Founderwright for equipment rental
AI for equipment rental companies. Put the whole fleet to work.
Rental is a utilization business run on contracts, trucks, and a busy yard. We connect your rental system, telematics, payroll, and books into one AI brain and build the tools that keep every asset earning, from the inspection bay to the last off-rent call, built in-house around your fleet.
Private-equity-grade tools. Without giving up equity. Built by an operationally minded CFO, not a software vendor.
- Construction equipment
- Aerial & lifts
- Industrial & tools
- Party & event
- Trench & shoring
- Pumps & power
- Specialty rental
Operator-CFO built
Not generic software. What a CFO would put in front of a rental company.
Founderwright is built by an operationally minded CFO. The numbers that grow a company organically are the same ones that make an acquisition work and hold up when you sell. Every build starts there: surfaced before you ask and ranked by dollar impact.
Units on rent
Dollar utilization by asset, against its book value
Time on rent at a soft rate still loses to the payment.
A fleet list
Which units to re-rate, move, sell, or buy, ranked by return
Fleet decisions are capital decisions, and they deserve capital math.
Returns today
Damage, fuel, and off-rent dollars not yet billed
The leak between the yard and the invoice is margin you already earned.
The same numbers carry a rental company through every stage: recovery, growth, acquisitions, and exit prep.
The morning brief
Surfaced before you ask. Ranked by what it’s worth.
Agents watch every connected system overnight. By morning, the issues that matter most are ranked, assigned, and drafted.
Friday, 6:20 a.m. · What the owner sees before the counter opens
Ranked actions
From your own numbers, across every system- 1Hold the telehandler going out at 7:00TodayHydraulic leak noted at check-in · no work order opened
- 2Confirm off-rent on 6 idle unitsThis week0 engine hours in 9 days · $7,800 billing this cycle
- 3Skid steer rates 18% under bookThis weekDiscounts not adding time on rent · utilization 58%
- 4Damage charges drafted on 4 returnsOn track$6,150 total · check-out photos attached to each
Illustrative data. Every build is designed around your company’s own systems and numbers.
Voice notes that take action
Or just say it.
Between jobs, on the drive, or walking the floor: record a thought and the platform drafts the tasks, schedule changes, and answers. Nothing happens until you approve it. How voice notes work.
“Call the contractor about the six idle units, hold the telehandler until the leak is fixed, and what’s dollar utilization on skid steers?”
- New taskRep: confirm off-rent on 6 idle units · $7,800 billing this cycle
- RescheduleTelehandler held from the 7:00 delivery · shop work order opened
- AnswerSkid steer dollar utilization: 44% · rates 18% under book
Illustrative. Nothing changes until you approve it.
Sound familiar
An idle asset still makes its payment.
Busy isn’t the same as profitable
Time utilization says the fleet is busy. Dollar utilization says the rates are soft. The monthly report shows one of them, late, and never by asset.
Done on site, still on rent
A unit stops running on a jobsite, but nobody calls it off. It bills its way into a dispute or sits idle where the next customer can’t rent it.
Damage comes back without proof
Units come back with cracked glass or a torn track, and the check-out photos can’t be found. Without proof tied to the contract, the repair bill is yours.
The invoice trails the return
Delivery, pickup, fuel, and damage charges get pieced together after the return. Days to invoice stretch, and whatever nobody wrote down never gets billed.
What we’d build
What we’d build for a rental company.
Every tool follows a contract the way it moves through your counter, yard, shop, and trucks. Founderwright builds each one in-house, you own it outright, and it runs on your real assets, customers, and rates within the first week.
Owner’s command center
Rental revenue, time and dollar utilization, and cash by category and branch, with the day’s decisions sorted by what they’re worth. Every figure opens to the asset or contract behind it.
Utilization by asset
Time and dollar utilization for every unit, class, and branch, next to its age, hours, and book value. See what to move, re-rate, sell, or buy before next season.
Inspections and maintenance
Check-out and check-in inspections with photos, hour meter readings, and defects tied to each contract. Service comes due by hours or date, and nothing goes back out with an open defect.
