Party rental software has one job that most rental software does poorly: counting. A party rental company tracks 120 folding chairs, 30 round tables, 8 tents and 6 inflatables that all leave on a truck Saturday morning and come back Sunday night. The software has to know how many chairs are free on a date, price the weekend as one event, collect a signed agreement for the bounce house, plan the delivery runs and let a school pay by invoice. This guide shows how Ribbe handles each of those.
The worked example is Celebrations Party Rentals, a demo shop in Nashville with a catalog that will look familiar: Castle Bounce House 13x13, Combo Bounce & Slide, 20x20 and 20x40 Frame Tents, a 40x60 Pole Tent, 60-inch Round Tables (set of 4), Folding Chairs (set of 10), Chiavari Chairs (set of 10), 120-inch Round Linens (set of 4), a Dance Floor 16x16, a Popcorn Machine, a Cotton Candy Machine and a Patio Heater, plus the services Delivery & Setup, Teardown & Pickup and Same-day Pickup. Every price below is an example, not a quote.
Party rental warehouse with stacked folding chairs, round tables and rolled tent canvas
Ribbe tracks a product in one of two ways. A quantity-tracked product is a count: 120 folding chairs, 30 round tables, 12 round linens. Availability for a date range counts what is already reserved, so when a school fair holds 100 chairs for a Saturday the website and the register both show 20 left for that weekend.
A serialized product gives each unit its own tag. Inflatables belong here. Each Castle Bounce House 13x13 and each Combo Bounce & Slide carries its own barcode or QR, so you know which unit went to which backyard and when it was last inspected. Tents can go either way.
Sets are their own products with their own price: Folding Chairs (set of 10) at, say, $15 per set and 60-inch Round Tables (set of 4) at, say, $48 per set.
Online, each product gets a booking page.
Online booking page for the Castle Bounce House 13x13 with event date, price and add-ons
The Castle Bounce House 13x13 booking page: the customer picks the event date and sees the price and the add-ons offered with it.
Tents use the same page type. On the 20x40 Frame Tent page a corporate client can book the tent without a phone call, and your staff still gets a look before it is confirmed.
Online booking page for the 20x40 Frame Tent showing event date and pricing
The 20x40 Frame Tent booking page, built from the same product record the register uses.
Rate plans in Ribbe have hourly, half-day, daily, weekly and seasonal tiers. For party gear the tier that matters is a daily or weekend tier, so a Saturday delivery with a Monday pickup prices as one event rather than three days. The Castle Bounce House might carry a weekend tier of, say, $225, and the 20x40 Frame Tent, say, $650. Overtime tiers (Extra Hour, Extra Day, Extra Week) apply automatically when a rental runs past its return, which covers the client who keeps the tent through Tuesday.
Delivery & Setup is a per-order line. Teardown & Pickup and Same-day Pickup are separate services, so a venue that needs the floor cleared that night pays for the trip. Service fees cover the rest: a flat or percent fee per order or per item, taxable or not, for a fuel charge or a setup fee.
Business Rules let you write the policy you already apply by hand: a higher deposit on weekend rentals, a two-day minimum on holiday weekends, a discount by lead time. Rules apply at the register and online alike.
The online booking cap limits the website to N units or a percent of a product, so the planner who calls on Thursday still finds chairs the web did not sell out.
A tent order needs a human look before a truck rolls: is there room to stake a 40x60 Pole Tent, is there power for the blower. Ribbe gives you two approval modes for online orders. Review mode flags each web order for a look. Blocking mode parks the order until someone approves it, which suits tents and large inflatables.
At checkout the site can offer delivery. The customer types the venue address, or picks a delivery region when you price by zone. The cart holds the chosen unit for a set number of minutes, and shoppers who leave without paying get an abandoned-cart reminder.
The bookings calendar is where the weekend takes shape: what goes out Saturday, what comes back Sunday night, and what is still waiting for approval.
Bookings calendar showing a weekend of party rental events across Saturday and Sunday
The bookings calendar for one weekend of events, with each order on its event day.
Two documents travel with a party order. The rental agreement is designed in the Template Designer with the order, customer and unit fields filled in, signed like a waiver, and a copy is emailed to the customer. The liability waiver covers the people using the gear.
The Waiver Library ships 31 ready-made waivers by activity, including a bounce house and inflatables waiver and a party rentals waiver. Import either into the Template Designer, edit it like any template, and have your attorney review it before you use it; the library is a starting point, not legal advice.
Waiver Library with the bounce house and inflatables waiver preview open for review
The Waiver Library with the bounce house and inflatables waiver open in preview before import.
