My name is Victor Ruiz Gorocica. I hold a degree in systems engineering. Until recently and for 4 years I was the Corporate IT manager at Executive Rent a Car, Mexico.
Because of my team’s recent study of available car rental management softwares, I received several inquiries from counterparts at other car rental companies looking for systems advice. Since there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of published comparisons, most indicated frustration in their research efforts and so I decided to share my experiences here and offer consulting services for car rental software technology.
Car Rental Software
Executive Rent a Car (the car rental company I worked for) was a national business of 44 locations with a combined rental fleet of approximately 800 cars and trucks. The owners of the business attempted a restructuring to survive the downturn in the Mexican tourism industry and the cut throat competition rental rates that resulted from that downturn but finally decided to close operations and focus investment with their other interests.
Because my role as head of the assessment exercise was to test the competitiveness of the ORION car rental management software we had operated with for almost 25 years, this restructuring period provided me an invaluable understanding of the car rental software system options available and the advantages versus the disadvantages of each.
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For our project, our beginning research point was finding out the capabilities of the three dominant market players, TSD, Rent Centric and Blue Bird and also to go through the list of vendors from this link: http://www.capterra.com/car-rental-software/ and another similar site that I can’t remember. For our purpose, we found both sites to be misleading. Essentially they are advertisement sites in disguise that earn from their own version of Pay-Per-Click, similar to Google AdWords. So information is not research grade. If I remember correctly, one of these sites was attributed to a vendor.
Many of the companies listed on this site undoubtedly posted their own reviews. There would have been negative comments otherwise because they didn’t comprehend business basics and were frustrated with even the simplest questions around fundamental procedures. I believe the sub-standard providers focused on servicing new operators who are unfamiliar with the car rental business process and therefore don’t really know the proper verification questions to ask when looking for a management system. Because rental management software shapes the service offering of a car rental operation, I expect many businesses have been hurt by the lack of quality information available.
For Example:
TSD is without a doubt one of the credible car rental software solutions and was a top consideration on our list. They showed a one star rating on the Capterra site, while Easy Rent Pro and ASAP Rent, both weak softwares, hosted on fragile networks, had five star ratings each and difficult to believe glowing reviews.
I have re-categorized the Capterra Car Rental Software list of system providers, based on Suitability, Capability, Ease of Use, Reliability, Miscellaneous Advantages, Company History, etc..
The Auto Rental News industry publication was also a good research resource.
You can click on this link: Car Rental Software Comparison and Reviews to get directly to my summary conclusions section.
1) Top Car Rental Software Providers (In Alphabetical Order):
2) Runners Up – Capable of Running Business with Some Compromises (In Alphabetical Order):
3) Generally Unsuitable:
- Car Rental Software by Car Renting Solutions
- Car Rental Reservation System
- Accelerate
- Carhire Manager Web
- Book Rides Online
- Inspect 4 Damages
- LiveryRavont
- OPT ARM
- Rental Management Software
- Rental Manager
- Reservation Form
- Speed
- Vehicle Renting System
Car Rental Software Comparison and Reviews Method and Conclusions
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Our main qualification criteria were these points:
- Business process suitability for administrative functions, counter management, online reservations, contract management, advanced accounting and reporting and the ability for us to request our own reporting data.
- The quotations and bookings automation processes for staff, also from third party online sources, from online reservations through the company website and from commissions-based partners.
- Advanced rate management capabilities, one of the most important points we spent considerable time researching.
- Fleet management, maintenance tracking (interval notification, reservations prevention and costs tracking).
- Flexible handing of tax calculation formulas for different product items and for us here in Mexico, we are required to auto submit data to the government for each contract issued (factura), through an integrated communications connection.
- Staff management functions and tasks sharing.
- Intelligent management of multiple locations. So that the locations can operate independently or in groups, with targeted access permissions and also as part of the larger environment of the company.
- Financial institution integration with PCI security standards compliance, for integrated credit card processing.
- Revenue distribution and commissions management for staff and partners.
- Robustness of system networks. We considered this point very important. We pinged the host servers for the various providers over a time range and analyzed the results. We also considered the expected services offered from the network hosts. So relatively speaking, we got quite deep into this point because of its importance on system reliability and ability to scale. A system that fails at critical times or if there is a likely risk of data loss can be greatly disruptive.
- Staff and customer security procedures.
- Ease of system navigation, use, training and customer service.
- Cloud based system preferred.
- Reasonably priced.
We were not surprise to find out that the companies that offered the closest match to our ideal wish list were the recognized top three: TSD, Rent Centric and Blue Bird. Each was able to satisfy our requirements, for the most part. There were significant competitive differences as well:
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1) Top Car Rental Software Providers (In Alphabetical Order):
Blue Bird Review
The Blue Bird system shows a strong understanding of Car Rental Business procedure, as all of the three qualified companies do. They have very good data reporting. Customer support is also very good. Where they fall short is in the choice of architecture, client server on a Progress database, which limits accessibility and makes the initial setup more difficult and time consuming. It also limits the ability to use the system for Sales, such as with online reservations, partner access and third party system integrations. The architecture also makes the interface look outdated. Their choice of network is fair. The system is very good nevertheless. They are middle of the pack for pricing.
