By default, the system will allow you to overbook stock – this is so that it doesn’t prevent you from getting an order out of the door if you’ve forgotten to check in stock on a previous order, or can easily sub-rent from another supplier. 

In this guide, we’ll run through the ways that the system lets you know about shortages and the tools provided to help you resolve shortages.

OnRent Events flags shortages in several ways throughout your system by

The dashboard displays a count of any upcoming opportunities, orders, or reserved quotations that have shortages.

Click this tile to view a list of opportunities that you need to review.

You can get a count of your upcoming orders and reservations with shortages in your inbox every day by turning on the daily summary email.

On orders and reserved quotations, product and service shortages are highlighted in red in the opportunity order view, making it obvious where your shortages are.

When Opportunities are listed in the system, you’ll see a red ⚠️ symbol next to the name of orders or reserved quotations with shortages.

If an asset is not appearing in the allocation dropdown, ensure you have selected the correct store in the system. For instance, switching to a specific store like "America's store" often resolves this issue. This is likely due to misconfigured location settings.

Ensure the "Stock Method" is set to "Serialized" and confirm that the "Allowed Stock Type" matches the required type (e.g., "Rental") to avoid allocation issues.

An asset might not be allocatable due to simultaneous reservations in other jobs, even if no active booking seems present. Check all job schedules and availability before manually assigning assets to avoid future stock conflicts.

Additionally, verify the Resource Planner settings to ensure no overlapping or conflicting allocations are preventing asset assignment.

If you face issues booking out or checking in reserved items:

The primary way that most companies resolve shortages is by sub-renting stock, i.e., renting gear from a third-party to then rent to your customer. Use the simple sub-rent process to mark opportunity items as sub-rented. See: Sub-rent stock

Got a quotation that you know is confirmed? Mark it as reserved to reserve stock on it. Shortages are highlighted as they are on orders, so you can start reviewing them straight away. See: Mark a quotation as reserved or provisional

To book a product on multiple opportunities without returning it to stock, go to System Preferences > Product Settings and toggle "Enforce Stock Availability" on or off. Disabling this setting allows simultaneous bookings, but be cautious to avoid stock conflicts.

For serialized assets, ensure the product is properly prepared and booked out. Common error messages like “You must select an asset” or “Failed to allocate asset(s)” often indicate incomplete setups. Checking and resolving these can prevent issues.

To prevent overbooking stock for orders or reserved quotations, enable Enforce Stock Availability.

If troubleshooting fails, enable support access to allow a deeper investigation by the support team.

See: Prevent Current from letting you overbook products

On your dashboard, you can see a count of any opportunities where the end date has elapsed and items haven’t yet been checked in.

Where an opportunity is overdue for return, the system can automatically convert the opportunity to an open-ended rental. When open-ended, stock is considered unavailable indefinitely until checked in and finalised. See: Automatically change availability for products that haven’t been checked-in

Occasionally, an asset may be impossible to allocate because its Effective Date precedes the desired booking date. To correct this, go to the Stock Level section of the asset settings and update the Effective Date to align with your booking schedule. This ensures that historical inconsistencies do not impede allocation.