A rental agreement is your hire paperwork done properly: who's hiring, which vehicle, for how long, on what terms, and the condition the vehicle was in at handover. This is the complete guide to building one — from the quick create through every tab to the final checks before you sign. Building and previewing a draft is completely free; a single credit (about £1) is only used at the moment the hirer signs.
What a rental agreement is for
An agreement records the full picture of a hire in one place:
- the hirer (and any additional drivers permitted to drive the vehicle)
- the vehicle and its mileage at handover
- the dates the vehicle is due out and due back
- the commercial terms — hire rate, deposit, excess, insurance, admin charge and mileage allowance
- a condition record at handover — either quick photos or a linked inspection report
- the terms and clauses your template applies, plus any custom fields you've added
When the hirer signs, the agreement becomes a locked, dated legal record, the PDF is generated, and the hirer is emailed a copy automatically.
What's free and what uses a credit
This is the most common worry, so to be clear: everything except signing is free and unlimited. You can create as many drafts as you like, run driver licence checks, add vehicles and customers, preview the PDF, and send a signing link — none of that touches your balance. Only signing the agreement uses one credit (around £1). New companies start with roughly 10 free welcome credits. If you run out, you can still build the whole agreement and run checks; only the final sign-off is held until you top up, and your draft is saved while you do.
Before you start
A smoother agreement comes from having a few things in place first, though none are strictly required to begin a draft:
- The vehicle added to your account. Adding by registration pulls in make, model, colour, fuel, tax and MOT automatically, and lets you set per-vehicle hire rates that pre-fill the pricing.
- The customer on file. A saved customer record means the hirer's name, address and licence details fill in for you.
- An agreement template that matches the vehicle. Templates decide which sections and clauses appear; if you leave the template blank at create, the right one is chosen automatically by vehicle type, falling back to your default. See how templates work.
If the vehicle or customer doesn't exist yet, you can add either one without leaving the create screen — there's an "add a vehicle" / "add a customer" option right where you pick them.
Quick create
From Agreements, choose Create. A short panel asks for just the essentials:
- the vehicle being hired
- the customer (the hirer)
- the date and time due out and due in
- the agreement template (optional — leave it blank to auto-select by vehicle type)
Two things fill in for you the moment you pick a customer and vehicle: the hirer's name, address and licence details pull through from the customer record, and the vehicle's default hire rates pre-fill the pricing. The due-out defaults to the next hour and due-in to a week later — adjust both to your actual hire window. Due-in must be after due-out.
Once created, the agreement opens in the full tabbed editor as incomplete — no credit has been used. An agreement reference is generated for you automatically (you can regenerate it at create time before saving); after that it's fixed.
Working through the tabs
The editor splits the full hire record across tabs so a complete agreement stays easy to finish. Each tab shows a small warning badge with a count if it still has something outstanding before you can sign. Most fields save as you go, so you can move between tabs freely. You can fill them in any order.
Basics
References and timing for the hire:
- Agreement reference — generated automatically.
- Vehicle — confirm or change the vehicle. Changing it pulls in that vehicle's current mileage.
- Agreement template — the template shaping the sections and clauses. Leave blank to use the default for the vehicle type. Each option shows the vehicle type it's built for and flags your default.
- Order number — your own job or booking reference.
- Date/time due out and due in — the hire window.
- Notes — any free-text comments you want kept on the agreement.
Hirer and additional drivers
This tab captures who is responsible for the vehicle.
The main hirer. Set the hirer type — an individual (private) or a business. If you picked an existing customer, their contact details and address pull through automatically; you only need to check them. The basic details cover first and last name, company name and VAT number (for business hires), phone, mobile and email. The address section is collapsed by default — open it to confirm or edit the full address and country.
Anything you add or change here is written back to the customer record when the agreement is signed, so corrections you make on the agreement (name, address, licence, even date of birth) keep the customer profile up to date for next time. It only ever fills in or updates fields — it never blanks an existing customer detail.