Delivery and pickup board
Every delivery, pickup, and swap on one board with its truck, driver, and jobsite. Runs are grouped by route, and a late delivery shows up before the crew on site is standing around.
Off-rent watch
Engine hours and location from telematics, matched to open contracts. Units sitting idle on a jobsite get a call-off check with the customer, drafted and assigned before the next billing cycle.
Damage recovery
Check-out and return photos side by side, damage priced from your own repair history, and the charge drafted with proof attached. Waived damage is tracked by who waived it.
Rate vs. book
Every contract’s rate against book, by rep, customer, and category, with day, week, and month rates compared. Discounts that don’t buy longer rentals get flagged before they become the new price.
Billing and days to invoice
Delivery, fuel, damage, and cycle charges captured as they happen, so invoices go out on return or cycle date. Receivables by customer and jobsite, with collection drafts ready when accounts slip.
The compliance line
We build above the line. We connect to everything else.
In rental, the line sits under your books and depreciation, rental and sales tax filings, payroll, banking, insurance, and titles and registrations for road-going units. Inspections, maintenance, the counter, and the yard sit above it.
Above the line
Built custom, in-house by Founderwright, around how you run. Owned by you.
Below the line
The regulated systems you’re required to keep. We read from them, and where they offer a write API, approved work is written straight back in.
Keep any tool you like. We integrate with it. Rental companies often run a rental management system, telematics, and an accounting package. Stay on them, and we’ll build the utilization, inspection, and billing checks those systems don’t cover. See the systems we connect.
The build
How we’d build it for an equipment rental company.
Follow one unit around
We trace one unit’s life with you, from reservation to its next rental: how it’s quoted, delivered, and checked in, how damage and service get handled, and which numbers tell you what to buy or sell.
Connect the rental system
The rental management system is the first connection. The command center opens on your real fleet, open contracts, and customers, and the counter keeps working the way it does today.
Add telematics, shop, and books
Telematics, shop and parts records, delivery routes, payroll, and the books are wired in, so utilization, off-rent checks, and damage recovery run on the same record as the contract.
Build the missing pieces
We replace what the yard and shop have run on paper, often starting with inspections and service, and retire the tools you’ve outgrown. It all sits above the compliance line, and it all stays yours.
The numbers it runs on
Your definitions. Measured the same way everywhere.
Every metric is defined with you once, tied back to the source systems, and checked by agents before anyone makes a decision on it.
Questions
What owners ask us.
Do we have to replace our rental management software?
No. The counter keeps its system for reservations and contracts, and we tie into it during the first days. Utilization, inspections, off-rent checks, and damage recovery get built around it. Anything above the compliance line you later choose to retire gets replaced with software written around how your yard actually works.
What stays below the compliance line for a rental company?
Your books of record and depreciation, rental and sales tax filings, payroll and payroll tax, banking, card processing, insurance, and titles and registrations for equipment that goes on the road. None of that gets replaced. We read from each system, and where one accepts writes through an API, approved work goes back in. Every write has a named approver and a log entry.
Why build inspections and maintenance above the line?
Because they decide what’s rentable. A unit that fails check-in or runs past service shouldn’t go out, and the notes usually live on paper or in an app nobody ties to the contract. We build inspections and service tracking around your categories, meters, and intervals, so damage, downtime, and repair cost connect to the asset, the contract, and the customer.
Does it work across branches and re-rent?
Yes. Each branch gets its own utilization, fleet, and delivery board, and a unit that transfers between branches is tracked once, with its revenue credited by the rule you choose. Equipment you re-rent from other companies is tracked apart from your own fleet, so its cost and margin never blur your utilization.
What happens to the software if we part ways?
You keep it. The system is yours, down to every tool we built above the compliance line and the asset, contract, and customer history it holds. Bring the work in-house, run it as it is, or keep going with us. There’s no lock-in, and nothing is held back.
Start with one conversation.
Recovering, growing, buying, or getting ready to sell: tell us how your company runs. We’ll show you what it could run on.
Start a conversation logan@founderwright.com