Deposits & damage
Deposits and damage should not live in a notebook.
Hire company deposit tracking software only works if money sits on the same record as the kit. A notebook cannot hold a release rule, a damage photo, and a workshop gate at the same time.
The problem
The deposit was taken. Nobody can say against which kit, or whether it should still be held because a head came back warm. Accounts chases a photo. Warehouse has already put the case back on the rack.
Damage charges are a negotiation after the fact because the handover was a signature on paper and the condition notes never reached the person who invoices. Release happens because someone is in a hurry, not because the record is clear.
A custom system keeps the deposit, the handover, the damage hold, and the workshop clearance on the kit. Money does not move until the floor says it can. That is slower to describe than a notebook and much faster on a Sunday night.
What a custom system holds
- Deposits attached to the kit and the job, with release rules
- Damage holds that block the kit until workshop clears it
- Handover notes and photos on the same record as the invoice
- Accounts seeing money without a photo chase through chat
- An exceptions queue for deposits that should not have been released
Questions
- Where should hire deposits and damage live?
- On the kit, with the job. Release rules, handover photos, and workshop gates belong on the same record as the money. A notebook cannot hold all three.
- 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 deposits still sit in a book beside the till, a twenty-minute call is enough to see whether a custom build is the right shape.