Running Rentals Day to Day

Once your rentals are live, Vanio handles the routine — confirmations, reminders, deposit holds and releases — and gives you one place to watch revenue, review bookings, and act when something needs a decision. This guide covers the operational side: what to check, when, and how to handle damage.

New to rentals? Start with Offering Car and Bike Rentals to Your Guests. For what guests experience, see How Guests Book and Pick Up a Rental.

Your fleet at a glance

The Rentables home page opens with a fleet summary: revenue this month, upcoming pickups, rentals currently out, and your combined monthly target. Below it, the next pickup and return events are listed soonest-first — your morning glance for "who's coming today."

Per-rental performance

Each rental's Overview tab tracks the numbers that matter:

• Bookings, booked days, and revenue — this month, last month, and all time
• Utilization — how many days of the month the rental was out
• Progress against the monthly revenue target you set

If a rental keeps missing its target, that's your signal to adjust pricing, add weekend rates, or promote it harder in guest messages (see below).

The reservations view

The Reservations tab lists every booking with its status, payment status, dates and times, guest contact details, and the current state of the security deposit.

Open any booking for the full operational picture:

• Pickup photos and dropoff photos, grouped side by side for comparison
• Driver's license photos uploaded at checkout
• Deposit state and controls — release or capture

Setting fuel and charge policies

Each rental can be set with different fuel or charge return policies to match how your guests prefer to return vehicles. Go to your rental's Settings page and choose from these fuel policy options:

• Return full — Guest returns with a full tank or 100% charge
• Return at the same level as delivery — Guest returns at whatever level you delivered it
• Return at pickup charge level (EV) — Guest returns the electric vehicle charged at or above the level it had when they picked it up
• No requirement — No fuel or charge level expectation

For electric vehicles like Tesla rentals, the "Return at pickup charge level" policy works well when you want flexibility in your delivery charge level while ensuring guests don't return with a nearly empty battery.

[Screenshot: Fuel policy dropdown in rental settings showing all four options]

Reviewing condition photos

Every vehicle booking carries two photo sets the guest completes in their trip portal: one at pickup, one at dropoff — front, rear, both sides, interior, odometer, and fuel or charge level. Compare them after each return:

• Same condition? Nothing to do — the deposit released automatically.
• New scratch, dent, or a much lower charge level? The photo pair is your evidence, timestamped and attached to the booking.

Guests can also add extra damage photos at either stage, which appear in the same view.

Managing security deposits

The deposit lifecycle runs itself: the hold is placed automatically at pickup and released automatically after the guest completes dropoff. Each booking shows where the deposit stands — pending, held, released, or captured.

When something goes wrong, you take over from the booking's detail view:

• Capture for damage — take the full deposit, or a partial amount (for example, $180 of a $500 hold for a curb-scraped wheel). When you capture partially, the rest is returned to the guest automatically.
• Release manually — let the hold go at any time, for example after inspecting in person before the guest completes dropoff photos.

A released hold typically shows back on the guest's account within 5 business days, depending on their bank. Captured amounts are paid out to you like any other payment.

Automated guest messaging

Three messages run out of the box for every rental booking, and you'll find them alongside your property messaging in Automations:

1. Booking confirmation — sent immediately, with dates and the trip portal link. You get a notification email at the same time.
2. Pickup reminder — the day before pickup: time, place, license and card reminder, and a heads-up about the condition photos.
3. Return reminder — the morning of the return day: return time and your fuel or charge expectations, plus the dropoff photo link.

Rental messages are fully editable — same template editor, same variables as your property messaging, plus rental-specific details like the rental's name and pickup time.

Upsell rentals in your guest messages

Your best rental customers are already booked: guests staying at your properties. The {{rentals.upsellBlock}} template variable promotes your rentals inside any guest message — check-in instructions, welcome messages, pre-arrival notes.

Drop the variable into a message template and it renders a short, self-contained paragraph:

🚗 Need wheels during your stay? Our rentals are parked nearby in Aspen — Compact SUV from $150/day, City e-bike from $35/day. Book at yoursite.com/rentals

What makes it safe to put everywhere:

• It only renders for matching guests. The block appears when rentals are available where the guest is staying — same city, or attached to their specific property. For everyone else it renders as empty text, and the message reads naturally without it.
• It's always current. Names and prices come from your live rental inventory — cheapest first, vehicles first, up to four items.
• It's SMS-friendly. The block keeps itself short enough for a text message.

Day-to-day tips

• Price the peaks. Use calendar overrides for event weekends and holidays instead of raising your default rate.
• Soft-launch with Friends only. Test your pickup flow and agreement with people you trust before opening a rental to all guests.
• Watch utilization, not just revenue. A rental that's out 25 days at $120 usually beats one that's out 10 days at $180.
• Review photos the same day. Capturing a deposit is easiest while the dropoff photos are fresh and the hold is still in place.
• Choose EV policies that work for your schedule. The pickup charge level policy gives you flexibility to deliver electric vehicles at 60%, 80%, or 100% depending on your availability.