a rental ticket for any of the following scenarios:

• walk-in customer who is going to take the bike(s) now.
• phone call for a quote (price and availability) - may or may not make actual booking.
• email booking.

of course if you turn on the online booking wizard you may also take bookings via that channel too.  So they will be made by your customers using a different interface, but ultimately will be managed in the same place - here in the admin console.

So, you follow the 'progress bar' through; choosing your category, dates & times, specific bikes and then choosing reservation type - until you create your rental ticket.

Detailed instructions here.

managing rental tickets

Next, you are going to want to manage the existing tickets you have.  This may include (but not limited to the following)

• tracking rental tickets through their lifecycle - provisional, confirmed, checked out, checked in.
• adding notes / setup info / delivery information to your rental tickets that are for advanced bookings.
• adding payments / refunds 
• changing bikes
• changine dates / times
• cancelling etc..

To do any of the above, first of all you're going to want to find your rental ticket.  There are many ways to find your tickets, including search by name or by date. It all takes place on the  search RESERVATIONS page:

Once you have found your rental ticket, by whichever means you choose, you click on the row in the reservation list panel and it will open up your rental ticket in a panel; the reservations details panel.  This will be familiar as it is the very same panel that you ended up with after you created your rental ticket in the first place. It is comprised of 3 parts, your details (names, dates, financials) your actions (progress through stages, add notes etc) and the bike(s) contained in the ticket:

Here is how you will use the 3 sections to manage your rental tickets:

• The details section describes things like client Name, reference numbers, stage, dates, times and financials. If you want to change any of these things, you can change them right there (unless the field is greyed out - in which case you modify them via other means).
• The action section is all about doing things to the reservation - for example advancing it to the next stage,  managing client record, adding delivery information, emailing a copy to your client etc.
• finally the bike(s) section lists all the bike(s) in your ticket.  You can use this to write notes against specific bikes - e.g. 'Tony' 5'10" SPD pedals etc.  You can also add, remove and change bikes here.

Conclusion

So you should now see that the two pages shown here, create RESERVATION and search RESERVATIONS let you:

• find available bikes for chosen period
• find price for the above
• create a rental ticket for a specific duration and bikes
• update customer record
• print invoice / receipt 
• record payment or process payments within the system
• check out bikes (and rental ticket)
• find existing rental tickets
• manage your rental tickets

Of course this overview just covers the absolute fundamentals of BRM; creating and managing rental tickets.  Other key parts of the system include inventory management and the maintenance sections.