Product — in active development

HIRE IQ. The hire business, running on one system.

An ERP and point-of-sale platform for equipment, vehicle and plant hire in South Africa. Counter to fleet to ledger, with the SARS, AARTO and POPIA side handled inside the product rather than sold to you later as an extra.

The problem

Hire businesses run on three systems that do not talk.

An accounting package that knows about invoices but not assets. A spreadsheet that knows where the units are, until someone forgets to update it. And a hire book at the counter that knows what actually went out today.

The gaps between them are where utilisation goes unmeasured, damage goes uncharged, units go missing for a week before anyone asks, and the traffic fine lands on your desk with no way to prove who was driving.

HIRE IQ closes those gaps by keeping one record from the moment a unit is quoted to the moment the invoice clears.

Built for

  • Plant and equipment hire yards
  • Vehicle, truck and trailer rental
  • Tool and small-equipment counters
  • Multi-branch operators needing separated data per branch

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Interface

Built for the counter, not the boardroom.

Status at a glance, no hunting. Every unit, where it is, what it is doing and what it earns — on one screen a counter hand can read across a busy Monday.

Design preview of work in progress. HIRE IQ has not been commercially released and this is not a screenshot of a live installation.

Modules

Twelve modules, one record.

Each module writes to the same underlying data. A return on the counter updates the asset, raises the charge, posts to the ledger and closes the contract in one action.

01

Fleet & asset register

Every unit tracked from available to on hire, reserved, in for maintenance or retired, with its full history attached.

02

Maintenance reminders

Services flagged before they fall due — by calendar interval or by recorded usage — so a unit is booked in rather than breaking down on a customer.

03

Service history

Job cards against each unit — work done, parts used, cost and downtime — so a machine's full record travels with it.

04

Counter POS

Fast checkout with barcode and QR scanning for stock and equipment tags. Built for a queue, not a demo.

05

Book-out & return

Pre-hire checklists on the way out, condition capture on the way back, and automatic damage and cleaning charge calculation.

06

Digital signatures

Customers sign on a pad or a touch screen and the agreement is legally binding. The signature is saved with the contract, along with who signed it and when.

07

Quotes & documents

Quotations, job cards, delivery notes, invoices and goods received notes generated instantly from the same record.

08

Debtor & creditor ledger

See what every customer owes you and what you owe every supplier, who is overdue and by how long, with statements ready to send.

09

VAT & SARS invoicing

VAT at 15% worked out correctly and invoices laid out the way SARS wants them. Your figures go straight into Xero, Sage or QuickBooks, so your bookkeeper is not retyping anything.

10

AARTO fine tracking

Fines captured against vehicle registration and timestamp, matched to the contract and driver active during the violation window for redirection.

11

POPIA & consent

Consent asked for at the moment you collect a customer's details, every look at those details logged, and old records cleaned up on schedule.

12

Your data, kept apart

Your records are walled off from every other business using the system. Staff see only what their role allows, and every change is recorded with a name and a time against it.

  • VAT at 15% calculated and presented the way SARS expects on every tax invoice.
  • AARTO redirection — fine matched to the vehicle, the timestamp, and the contract and driver active in that window.
  • POPIA handled properly. Consent asked for at the moment you collect it, customer details kept where only the right people can reach them, every look at them logged, and old records cleaned up on schedule.
  • Your figures go straight into Xero, Sage or QuickBooks instead of being retyped.
  • A record of every change — who made it, when, and what it said before.

South African by default

Compliance is not an add-on module.

International hire platforms treat South African tax, traffic and privacy law as a localisation problem to be solved later. For an operator, that is the whole problem.

HIRE IQ is built the other way round. The SARS, AARTO and POPIA parts are wired into how your records are stored, so they come out right by default instead of being patched up in a report at month-end.

Web and desktop

The counter needs hardware. The office needs a browser.

HIRE IQ runs as a web application for management, reporting and remote access, and as a desktop application at the counter where it needs to talk to physical devices.

Both share the same business logic and the same data, so a rate change made in the office is live at every counter immediately — and a contract signed on a pad at the counter is visible in the office before the customer reaches the gate.

  • Barcode and QR scanners for stock and asset tags
  • Receipt and document printers at the counter
  • Signature pads for hire agreements
  • One shared data layer across web and desktop

Questions

What operators ask us.

Straight answers, including the ones that are not flattering. If yours is not here, ask it directly — you will get a reply from a person.

Is HIRE IQ available to buy yet?

No. HIRE IQ is in active development and has not been commercially released. We are working with a small number of South African hire operators in early access to shape it against real yards and real month-ends. There are no live customer installations yet, and we will not pretend otherwise.

Does it handle VAT and SARS-compliant tax invoices?

Yes. VAT is worked out at 15% and invoices carry everything SARS requires on a tax invoice. Your figures export straight into Xero, Sage or QuickBooks, so your accountant is not retyping a year of paperwork.

Does it do GPS tracking?

Not today. HIRE IQ tracks a unit's status — where it is booked to, who has it and when it is due back — rather than its live position on a map. Live GPS is on the roadmap, not in the product, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.

How does it handle AARTO traffic fines?

Fines are captured against the vehicle registration and the violation timestamp, then matched to the contract and driver active during that window. That gives you the evidence trail to redirect the fine to the responsible party instead of absorbing it.

Is our data separated from other companies using the system?

Yes. Every record is tied to your business at the deepest level of the system, so another operator cannot see your customers, your rates or your fleet even if something in the software goes wrong. If you run several branches, the same thing can separate branch from branch.

Does it work with barcode scanners, receipt printers and signature pads?

That is what the desktop application is for. It installs on the counter machine so it can talk directly to scanners, till-slip printers and signature pads, and it works off the same information as the office side. A rate changed in the office is live at the counter immediately.

Can we get our data out if we leave?

Yes, in full, in an open format, at any time. No exit fee and no proprietary format holding your records hostage. It is written into how we work, not offered as a concession.

What will it cost?

Pricing is not finalised. Early access partners get preferential terms at launch in exchange for real feedback during the build. If you want to be one of them, tell us about your operation.

Early access

HIRE IQ is in active development.

We are working with a small number of South African hire operators to shape the product against real yards, real counters and real month-ends. Early access partners get direct input into the roadmap and preferential terms at launch.

If you run a hire business and want the system built around how you actually work, tell us about it.