Resources

Practical guides for running a rental company

Short, useful and written for owners on the islands — no fluff.

Getting started· 3 min read

Launch checklist: what we need from you

Company details: legal name, address, phone, WhatsApp number and the email for booking notifications.
Your cars: plate, make, model, year, category and current kilometres (a spreadsheet is fine).
Prices per category: daily rate, and weekly or monthly rates if you offer them. Seasons, weekend or holiday prices if you use them.
Where you hand over cars: office, airport, hotel and villa zones, with the fee for each.
Your rental conditions: licence requirements, deposit, fuel, cancellation, insurance and late returns — in your own words.
Your logo (PNG with a transparent background works best) and one or two good photos.
Optional: your own domain name, and your payment provider account if you want to take online deposits.

Money· 2 min read

The booking deposit is part of the rental price, paid when the customer books (for example 25%). The rest is paid at pick-up.
The security deposit is a separate, refundable amount held at pick-up (cash, card terminal, or later a card hold) and released after the return.
In the app they are kept apart: the booking balance and the security deposit each have their own status, and retaining part of a deposit always needs a reason.

Money· 2 min read

Card payments go through a payment provider with a merchant account in your company's name, so the money goes straight to your bank. The first provider we support is CX Pay.
Until your merchant account is approved you can use pay-on-arrival and test the whole online flow in test mode.
We never see or store card numbers — the customer enters them on the provider's secure page.

Website· 2 min read

Your website works immediately on a car-rental.ai subdomain. When you're ready, connect your own domain by adding one DNS record at your domain provider; we check it and switch on HTTPS automatically.
We can also register a domain for you. It is always registered in your company's name. Island domains such as .cw go through the local registry by hand and may need company documents (for .cw, a Chamber of Commerce extract); timing depends on the registry.

Operations· 1 min read

Check the licence, take the walk-around photos (front, back, both sides, interior, odometer, fuel), note existing damage, collect the balance and deposit, and let the customer sign on the phone.
The app won't hand over the keys until those steps are done — unless someone with the right permission overrides it and writes down why.

A 20-minute call. We show the product with your fleet, your prices and your island — and tell you honestly if it's a fit.