Equipment Rentals & Inventory

Equipment Rentals

Informativ provides a powerful cart‑based rental system for equipment. Users can browse, add items to a cart, and pay via Yoco.

Listing Equipment

Go to Dashboard → Equipment to create an Equipment Model (e.g., 'Sony A7III Camera', 'Black Plastic Chairs').

• Serialized (is_serialized = true): Each unit is tracked individually via EquipmentAsset. E.g., Cameras, laptops.
• Non-serialized (is_serialized = false): Tracked by total quantity. E.g., 50 chairs, where one asset row holds total_quantity = 50.
• Preparation Time: Set a buffer (in hours) between rentals, accounting for cleaning/setup.

Pricing Tiers

Each model can have multiple pricing tiers. Customers choose the tier that best fits their needs. Tiers are defined by RateType:

• BASE: A fixed base fee per rental.
• HOURLY / DAILY / WEEKLY / MONTHLY: Scaled by duration.
• EACH: Per unit price.
• DISCOUNTED: A custom daily rate.

Pricing tiers are mutually exclusive alternatives—the customer picks one, with the exception that a BASE tier can stack with another duration-tier to form a fixed + variable fee. The RentalCalculator automatically picks the cheapest applicable tier.

Rental Cart & Checkout Flow

Customers add items to their Rental Cart. Each cart holds a rental window and delivery address. During checkout, the cart splits items by lessor and creates individual RentalOrders grouped under a single RentalCheckout.

• Deposit payment is taken upfront via Yoco.
• Once the deposit is paid, the checkout enters AWAITING_CONFIRMATIONS.
• Each lessor can Confirm or Decline their respective order within 24 hours.
• If a lessor fails to respond, a LessorResponseStrike is recorded. 3 strikes within 90 days auto‑unpublishes all that lessor's equipment.

Balance & Fulfillment

Once confirmed, the renter pays the remaining balance before the rental start date. The lessor can then Assign Assets (specific units) to the order. After the rental, the lessor marks the assets as Returned, which updates the inventory counts and triggers the final payout.

Publishing Requirements

Before an equipment listing can be published, you need at least one asset, an active pricing tier, an active Damage Policy, an active Late Return Policy, and — like every other publishable listing on the platform — your banking account approved by a ROOT admin (Profile → Banking). The Share Page button, the storefront QR code, and each item's View public page link stay hidden until at least one item is published — otherwise the link would open an empty storefront.

Damage & Late Return Policies

Lessors can set detailed policies:

• Damage Policy: charges per severity (Cosmetic, Minor, Moderate, Severe, Total Loss). Can be a fixed amount, a percentage, or (for the costliest tiers) assessed and captured manually after the fact.
• Late Return Policy: a grace period (in hours), then tiered charges based on how late the return is.

These policies set the terms a renter agrees to at booking, and condition/lateness is recorded on both ends (checkout and return) as a record of what happened. Whether a charge is actually collected depends on whether the item has a security deposit — see below.

Security Deposit

From Dashboard → Equipment → an item → Edit, a lessor can set a refundable security deposit for that item. If set, it's collected from the renter together with the balance payment, before pickup — shown as its own line so the renter always knows it's refundable.

When the lessor completes the rental (once every asset is back), they record how much of the deposit — if any — to withhold for damage or late-return charges, with a reason, referencing their own Damage/Late Return Policy charge schedules and whether the return was late. Whatever's left of the deposit is owed back to the renter: the lessor pays that directly (not through Informativ) and uploads proof of payment, and the renter confirms once they've received it — the same request → proof → confirm pattern used for other manual refunds on the platform. Items with no security deposit configured still let a lessor record damage/lateness for their own reference, but there's nothing collected through the platform — any charge has to be arranged directly with the renter.

If the damage/late-return cost is more than the deposit covers, the lessor can — once the full deposit is withheld — bill the renter for the difference. Unlike the refund above, this extra amount is collected through Informativ: the renter gets a notification and a "Pay" button on their booking page, pays it via the same card checkout used everywhere else on the platform, and it's paid out to the lessor in full.

Transport Fee

From Dashboard → Equipment → Transport Fee, a lessor can charge a delivery/transport fee on every one of their bookings — either a flat amount, or calculated by distance (a rate per kilometre from the lessor's own dispatch address to the renter's delivery address, with an optional minimum and/or maximum fee). It's added to the order total and shown as its own line at checkout.

Renting From Several Owners

Add items from any number of owners to your Rental Cart. One set of dates and one delivery address covers everything, and once you've saved them the cart shows each owner's transport fee before you check out. You pay a 10% booking deposit now; each owner then has 24 hours to confirm their part, and you pay each owner's balance after they confirm.

Need everything or nothing? Tick All or nothing at checkout. You'll only be asked for balances once every owner has confirmed, and if any owner declines or doesn't answer in time, the whole booking is cancelled and your full deposit refunded.

Cancelling a Rental

• Before the owner answers: your deposit is refunded in full.
• After the owner confirms, before you pay the balance: the deposit is non-refundable.
• After you've paid the balance: more than 7 days before the start you get the whole balance back, from 7 days to 48 hours before you get half, and under 48 hours nothing. Your security deposit always comes back in full; the booking deposit doesn't. The cancel window on your booking shows exactly what you'll get back before you confirm.
• If the owner cancels a paid booking, you get the whole balance and security deposit back.

Response Rate

Each listing shows the owner's response rate — how many booking requests they answered within 24 hours over the last 12 months — and how quickly they usually respond, once they've had at least 3 requests. Owners see their own rate on the dashboard next to their response strikes. A request left unanswered for 24 hours is refunded to the renter and gives the owner a strike; 3 strikes in 90 days takes all their equipment off hire until they switch it back on.