Rent Centric Review
Rent Centric is the newest company of the three, existing for 15 years. They too demonstrate a strong understanding of Car Rental procedure. We did find, when entering Spanish data, there were validations that needed to be fixed. Those were quickly resolved however. After getting past this point, we saw that the system was pleasant to use, easy to learn. The reporting engine is advanced. Some reports were more detailed with Blue Bird and TSD but others more detailed with Rent Centric. The reporting tool Rent Centric used is Crystal Reports based, which is better able to handle exports and server load than the Blue Bird reporting system. The architecture is a .Net cloud system like TSD. However, Rent Centric separates each client implementation in its own operating environment, so they are more welcoming to customization requests and are less expensive to make changes with. The host network reliability is probably the best of the three. The Rating engine is highly advanced. Bundled in is a capable online reservations interface. They offer significantly more choices of merchant accounts to select from, for integrated credit card processing. They have a GDS chain code and are therefore able to offer access to travel agent reservations sources, as does TSD but not Blue Bird (however this business model is based on cut throat pricing to compete and there are fees and resource commitments involved). Also, they offer integrated GPS technology solutions, Car Share business automation and other models like that, which we found quite intriguing and forward thinking. We liked that Rent Centric lists their prices on their website and they are the least expensive of the three.
TSD Review
In this group, TSD is the longest serving system in the industry, so their understanding of the business process is likely the best. The architecture is .Net cloud based like Rent Centric’s, so it is more up to date than Blue Bird’s. Analyzing the TSD system showed strong advantages on one side and a some disadvantages on the other. The TSD system has the most functionality of the three. However it seems that this is because they developed custom logic for clients over time and included them all in the same platform build. So the functionality may not necessarily be helpful or relevant for many. The cluttering effect makes the system not the most user friendly, somewhat difficult to navigate through, even though the interface formatting is very clean. TSD offers 24/7 customer phone technical support. Charges may apply, however, if a call is found out to be related to a customer side issue. Worth noting, TSD offer GDS connectivity, as with Rent Centric, through their partners, to access booking opportunity from travel agents. I am trying to be careful to be balanced with my reviews. This is a very good and mature system that should be considered when researching for a car rental program. Certain things stand out though that reduced the likability for us but that may be different for others. One thing we did not like about TSD is their pricing policy which is not straight forward. There are many license components that you find out about as you move along in discussions. Expect to negotiate to get the best deal. TSD is the highest priced system of the three.
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2) Runners Up – Capable of Running Business with Some Compromises (In Alphabetical Order):
Cars+ Car Rental Software Review
Cars+ has been in the car rental technology market for a long time, I think maybe as long as TSD. They do not have much of a presence in North America any more, except Hertz still uses them with franchisees. The system capable but expensive to purchase and maintain. It is built on a legacy Linux platform.
Rental Car Manager Review
This company is out of Australia. They have I think the dominant market share there, because of the time zone and because they are cheaper than TSD and Blue Bird. Also, because in Australia not a lot of credit card processing takes place through systems, so they do not have to be as advanced in certain areas or PCI compliant. The .asp architecture is used is moderately scalable.
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3) Generally Unsuitable:
There is no need to go into detail on each one of the software vendors I listed under this category. However there are three companies that need to be mentioned because they pop up everywhere on the internet which may mislead about their capability.
ASAP Rent Review
Everything about this company is suspicious. Their site looks like an exact copy of another company site. When I asked the owner of ASAP Rent (who is also the sales guy) about this he told me that it was his site that was copied and of course the other company said the same. So we investigated. There is much content on the ASAP Rent site that is simply not true. I called the Better Business Bureau who’s logo shows at the top of the ASAP Rent website and they said they never heard of them. They are not registered with them. They also are not PCI compliant as claimed and the more you read the more you realize this company is trying to get business by appearing similar to another organization but have nothing close to that capability. Then they write for themselves favorable product reviews and buy pay per click advertisement to show up everywhere. My advice, stay away.
(UPDATE)
I have been receiving threats from Michael King the owner of ASAP Rent. I will not be made afraid by threats from bullies. We all have the right to share research and analysis information and our exercise was focused on assessing the suitability and capability of management systems for the car rental industry.
I see that ASAP Rent has now removed the Better Business Bureau logo from their website, which I imagine was done to limit the damage of having been caught faking credentials but on the internet lies are captured forever. Here’s a snapshot of ASAP Rent`s website history, from a search engine cache, with the fake Better Business Bureau logo displayed top and center:
I am not familiar with the “CDN Channel Elite Awards” list ASAP Rent is now hanging on to. This may be a legitimate local business association. I have not heard of them before.