The customer can sign on their own phone from a link sent with the booking, on the pad at the counter if they pick up, or on the driver's phone at delivery. The signed copy is stored on the order and the customer record with a signing record: time, signer name and document hash. Turn on age verification and the signer's birth date is required; a minor's waiver is routed to a parent or guardian, whose name is recorded. Ribbe does not block a rental by age; it records the age and routes the guardian signature.
A security deposit is pre-authorized on a card, or taken as a payment, and staff captures or releases it at return. A damage waiver product for inflatables and tents can be priced fixed per rental, per day with a cap on days charged, or as a percent of the rental. The waivers and digital signing overview covers the signing paths in more detail.
Crew unloading tent poles and folding chairs from a box truck at a suburban backyard
The delivery and pickup module is where party rental software is really judged. It runs at three levels, Off, Basic and Full, with capability toggles, so a two-truck company can start simple.
Pickup and Delivery settings with module level Off, Basic, Full and capability toggles
Pickup and Delivery settings: the module level and the toggles that switch on each capability.
A run has a truck, a driver, a crew and a time window. Stops are grouped by address, so 40 chairs, 5 round tables and the Popcorn Machine to one house become one stop. A run can deliver and collect on the same trip, including a swap at the same venue. Route optimization orders the stops, run templates save a standard Saturday, and the scheduler flags a conflict when a driver or a truck is booked on two runs at once. Drivers and crew are staff with skills on the employee scheduler.
Run builder Stops and orders view with stops grouped by address and Deliver and Collect tags
The delivery module's run builder on a beach-gear demo shop: stops grouped by address, tagged Deliver or Collect.
Before the truck leaves, the load-truck checklist lists every item on the run and the crew ticks each one as it goes on. A missing blower for the Combo Bounce & Slide costs a second trip; this screen catches it at the warehouse door.
Run builder Load truck checklist with items ticked as loaded at the warehouse
The delivery module's load-truck checklist, with each item ticked as it goes on the truck.
On site the driver app takes over. The driver ticks the items delivered, takes photos of the setup, and the customer signs the Delivery Note on the driver's phone. An ETA message goes to the customer at dispatch, and runs sync one way to Google Calendar. For a longer look at the module, read our walkthrough of rental delivery software.
Driver's phone recording a delivery: items ticked, setup photo added, customer signature field
Recording a delivery on the driver's phone: items ticked, a photo attached and the customer's signature.
Schools, churches and companies do not pay with a card at a counter. Set them up as on-account customers and the order posts as an invoice with its own invoice number. Statements, receivables aging and overdue reminders chase the balance. A payment link by email or SMS lets the PTA treasurer pay on their phone, and a card on file covers the repeat corporate planner.
The customer record keeps every past event, signed document and payment for next year's call.
On-account and receivables settings next to the list of customer invoices
On-account and receivables settings with the invoices list below them.
Walk-in business runs through the same register: card payments through Stripe on a reader, cash, check, gift card, store credit and on-account tenders. The rental POS system guide covers what to look for in a register.
Preventive maintenance plans run by days or by number of rentals, with a pass/fail checklist per inspection. The plan library's Party & event rentals set covers an inflatable inspection checklist, blower checks and a tent inspection. A failed inspection parks the unit out of service.
Reports answer the winter questions. Utilization by product group and the idle items list show which items earn their shelf space. The fleet usage report shows which items never left the warehouse all season, and revenue by day shows how much of the year is made on Saturdays.
There is no upfront software cost for Ribbe. Online booking fees are paid by your customers. For a conversation about your fleet and your trucks, talk to us, or see the party rentals page. If you are mapping out the months before the season, the summer rental business checklist is a good companion to this guide.
Yes. Chairs, tables and linens are quantity-tracked products: you enter the count you own and availability counts what is already reserved for the dates. Inflatables can be serialized so each unit has its own tag.
Yes. Set the school up as an on-account customer and the order posts as an invoice with its own invoice number, backed by statements and overdue reminders. A payment link by email or SMS lets them pay on a phone.
Yes. The customer signs the Delivery Note on the driver's phone and the driver attaches photos of the setup; both land on the order as proof of delivery. The waiver can also be signed on the driver's phone if it was not signed from the booking link.
Yes. A run can mix Deliver and Collect stops, including a swap at the same venue. If the same truck or driver lands on two overlapping runs, the scheduler flags the conflict.
Not in Ribbe. There is no customer portal where a client edits an order after booking. The client calls or emails, your staff changes the order at the register, and the updated payment link goes out from there.
Run the coming season on one system Counts, weekend pricing, inflatable waivers, delivery runs and invoices for schools and companies, in one place. Set up your catalog before the first Saturday of the season. Start a free trial