The Rentals module lets you hire out equipment and now posts to your accounts the same way a proper accounting system does — so rental income appears in your Profit & Loss and security deposits are tracked as money you owe back.
When you check an item out
- Record the hire: the item, the customer, the rate (per day / week / month) and the expected return date.
- If you take a security deposit, it is recorded as cash received and as a refundable liability (money you are holding on the customer's behalf) — not as income. It is not profit; it is a deposit you may have to give back.
When the item comes back
- Check it in. The system recomputes the rental charge from how long it was actually out and records that as rental income, collected into the account you choose.
- Choose what happens to the deposit:
- Refund (the usual case) — the item came back fine, so the deposit is handed back and the liability clears.
- Forfeit — the item was damaged or returned late, so you keep the deposit; it becomes income to cover the loss.
The hired item stays in your inventory the whole time — it is your asset that went out and came back — so there is no cost-of-goods entry, only the rental income.
Example: you hire out a drill at $20/day with a $100 deposit. The customer keeps it 3 days. On return you collect the $60 rental (3 × $20) as rental income and refund the $100 deposit. If the drill came back broken, you could instead forfeit the $100 to cover it.
