What we're building with Keyring: rental management for camera houses
Keyring is coming soon. Here is the rental-house problem it is built for and what it is designed to do, from booking to check-in and billing.
Keyring is a rental management system from Thinkiyo for camera, lighting and grip rental houses that serve film and video crews. It is coming soon, and it is not yet generally available. This post covers the problem it is for and what we are designing it to do.
The problem
Most rental houses run on six places that each need checking before anyone can say yes:
- Booking spreadsheets with colour codes.
- A whiteboard of what is out.
- Paper check-out sheets.
- Generic booking tools built for rooms, not kit.
- Deposit notebooks.
- Contract PDFs in email.
Serials get copied by hand. Damage is found a week later. And "is the 35 free Thursday?" turns into a walk to the shelf.
The idea: follow every kit from shelf to invoice
Keyring is designed around the way a counter crew already works: shelf, hold, door, bench, invoice.
Inventory by serial
Every item with its serial, category, condition, notes and status, across locations.
Bookings that refuse clashes
Keyring is being built to check every new booking against the active bookings for that item. If the dates overlap a reserved, picked up or overdue booking, the booking is refused and you see which booking is in the way, so the counter can offer another date or another item.
Contract and deposit on the booking
Reservation, contract and deposit live together on one booking.
Condition at both ends
Condition is logged with a timestamp at check-out and check-in. At return, each item is checked against how it left, so only new damage reaches the bill, tied to the booking it happened on. The deposit stays recorded against the booking until you release it, and a note to the renter waits for approval.
Late kit and extensions
Due-back flags, delay marks, extensions that move the dates on the bill, and late fees on your own terms.
Billing
Daily and weekly rates, part payments and refunds tracked to the booking.
A day at the counter
How we expect a Tuesday to run:
- 07:10. A camera kit leaves. Every serial and its condition is logged, and the contract is signed.
- 10:20. A lens request would clash. Keyring refuses the overlap and shows when the lens is free.
- 14:00. A shoot runs over. The booking is extended and the new dates go on the bill.
- 18:05. The kit comes home. A cracked lens hood is logged and the deposit stays held.
The principles
- Runs in your cloud. Your own cloud account, or a server in your back office.
- Data you control. Items, renters, bookings and payments in your own database. Your inventory list and renter history are the business.
- Nothing sends itself. A renter hears from you only when the counter sends it.
- Set up with you. A Thinkiyo team will load your inventory and stay after go-live.
How it will fit with other Thinkiyo products
- Rapport for production companies and repeat clients, with every quote and deal in one pipeline.
- Mosaic to bring every renter into one profile with your other customer sources.
- Momentum for agents that follow up kit enquiries on the channel they came in on.
Getting early access
Keyring is in build. Join the waitlist and the Thinkiyo team will contact you when early access opens.
Who it is for
Keyring is designed for camera, lighting and grip rental houses serving film and video crews. That includes houses with one counter and houses with stock across more than one location, since inventory, condition and status are tracked per item across locations.
What we are not saying
Keyring is not available yet. The capabilities above describe what we are building, not a shipped product, so we are not making claims about timelines, integrations or pricing.