RER conducted a series of interviews for our October issue on software technology and has been publishing a number of them in RER Reports. The seventh installment is with Ray Bonestroo, president and sales manager of Genisys Software, based in Minneapolis. Bonestroo discusses new developments offered by Genisys and trends to come in the coming years.
Bonestroo was interviewed by RER’s Michael Roth.
RER: What have been some of the new developments in software over the past year or so from your company?
Bonestroo: We have been busy adding features in many areas:
• The ability to do online reservations over the web
• A much easier-to-use customer work order program with many more features
• Automated updates of parts pricing from outside vendors such as New Holland
• Many more features within our dispatch module
• A new equipment movement tracking system similar to what UPS and FedEx have for tracking repair orders or transfers between stores.
• Much more in the way of document imaging so that our customers can get away from having to keep paper copies of vendor invoices, credit applications, sales tax certificates, employee’s applications, W4s and more.
• New enhancements in our Windows Mobile application
• Literally hundreds of other features requested by our existing and new customers over the past year.
What are your customers in the rental business asking for particularly?
More web integration, also integration to other Windows-based products such as Quickbooks and Peachtree accounting software.
From a software perspective, what do you see as some of the important things a rental company should be concentrating on in the current economic environment? What are some of the ways you can help?
By identifying which items are not renting enough to justify their carrying costs; which items require more maintenance than similar models so that they know which to dispose of if needed and many other ways.
What are some new technologies that are important— for example, RFID tracking, doing rentals on line, customer access to their accounts, ability of sales people to have access to technology to process order in the field, software that helps service staff have access to data from the jobsite, etc.?
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.