Step 9: Items and assets
Read this before you build anything. Overbooking, duplicated setup work and most "why is this not available" questions trace back to this one distinction.
The idea
An item is what a customer books. A Single Kayak. An asset is the individual unit you hand over. Kayak seven. One item can hold thirty assets. The customer books the item, and RentalTide assigns a free asset.
The question to ask before creating a second item: would a customer actually choose between these two things? A 14ft skiff and a pontoon, yes. Kayak seven and kayak eight, no.
Get that wrong and you end up with thirty items to price, thirty schedules to maintain, and a booking page nobody can read.
What to do
Fleet & Tours > Fleet.
- Click the gear Settings icon in the page header, then Asset Sharing.
- Read How It Works and the example, then click Got it!.
- Click the Asset Pool view toggle to see every asset you own, with its Asset ID and the product it belongs to.
Sharing one unit across two listings
If the same physical boat is sold two ways, for example as a rental and as a tour, list it on both items with the same ID or serial number. There is nothing else to configure.
Two items that each list an asset with the same ID are the same physical unit, so booking it on one instantly drops availability on the other. The Asset Pool grid flags these as "Shared with N others".
You are done when
You can say, for your own fleet, how many items you need and how many assets sit under each.