Starting a rental: the pickup checkout and the payment check

On a confirmed booking, the Start button hands the equipment to the customer and moves the booking to active. Start opens a Pickup Checkout window. By default that window also checks that the rental is actually paid, and it will not let you start a rental that is not paid unless someone allowed to says why.

Where to find it

Bookings → open a confirmed booking → Start (top-right).

The pickup checkout steps

The window shows a card for each step your shop has turned on. You finish them, then press Submit at the bottom. Submit stays greyed out until everything is done, and a "Still needed" line under the progress count tells you what is missing.

• Assign units — if an item on the booking has no specific unit assigned yet, this comes first. Pick the unit the customer is taking.
• Readings — hours and miles for equipment that has meters. Required for metered equipment.
• Condition — photos and video of the equipment. Optional.
• Checklist — the pickup checklist. Everything required has to be acknowledged.
• Payment — what has been paid, what is still due, and the security deposit. This card only appears when the payment check is on.

You can switch Readings, Condition, Checklist, or the whole checkout off at Website → Checkout → Business side → Start flow (Pickup). With the whole checkout off, Start moves the booking to active straight away with no window.

How the payment check works

Open the Payment card. It lists the rental total, what has been paid, and the balance, with a headline at the top:

• Rental paid in full — nothing due. You can submit.
• Ready to start — the rest is scheduled — the balance will be charged automatically on a later date. This does not block Start; it shows as a warning with the date.
• Rental not paid yet — Start is blocked — money is due now. The reasons are listed under the headline, for example "$120.00 rental balance due — nothing has been paid yet."

What counts as paid:

• Card payments that Stripe has confirmed.
• Cash, gift card, or "other" payments a staff member recorded on the booking. These count as paid, but Stripe cannot confirm them, and the card says so.
• Money a booking channel such as Viator or GetYourGuide collected on its own.

What blocks Start:

• Any balance due now.
• A scheduled charge that is overdue, still processing, failed, needs review, or has a payment link out that the customer has not paid. These only count when a balance is due now.

What does not block Start:

• A charge scheduled for a future date that is still waiting its turn.
• The security deposit. If the deposit is not on the card yet or a hold failed, the Payment card warns you and lists it under Security deposit, but you can still start. The Payment card at the top of the window then reads "Paid · deposit not held" in amber instead of a green "Paid".

A payment link that was sent but not paid appears as a line on the card (for example "Payment link sent Oct 2"). It explains why a balance is still due; the balance is what blocks Start.

Putting the deposit on the card

When the deposit is only scheduled (or the last attempt failed) and the customer has a card on file, the Security deposit section shows Place hold now with the amount. Press it, confirm, and Renta authorizes the deposit on the customer's saved card. That only holds the money; nothing is charged. The card then reads "Paid" in green once the hold is on the card. You never have to do this to start the rental.

The button is not shown when:

• The deposit is waiting for the customer to approve it (for example 3D Secure). Send them a payment link from the booking's Payments & Documents tab instead.
• The customer has no card on file. The section says so; add their card with Hold now on the deposit row in Payments & Documents.
• The deposit is cash or another method that is not a card hold.
• You are viewing the shop as a Renta superadmin, who cannot move money on a client's account.

Collecting the money

Press Close to collect payment, then use Resolve payment on the booking's Payments & Documents tab (take a card or cash, or send a payment link). Come back, open Start again, and press Refresh on the Payment card to re-check.

Starting anyway

If you are allowed to, the Payment card also shows Start anyway…. It asks "Why start this rental before it's paid?" and needs a written reason (up to 500 characters). The reason is saved to the booking's change log with what was still owed. You must finish every other step first, because Start anyway only skips the payment check, not readings or the checklist.

Who can start anyway:

• Owners, always.
• Managers and staff only if an owner turned on Allow starting unpaid rentals at Settings → Team → Override permissions. It is off by default.

Everyone else sees the block with no override button.

Turning the payment check on or off

Website → Checkout → Business side → Start flow (Pickup) has a Payment check switch. It is on by default. Only an owner can change it. When it is on:

• The old "paid in full" tick on the checklist is hidden, because the system answers it from real payments.
• It applies even if you turned the rest of the pickup checkout off. Pressing Start on an unpaid booking then shows a "Start this rental before it's paid?" box (owners, or people the owner allowed) instead of the full window.

Good to know

• Editing the pickup of a rental that is already active (More menu → Edit Pickup) never blocks. The Payment card is for information only and shows "Rental already started — balance still due" if money is owed.
• If Renta cannot read the booking's payments, the Payment card says it could not check and the footer asks you to open the card and press Refresh. A failed check is never treated as paid.
• The status change is not the same as taking payment. Start does not charge anyone; see Moving a booking through its lifecycle and Payment history and signed documents on a booking.
• Finishing the rental has its own checkout. See Finishing a rental: the return checkout.

Swapping the assigned unit at pickup or drop-off

If you hand over a different bike or machine than the one assigned (say "Unit 2" instead of "Unit 1"), you can fix it right in the checkout instead of leaving the booking page. 1. In the checkout's readings step (the same step is used at pickup and at drop-off), find the unit's row and press Change. 2. Pick the replacement from Use instead…. The list shows the other units of that machine, except units already on this booking and retired ones. A unit in repair is marked "(in maintenance)", and an unavailable one "(unavailable)". 3. Renta saves the change straight away and the checkout refreshes. Cancel closes the list without changing anything.

If Renta refuses the swap (for example the other unit is booked for those dates), the reason appears under the row with an Assign anyway link. That link only works for people who are allowed to override availability; see Fine-tuning what Managers and Staff can do. Only machines tracked unit by unit can be swapped this way, and the unit row now shows even for machines without a meter.