Ruby Rent
A complete rental operations platform that replaced spreadsheets and WhatsApp with real time digital workflows for field teams and management
About the Project
Before Ruby Rent existed, this construction rental business ran entirely on spreadsheets, WhatsApp messages, and physical notebooks. Items went out to sites. Some came back. Some did not. Rent was calculated manually, often incorrectly. Billing disputes with clients happened regularly. Management had no real time view of how many items were on site, where they were, or when they were due back. The business was growing but the systems were not. Ruby Rent was built to fix all of this in one platform that every level of the organisation, from site supervisor to owner, could use without training.
What We Were Solving
The client relied heavily on WhatsApp, Excel sheets, and manual tracking to manage rentals. With hundreds of scaffolding items getting rented and returned across multiple construction sites simultaneously, tracking due dates, rent cycles, and pending returns was nearly impossible to do accurately.
Manual billing calculations caused regular errors. A rent cycle miscalculation on a large site could mean the business was owed thousands of rupees that never got invoiced. There was no audit trail, no history, and no way to prove what was agreed at the start of a rental.
The system needed to work for users with varying levels of technical comfort. Site supervisors are not software users. The mobile interface for field operations had to be so intuitive that someone with no software training could log a return entry correctly on their first attempt.
How We Tackled It
We spent the first two weeks in observation mode, watching how the existing workflow actually operated rather than relying on descriptions of it. This revealed three critical insights: most errors happened at return entry, rent calculations were being done differently by different people, and management had no single place to see the business state.
The data model was designed before the UI. Getting the schema right for rental items, sites, cycles, and customers was the most important technical decision in the project. A wrong data model would have caused compounding problems throughout development.
User roles were designed around real job descriptions. Admins see everything and can edit anything. Staff can create and manage rentals. Supervisors can log returns from the field. Each role sees only what they need, which reduces both confusion and the risk of accidental data changes.
PDF and Excel export were built early, not late. These outputs are how the business communicates with clients. Getting them right meant getting the billing logic right, which surfaced several edge cases in the rent calculation engine that we resolved before they could cause real world problems.
What We Built
We designed and developed Ruby Rent as a complete rental management solution built with Next.js, TypeScript, and MongoDB. The platform includes quotation creation, rent out management, return entries, damage notes, and automated rent calculations. Each module was built for maximum efficiency and accuracy for both admin teams and site supervisors in the field.
The system now supports real time item tracking, dynamic rent cycle calculations, customer wise history, due reports, PDF exports, and enquiry handling. User roles ensure secure, appropriate data access across the organisation. The owner now has a live view of the entire rental operation from a single dashboard.
Key Features Delivered
- End to end rental lifecycle management from quotation to return
- Automated rent calculation based on item type, quantity, and duration
- Real time inventory tracking showing which items are out, where, and since when
- Customer history with full rental, billing, and payment records
- PDF and Excel export for quotations, invoices, and due reports
- Role based access for admin, staff, and site supervisors
- Due date alerts and overdue item notifications
- Damage and shortage logging at return with automatic deduction
Project Screenshots