(SECOND UPDATE)
Two days ago I received a message from Michael King, owner of ASAP Rent, informing that ASAP Rent had been a Better Business Bureau member with an A+ rating before August 16, 2011. Michael informed that at that date the Better Business Bureau stopped verifying companies in Montreal and he provided this supporting link:
https://www.bbb.org/council/about/montreal-consumers/
First, this Better Business Bureau example was presented as one of many, to support the conclusions made above, by our business and technology teams reviewing the ASAP Rent system platform and website.
Regardless, the new information given by Michael King warrants an examination to make sure that the entire content presented here is factual and objective.
Referencing search engine historical content, here is what I found:
A –The Better Business Bureau did stop verifying Montreal companies on August 16, 2011
B – This is a snapshot of the ASAP Rent website a few months before August 16, 2011, without the Better Business Bureau logo displayed:
C – This is a snapshot of a newer ASAP Rent website, showing the Better Business Bureau logo after the time of the snapshot above, at the time of August 16, 2011 (when Better Business Bureau terminated service for Montreal) and for some months to follow.
D – This is an ASAP Rent website snapshot, with the Better Business Bureau logo displayed, from late last year.
What can be concluded here is that if ASAP Rent was registered with the Better Business Bureau, this would have been for a short period. Is it possible to get an A+ rating in this time frame? ASAP Rent continued for years after that to advertise the accreditation when they definitely couldn’t have had it. That’s why when we called to verify with the Better Business Bureau, because other ASAP Rent website material was suspicious to us, they told us they would be contacting ASAP Rent, requesting the removal of the logo from the www.asaprent.ca website.
It may be that ASAP Rent was briefly registered by the Better Business Bureau and continued to use the logo on the site by mistake. However, that Better Business Bureau logo continued for years after termination, even after the site was totally redesigned. So I conclude this also was a planned deception.
Finally, I have some perspective for Michael King, owner of ASAP Rent. When we started contacting car rental software companies, we were especially harsh on one company that we realized later your business copied it’s branding from. We were harsh because we assumed they were the copy, having come across your web advertising first. They put a lot of effort, going into painstaking detail on a wide range of capabilities to prove without a doubt they were the legitimate original. I had to apologize for our initial unfriendly attitude. Copying another company’s website design and text and then marketing it as your own is not professional, Michael.
Navotar Review
We were given access to a live Navotar system for analysis by another company trying unsuccessfully for many months to use it for managing their car rental business. It didn’t take much research to see enough blatant problems to advise them that Navotar in our opinion is unqualified for managing car rental business in a proper way.
The Navotar system has almost all of its pages exactly copied field by field from another known system but without many of the supporting calculations, references and functionalities identified to exist. You can see the right buttons with the right descriptions but nothing suitable in the background to support these buttons.
Navotar seems to be a small company with one or two people running a home style business in Canada with a small support backend in Sri Lanka. What we saw told us that they have very little car rental business experience.
Here’s a quick summary of problem issues we were able to see within about an hour of interaction:
- Credit Card processing is done by emailing visible credit card information via PDF back to the car rental! I was astonished to see this.
- Rate engine is very primitive and flawed. It doesn’t even allow multi day rates
- Rate setup does not allow entering multiple vehicle type rates per each rate code.
- Rates are not increased by day or utilization.
- Split billing does not allow splitting amounts with other companies such as insurance, just a redirect of the entire amount owed to a different payer.
- Primitive tax setup, not being able to specifically tax charge items on the rental agreement.
- Primitive miscellaneous charges setup which doesn’t allow percentage charge on specific rental agreement charges.
- Taxes are added to deposits.
- No commission setup for referrals.
- Not allowing region to region drop off which causes massive amount of location to location entry for one way charges.
- Primitive vehicle type setup, not even being able to disable any types when not in use.
- Not being able to setup specific permissions for each user. User roles are all pre-set.
- Daily Planner doesn’t allow drag and drop.
- Clicking on new reservations in the planner doesn’t carry forward vehicle info into the reservations or rental pages.
- Online reservations rates and calculations are inaccurate.
- Online booking allows multiple bookings.
- The system searches are defaulting to local region, making it difficult to search the entire system.
- No local time zone, local currency and local date format setups.
- As far as we were able to see all reports are flawed in one way or another. For example:
- Report filters are not working, show no data., You have to always export all to get some data
- No grouping on reports and no sub-totals or grand totals
- Revenue reports are not working.
- Reservation reports are not honoring filters.
- Financial Summary returns $0 on this live system.
- Location Profitability Report returns $0 even if run for a year period.
- Monthly Financial Report returns No Records Found.
- Vehicle Utilization shows usage percentage of 0% or 100% for all vehicles.
- Fuel level information is not gathered and calculated accurately and with proper increments.
- When interacting with Navotar grids or daily planner, we more than once encountered errors that redirected to a third party scripting site. The core system is heavily using outside integrated components in an unreliable way.
- The hosting company supporting Navotar is iWeb. Online feedback shows poor customer service and reliability.
Easy Rent Pro Review
Cheap, the developer means well but the system and the network are too weak to support even a small business in the industry. This is a one person operation.