Why doesn't regular bookkeeping work for a rental company?
Most bookkeeping is built for a store or an office. Money comes in, money goes out, and the month is done. A rental company doesn't work like that.
You take money months before the event. You pay a crew to load, drive, set up, tear down and clean. Your gear wears out a little every time it goes out. Your best three months pay for the whole year. If your books don't follow that, your profit and loss report says one thing and your bank account says another.
That gap is where owners get hurt. You think you had a great year. Then a tax bill, an insurance audit or a slow winter shows up, and the money isn't there.
What do we track that general bookkeeping misses?
We set up your books to match how a rental company earns and spends. That means:
- Deposits. A deposit is money you owe the customer until the event happens. We hold it as owed, then move it to income on the event date. See our guide to deposits, damage waivers and cancellations.
- Damage waivers and damage fees. These get their own income lines, so you can see what they bring in.
- Cancellations. Refunds, kept deposits and rain-check credits each go where they belong.
- Crew time. Setup, teardown, cleaning and drive time add up fast. We help you see them per job. Read more about job costing labor in event rental.
- Equipment. When you buy a new unit, tent or a pallet of chairs, we record it as equipment with the invoice attached, so your CPA has what they need.
- Your rental software. We match what your software says you sold to what actually hit the bank.
- The slow season. We help you see how much cash you need to hold to get through it. Here's how we think about seasonal cash flow.
Which kind of rental company are you?
Every corner of the rental world has its own costs. We work with all of them, and we know where each one leaks money.
- Inflatables and bounce houses. Cleaning time, wind cancellations, repairs and what each unit earns. See bookkeeping for inflatable rental companies.
- Tables, chairs and linens. Lots of low-price items, heavy handling, laundry and breakage. See bookkeeping for table and chair rental companies.
- Tents. Big crews, big equipment, long installs and loans to pay off. See bookkeeping for tent and table rental companies.
- Staging, dance floors, games and concessions. The same rules apply. Every item has to pay for its labor, its space and its own replacement.
How does this work with my rental software and QuickBooks?
We keep your books in QuickBooks Online. Your rental software, like Inflatable Office, Goodshuffle Pro, Booqable or Event Rental Systems, keeps your bookings.
The two have to agree. When your payment tools create invoices in QuickBooks, they also create the deposits that land in your bank. We match every dollar that comes in to the bank deposit it belongs to. We never add it a second time as new income. That one mistake is how a lot of rental companies end up paying tax on money they never made.
We also tie out payment processor fees, refunds and chargebacks, so your sales number is the real number.
What do I get each month?
Two things matter most.
- Accurate books that show where every dollar went. Done every month, or that month is on us.
- A one-page scorecard. The few numbers that matter, with green for what went well, yellow for what to watch and red for what needs a fix. No digging through reports.
Your CPA gets clean books at tax time. We aren't a CPA firm, and we don't do taxes. We make sure the person who does has everything they need.
What does getting started look like?
It starts with a call. We ask about your company, your rental software and where your books stand today. Then we look at the books themselves.
If they're behind, we catch them up first, so every number after that is one you can trust. Then we keep them current every month and send your scorecard. If something in the numbers looks off, like a delivery fee that doesn't cover the trip or a unit that barely rents, we tell you.
Who's behind 10.4 Financial?
10.4 Financial was started by Austin Reckard. He ran an inflatable rental company in Arizona for five years and grew up in his family's rental business. He has loaded the trucks, cleaned the units and stared at a bank account in February wondering where summer's money went.
That's why we only work with party and event rental companies. We know your business because we ran one. When we look at your numbers, we know what a normal Saturday costs, what a wind day does to cash, and why "we were busy" doesn't always mean "we made money."
If you want to start with pricing, read how to price your rentals for profit.
