Quick start
RentalTide manages bookings, point of sale, fleet, staffing and financials for rental operators, tour and charter businesses and marinas. It runs in 46 countries.
This section takes you from an empty account to taking real money. Start here, then follow the path that matches your situation.
How long it actually takes
Around six to nine hours of work, spread across a week. Most of the elapsed time is Stripe verification and testing, not typing.
| Account and Stripe started | 30 minutes |
| Business, hours, taxes, fees | 1 hour |
| Building your fleet | 2 to 4 hours |
| Waivers, messaging, website | 1 to 2 hours |
| Testing and going live | 1 hour |
You can take a real booking on day one if you need to. The week is what it takes to do it properly.
Pick your path
Starting fresh — no existing system, or moving off spreadsheets and a phone. Follow the five-day go-live checklist.
Switching — you have a live business on FareHarbor, Rezdy, Checkfront or PeekPro with a forward book to protect. Read Switching from another platform first, because the order of operations matters and one step must come before the others.
The four things every account does
Whichever path you are on, these four are the spine. Everything else is refinement.
1. Create your account
Sign up at app.rentaltide.com. You will land on a four-step wizard covering your profile, your business, your first location and a few starting preferences.
Google and Apple sign-in are both supported and can be linked later.
2. Configure your location
A location is one physical site: a dock, marina or rental counter, with its own timezone, operating hours, taxes and Stripe account. Add as many as you need from Settings > Locations.
Two fields are worth getting right the first time, because they are expensive to correct later:
- Timezone. Changing it afterwards does not move bookings already taken.
- Tax rates. A wrong rate means reissuing every invoice from opening day.
Both are covered, per country, in Initial setup.
3. Build your fleet
Inventory items are what customers rent: jet skis, pontoons, kayaks, paddleboards, bikes, slips. Each needs a name and category, pricing for every duration you sell, a true quantity, and photos.
Quantity is the field that causes overbooking. Set it to the number of units you actually own.
Start at Fleet > Inventory.
4. Go live
Your public booking page is live as soon as a location has inventory and an approved Stripe account. Share the link, or embed the widget on your existing site.
Before you open, take one booking end to end on your own card: book, pay, sign the waiver, check in, check out, refund. See the go-live checklist.
Operating somewhere specific
Setup differs by country, mostly in tax and in what Stripe asks for. Initial setup covers each market inline.
Everything in this section
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Initial setup | Every configuration step, with per-country tax and identity requirements |
| Go-live checklist | The five-day plan, with time estimates and pre-opening checks |
| Switching from another platform | Migration order, what imports, what does not, and cards on file |
| Training your team | What each role needs to know, and a 90-minute training session |
| Setting up in Australia | GST, ABN, AUD, the RBA surcharging ban, and what differs |
| What to expect from us | How often we ship, how to report a gap, what we commit to |
| Reliability and continuity | What happens when something breaks, and how to keep trading |
| Data privacy and AI usage | Where your data lives and how AI features use it |
| Caching and data freshness | Why a number sometimes lags, and for how long |
| AI access and scraping | How AI assistants read your public pages |
The AI assistant on this site answers in plain language and cites the pages it used. If it cannot answer, email support@rentaltide.com — a question the docs failed is a docs bug and we treat it as one.