Finishing a rental: the return checkout

On an active booking, the Finish button opens a return checkout. You work through the steps, then press Finish rental. That moves the booking to completed and carries out what you chose for charges and the security deposit.

Where to find it

Bookings → open an active booking → Finish (top-right). To change a finished rental's return details later, use Edit Dropoff in the booking's More menu.

The steps

Each step is a card across the top of the window. Your shop can switch any of them off at Website & Checkout → Checkout → Business side → Finish flow (Return).

• Readings & Condition — hours, miles, photos, and notes at return.
• Checklist — the return tasks. Every task has to be ticked before you can finish. If the equipment has a post-ride inspection list, it shows below the tasks under "Post-ride inspection" with the machine's name, and those items must be ticked too.
• Work Orders — optional. Log a repair or damage the machine came back with. Each work order records your own cost and can bill the customer and/or take that unit out of service when you finish.
• Additional Charges — optional. Add custom charges for the rental, such as a late fee or a cleaning fee. Give each a description and mark whether it is taxable.
• Reviews — optional. Ask the customer for a review without leaving the window: email the review links, copy a link to text, or mark that you asked. If no review links are set up, the step points you to Insights → Reviews → Outreach → Review links.
• Deposit — decide what happens to the customer's security deposit. It reads "None" when the booking has no deposit, and "Required" until you decide. See below.

The footer shows "Still needed" items. Finish rental stays greyed out until the checklist is done and, when there is a deposit, you have decided what happens to it.

Late fees

If the rental came back late and your shop has a late fee set up, Renta adds it to Additional Charges for you. If it only becomes owed while the window is open, the first press of Finish rental adds it, takes you to Additional Charges, and stops. Review it (edit it or remove it), then press Finish rental again. A late fee is never charged without you seeing it.

The deposit decision

Finishing does not release the deposit by itself. You have to choose one of three things:

• Capture from deposit — take money from the deposit to cover the damage and additional charges. You enter the amount to capture. It starts at the smaller of your charges and the money actually held, and it cannot be more than what is held. With a single deposit, anything not taken is handed back: a card hold releases the rest to the customer's card, and a cash deposit is returned in cash. With several deposits, the window explains how the amount is drawn from them.
• Release the full deposit — nothing is taken. A card hold is released and a cash or other deposit is returned in full. A "Clean return" tag shows when there are no charges.
• Keep the hold open — decide later. A card hold stays on the card and a cash deposit stays with you until someone acts, from the open deposit banner on the finished booking.

The Deposit step lists each deposit and where it is: "On the card," "Collected," or Scheduled — not on the card yet if the card hold was never placed.

If the deposit was never placed on the card

A deposit that was only scheduled is not money you hold, so there is nothing to capture. Capture from deposit is greyed out with an explanation, and the scheduled deposit is cancelled when you finish.

If the customer has a card on file, a Place hold now ($amount) button appears (also for a card deposit whose last attempt failed). It asks "Authorize $X on the customer's saved card now?" and says nothing is charged until you choose Capture. Press Place the hold. When it works, the deposit moves onto the card and you can capture from it.

• No card on file: Renta says so. Close the checkout (your progress is saved) and add a card from the Payments & Documents tab, or finish without the deposit.
• The bank wants the customer to approve it: nothing is on the card until they do, so send them a payment link from Payments & Documents.
• This button only works while the booking is still active.

Charges the deposit does not cover

If your charges are bigger than the deposit (or nothing could be captured), the Deposit step shows "Charges not covered by the deposit" with the amount. Nothing is charged automatically. The amount stays on the booking as money owed.

When you press Finish rental, a box titled Rental finished — payment still owed shows "Still owed on this booking" with a Collect payment ($amount) button (if a deposit note also applies, the box is titled Rental finished — check the deposit and still shows the owed amount). It opens Resolve payment on the booking's Payments & Documents tab so you can use a saved card, send a payment link, or record cash. You can also do this later from the same tab.

Good to know

• If you turn the whole return checkout off, Renta stops handling deposits and damage charges for you. Your team then charges or refunds them by hand from each booking's page, and Finish becomes a plain status change.
• If the deposit could not be handled exactly as you chose, the same box titled Rental finished — check the deposit lists what happened. It is also saved in the booking's change log.
• Starting a rental has its own checkout. See Starting a rental: the pickup checkout and the payment check.
• Open deposits on finished bookings: see Releasing vs. capturing a deposit hold.