Compare · Hire ERP
An alternative to myRMS — when the hire ERP is still not the floor.
myRMS is a packaged hire ERP: contracts, fleet, invoicing, and a field app. That is the right buy for many plant and tool yards. Custom software is for the week the ERP still exports.
myRMS is a product of its owner. Metalique Studios is not affiliated with myRMS and does not claim to be a drop-in replacement for every hire desk.
Who myRMS fits
Plant, tool, and equipment hire with a contract spine
Yards that need hire agreements, rate cards, off-hire, multi-depot fleet, e-signature, and a driver or engineer app — and whose week already looks like that. A purpose-built hire ERP is usually better than a generic accounting suite with an inventory tab.
Teams leaving spreadsheets or older on-prem hire systems
If the job is to get contracts, fleet status, and invoices into one cloud product, with Xero, QuickBooks, or Sage on the way out, a packaged ERP is the short path. We are not faster than that for the average plant desk.
Hire that can live on their statuses
Quotes, reservations, on-hire, off-hire, work orders. If those states are the operation — and damage, deposits, and workshop are already first-class in the product for how you run — stay on the template.
The honest split
A hire ERP is a bet that your exceptions are someone else’s average. Template ERP vs floor-built ops is what we send when the licence is live and the yard still reconstructs Monday from a sheet.
Event and AV hire weeks are a different object from plant off-hire. Event hire booking software has to hold the show, the kit set, and the Sunday return — not only a contract line and a depot.
Deposits, damage photos, and a workshop gate still fall out of many ERPs into a note. Deposit and damage tracking should sit on the kit. Availability that can block a pick should sit there too.
When a custom floor system wins
The contract is not the week
Plant hire ERP models rates, duration, and off-hire well. It does not automatically model the kit that must stay together, the hold that must block a pick, or the show week that is three files. If you are bending the floor to fit statuses, you will grow a second system.
Integrations do not invent a missing object
An open API and Sage on the invoice are useful. They move a reconstruction into a queue if the record still is not the job the warehouse runs. Custom ops starts from that record.
Hire is not the only operation
Some yards are also a workshop, a field crew, or a wholesale counter. A hire ERP will keep the rental happy path. The rest stays in chat. One custom system can hold both — if that is actually how the week runs.
What we would actually hold
- The hire object the desk already uses — not a module list retrofitted to the yard
- Fleet or kit availability that can stop a dispatch
- Damage, workshop clearance, and deposits on the same record as money
- Field completion that writes the invoice instead of a Monday rebuild
- History migrated from the sheet and the old system, then care with a named contact
Questions
- Is this an official myRMS page?
- No. myRMS is a trademark of its owner. This page compares a packaged hire ERP with custom operations software. Metalique is not affiliated with myRMS.
- When is a hire ERP the right answer?
- When plant, tool, or equipment hire already matches the product: contracts, rate cards, multi-depot fleet, off-hire, field app, accounting sync. If that is the week, buy the template. Custom is slower to start and wrong if the ERP already covers it.
- Do you migrate off a hire ERP?
- Sometimes — after discovery. We watch how work, stock, and money move, including the sheet beside the login. Then a written scope. History should not restart at go-live. If staying on the ERP with a thinner custom layer is enough, we will say so.
- How does a custom build start?
- A twenty-minute discovery call. We watch how work, stock, and money move — including the exceptions a template never modelled. Then a written scope. If a packaged product already covers it, we will say so.
- Where are you based, and who do you work with?
- Metalique Studios is a UK software company based in Chigwell, Essex. We build custom operations software for UK hire companies, workshops, field teams, and other ops-heavy SMEs — in the language those floors already use. See the UK page.
Where we work
If myRMS already is the yard, keep it. If you still run a hire ERP and a spreadsheet, a twenty-minute call is enough to see whether a custom build is the right shape.