Car rental software: a rent-a-car's records from handover to collection

In the car rental business money is lost in three places: damage not documented at handover, fuel that comes back short and collections nobody follows up. Car rental software exists to close those gaps; the booking calendar and the website come after. This article walks through the daily record-keeping of a rental business — handover report, fuel difference, terms, deposit, damage dispute and branch management — the way PlakaPro does it in rent-a-car mode.

Last updated: 19 September 2026

The four critical moments of a rental business

1. 1Handover: the car is given to a customer or a long-term driver. The state of the bodywork, mileage, fuel, equipment and documents must be written down at this moment; afterwards it is a dispute.
2. 2Rental period: daily terms; km limit, additional driver, child seat, HGS toll passes. The terms the car went out on must be on record.
3. 3Return: the car comes back; new damage, missing fuel, km exceeded? It is compared side by side with the handover report.
4. 4Settlement: the deposit is refunded or partly withheld; rent, fines, toll charges, the fuel difference and damage are collected and booked into the cash desk.

A document is born at each of these four moments. If the document is paper, it stays in the office; if the photo is in WhatsApp, it leaves with the phone. The software's job is to keep these documents attached to the car and the customer — six months after a handover, in an argument about a scratch, «the photo from that day» must be one click away.

Handover report: diagram, photos, fuel, signature — by link

In PlakaPro a report is drawn up like this: you select the car, mark the damage on the body diagram (old and new damage in different colours), add photos, write the mileage and the fuel level in eighths. The handover checklist sits on the same form: invoice issued, car entered in KABİS (the rental-vehicle notification system). The other party receives a one-time link or QR code; the customer opens it on their phone, sees the damage and signs with a finger. The signature, the timestamp and the photos are sealed into the report, which is kept as a PDF. The customer does not need an account or an app.

The return report opens from the same screen and inherits the handover diagram: every new mark you add means «this damage was not there at handover». Fuel is compared too: the missing level is converted to litres, multiplied by the day's fuel price and, once the return is accepted, posted to the customer's account as a debt — no hand calculation. A customer who disagrees adds a comment and their own photo through the link; the objection lands with the manager, and the discussion runs on a record both sides can see. The contents of a report are listed item by item in the vehicle handover report article.

A sample dispute

The customer returned the car on Friday evening; on Monday morning a new scuff was noticed under the front bumper. With a record, the process is short: the handover report is opened — no mark on the front bumper in the diagram, the bumper is clean in the four-corner photos, the customer's signature and the handover time are there; the return report has the scuff marked, its photo and the return time. The damage falls within the rental period; the amount is withheld from the deposit, and the basis for the deduction goes to the customer as a link. Without a record, the same event is a phone call that starts with «it wasn't like that with us» and usually ends with the business giving up.

Rent-a-car mode: customers, a daily rate, rented / free

Your workspace is set up as a rent-a-car and the screens change accordingly: everywhere it says customer instead of «driver», a licence and an ID are enough on the customer card, taxi-only pages are hidden. Rent is entered and shown per day; a car is either «rented» or «free». The home screen says in the morning: how many cars are rented, how many free, rentals ending today, overdue. A corporate customer runs on a monthly fee; the terms are written inside the handover event: price, period, km limit, deposit. For a long-term driver the week closing works as in a taxi fleet; details in the driver settlement software article.

Blacklist. You mark a problem customer on their card with the reason; when a new customer card is opened and the phone or document number matches, the system warns at once. The warning does not come from your own list only: marks made by other car-rental companies on PlakaPro show up as «that company — that reason». The decision stays yours — the card still opens, but you know who you are handing the car to.

Deposit, collection, the cash desk and contractors

The deposit enters the cash desk as a separate transaction; on return it is either refunded in full or paid out net of damage, the fuel difference, excess km and traffic fines. Every line of the deduction is tied to the report and to the customer's record — the answer to «why did you withhold ₺1,500?» sits on one screen. Every payment out of the cash desk (tyres, car wash, tow truck) leaves through a request, and it is clear who approved it; the car wash, the tyre shop and the workshop are kept as contractors, and the cash form suggests the name. In a business with branches every branch has its own cash desk and head office has a single view.

Who gets charged for traffic fines, HGS toll passes and excess km?

A fine arrives against the plate, often weeks after the rental. When you enter the date of the fine, the system knows from the schedule who had the car that day and posts the amount to that customer's account; if the deposit is still in the cash desk it is withheld from there, otherwise it stays as a receivable. The same logic for HGS/OGS toll passes (the Turkish electronic toll tags): date + plate = person. Excess km is written as a single rule too: the amount you set for every kilometre over the limit.

Fleet maintenance, documents and the map

In a rental fleet Kasko (comprehensive cover) is all but mandatory, and the policy excess (the share of damage passed to the customer) is part of the contract. Trafik (compulsory third-party) insurance, Kasko, the TÜVTÜRK inspection date (the mandatory periodic inspection) and the MTV instalments (the motor vehicle tax, 31 January / 31 July) sit on the car card and in the «Car deadlines» table and warn 14 days ahead; the policy is read from a photo and the dates are filled in automatically. Because the mileage is updated on every report, the service plan runs by itself. A car with a tracker shows on the live map — you know where a car whose return is overdue actually is. This part is covered in detail in the fleet tracking software article.

A business with several branches

The airport office, the city centre and a branch in a second city: each has its own cars, cash desk and team. In PlakaPro permissions are given per person and per section — the branch manager sees their own cars and cash desk, accounting sees all cash desks but not the schedule, the owner sees everything. Sending a car from one branch to another is an event too; which branch is responsible for it is on record, where it is shows on the map.

How does the first week go?

We load your car list and your team together, and if you keep plates and policy dates in Excel, we take them from there. You do the first handovers with us: marking the diagram, writing the fuel, adding photos and sending the link to the customer takes less than five minutes. At the end of the first week we close the cash desk, deposit and collection records together and settle the branch permissions. There is no charge for 30 days; if you continue, you pick the plan that fits your number of cars on the pricing page.