Additional drivers. Add anyone else permitted to drive the vehicle during the hire. For each one you record their name, licence number and phone. Capturing them here means everyone authorised to drive is on the record — not just the person who signed. This section starts empty; add drivers only if you need them.
Verifying a licence inline
The Licence tab holds the hirer's licence details and lets you verify them with DVLA without leaving the agreement. It's free, done in real time, and the result is saved against both the agreement and the customer record — so it's there next time too.
The licence details. You can record the licence number, date of birth, issue and expiry dates, who issued it, and the entitlement categories (such as B for cars, C1/C for larger vehicles, D1/D for minibuses and buses). If your company requires a hirer licence (a setting in your company settings), these become required before you can sign.
Running the DVLA check. To verify with DVLA you need:
- the driving licence number, and
- a DVLA share code from the hirer.
The hirer generates the share code themselves at gov.uk/view-driving-licence. It's an eight-character, case-sensitive code that lets you view their licence — so ask them to generate it close to when you'll run the check.
Enter the licence number and share code, then run the check. You'll first confirm you have the driver's permission — verifying someone's licence without a lawful basis is not something to do lightly, so this confirmation is required, not optional.
What comes back. The check returns and imports straight onto the agreement:
- driving status and the categories the hirer is entitled to (full or provisional)
- any endorsements and penalty points
- the photocard and licence expiry dates (expiry within three months is flagged)
Because the results land on the agreement and update the customer's record, you don't type any of it in. It's worth a quick glance to confirm the entitlement actually covers the vehicle you're handing over — a car (B) entitlement doesn't cover a larger van or a minibus — before keys change hands.
It's free. A licence check never uses a credit — licence checks are free and unlimited. Only signing the agreement uses one. You can run checks from a customer record or here inside an agreement.
Northern Ireland. DVLA share-code checks cover Great Britain licences. Northern Ireland licence checks aren't available yet — they're coming soon.
Vehicle and pricing
This tab covers the commercial side of the hire. If the vehicle has default rental rates set, the rate, deposit and excess pre-fill here — so most of the time you're confirming numbers rather than typing them, and you can override any of them for a one-off hire.
- Hire rate — the charge for the period.
- Deposit paid — the deposit taken from the hirer.
- Vehicle excess — the most the hirer is liable for in the event of damage.
- Insurance type — who is carrying cover for the hire (the hirer by default). This sits on the agreement so there's no ambiguity about how the vehicle is insured while it's out.
- Administration charge — any admin fee you apply.
There's a separate Mileage section for:
- Current vehicle mileage at handover (the latest reading pulls in from the vehicle).
- Miles allowed and the allowance period (per day, per week, and so on).
- Cost per excess mile beyond the allowance.
- Allowance basis — whether the allowance is scaled by the booked hire window (the agreed out and due-back dates) or by the actual time the vehicle is on hire. Most operators leave this on the agreed window.
- Late-return fee per day (optional) — a daily charge applied automatically if the vehicle comes back after the due-back date.
The excess mileage and any late-return charge aren't billed up front — they're worked out at the end of the hire. When you close the agreement, you confirm the return reading and return time, and the platform settles them. See the rental lifecycle for how that close step works.
Where pricing defaults come from
Knowing which figure lives where makes it easy to change a number in the right place permanently:
- Per-vehicle rates (rate, deposit, excess) come from the vehicle's rental defaults — change them on the vehicle to update every future agreement for it.
- Standard charges and clause text (insurance wording, admin charges, T&Cs) come from your agreement template.
- Per-hire overrides are anything you type here, which apply only to this agreement.
Handover photos vs a linked inspection
The Photos tab is where you record the vehicle's condition at handover. You have two routes, and they suit different jobs.
Quick handover photos. Capture images directly on the agreement — front, rear, near-side, off-side, interior and dashboard. You can also capture a hirer ID photo (the front of their driving licence card), which is stored against the agreement only and isn't shown publicly. Handover images print on the agreement as the condition record. This is fine for a quick, low-value hire.
A linked inspection report. For anything where condition really matters — higher-value vehicles, longer hires, or where disputes are likely — link a full inspection report instead. An inspection is a much stronger evidence record: damage markers on the diagram, tyre tread per wheel, fuel/charge level, the checklist, and watermarked walkaround photos.
When you add an inspection report, it becomes the condition record for the hire, so the agreement's own handover images are no longer needed — that section is hidden automatically once an inspection is attached. The agreement and the inspection stay tied together throughout.
This is exactly how the hire flow is designed to work: an outbound inspection at handover and an inbound one at return. You don't have to create the inspection from this tab — once the agreement is signed, the editor offers a clear "capture outbound inspection" step and walks you through the rest of the rental lifecycle.
Custom sections
If your agreement template defines custom sections, they appear here as their own tab.
Where they come from. Custom sections are set up on the template — a checklist of items handed over, a bespoke declaration, extra reference or money fields, even a blank signature line. Anything defined there shows on every agreement that uses that template, frozen into the agreement as it was at creation so the captured values always match the printed copy.
Filling them in. They behave like any other part of the agreement: complete them alongside the built-in tabs, mark any required ones, and they're captured at sign-off and included on the PDF the hirer receives.
Why use them. Custom sections let you match the agreement to how your business actually works — capturing details specific to your hires without waiting for a built-in field for every operator.
The "before sign-off" panel
At the top of an incomplete agreement, a panel lists everything still outstanding before you can sign — a missing licence check or licence detail, an unset price, no condition record, a required custom field left blank, and so on. Each item links straight to the right tab so you can jump to it and fix it. The tab badges mirror this, showing where the gaps are at a glance.
Your template decides what's required, and your company settings can add a blanket rule — for example, some operators insist on a verified hirer licence before any agreement can be signed. The panel disappears once everything is satisfied, which is your cue that you're ready to sign.
This is a genuine hard stop, not just a nudge: even if you reach the sign-off screen another way, the agreement won't complete while required fields are missing, and it requires the necessary signatures (a hirer and an operator/lessor signature by default, unless your template overrides which are needed).
What happens when you sign
Signing is the only step that uses a credit. At that moment the system:
- debits one credit (about £1) from your balance
- marks the agreement open and stamps the date and time it was signed
- writes the hirer's captured details back to the customer record
- generates the PDF of the signed agreement
- emails the hirer a copy automatically
If you're out of credits, you'll be prompted to top up first; the draft stays exactly as you left it.
You can sign in person there and then, or send the hirer a link to sign remotely — both, and what the hirer experiences, are covered in signing the agreement and sending a signing link.
What to do next
- Sign the agreement or send a signing link — complete it in person or let the hirer sign on their own device.
- The rental lifecycle: handover, return and close — capture the outbound inspection at handover, the inbound at return, and close the agreement when the vehicle's back.
- Finding agreements — search and filter, and pick up any that are still incomplete.
Common questions
Does building a draft cost anything? No. Creating, editing, previewing and running licence checks are all free. Only signing uses one credit.
I'm out of credits — can I still prepare the agreement? Yes. Build it in full and run any checks; only the final sign-off waits until you top up. Your draft is saved.
Can I edit an agreement after it's signed? No — once signed, the agreement is locked as the legal record and becomes read-only. If something's wrong, create a new agreement.
Do I have to choose a template? No. Leave it blank and the right template is chosen automatically by vehicle type, falling back to your default.
Can I add the vehicle or customer during create? Yes — there's an option to add either one right where you pick them, without leaving the screen.
Do I need both handover photos and a linked inspection? No. As soon as you link an inspection report it becomes the condition record and the agreement's own handover images are hidden.
What if a licence check fails? You'll see the reason. Check the licence number and share code are correct (share codes are case-sensitive and only let you view the licence once), and ask the hirer to generate a fresh code if needed. A failed check still costs nothing.
Can I run the licence check from somewhere other than the agreement? Yes — you can also run it from the customer's record. There's no standalone licence-check menu; it always runs from a customer or an agreement.