Yard Notes

Haulbase · Issue 1 · October 2026

A compact track loader parked beside a fresh gravel road, with the trees turning orange behind it.
Photo: Chandler Cruttenden, Unsplash

Hey,

This is the first one of these. Once a month I'll send what changed in Haulbase, what's happening in rental and bulk supply across Canada, and one thing worth trying in your yard. It's short, and you can reply to it.

Josh

What changed in Haulbase in September

Check it back in

At return you read the meter and the fuel. Extra hours, refuelling and any damage come off the deposit hold in one charge, and the rest goes straight back to your customer.

Check it back in, step by step: the hour meter at return goes in, the bill works itself out, and one button takes it off the deposit hold.
In the demo, a mini excavator comes back at 450 hours. One button takes $687.42 off the $1,000 hold and sends $312.58 back.

Ask for a photo when they book

A booking question can now be answered with photos, like a driver's licence front and back, or an insurance slip. Your customer takes them on their phone as they book, and you see them on the booking before you accept.

Only your logins can open them, and they're deleted 90 days after the rental, or a year if you claim for damage. In Booking rules, pick "They send a photo".

Your renters check it out and back in themselves

Switch it on for a trailer in Fleet, and on pickup day your renter's booking shows "I'm picking it up". They take a photo of each side and a few other spots, each stamped with the time, and you get a text.

At drop off they do it again, with the pickup photos beside the new ones, so new damage shows before you let the deposit go. Checking it in and the deposit stay yours.

  • A minimum rental. Set the fewest days a trailer or machine goes out for, always or only when the rental takes in a weekend. Your page says it up front and won't take a shorter booking. You can still book it shorter yourself.
  • Hours by the day, week and month. A machine on the hour meter now includes hours the same way its price works: a day's hours for a day, a week's for a week, a month's for a month.
  • Add-ons by the day. A broom or a bucket can be priced like the machine, by the day, the week and the month. When a customer takes a set, they're charged for the set whenever that's cheaper than the pieces.
  • A code for your alert number. When you set the mobile your booking alerts go to, we text it a six digit code first. A wrong digit can't send your alerts to a stranger any more.
  • Booking alerts by text. Once you've verified your mobile, your alerts come by text from Haulbase's number with your yard's name in front, even if you don't have a texting number of your own.
  • Order alerts finish sending. The alert telling you a new order came in now finishes sending before your page tells the customer they're done.

In the industry

OCT13TO 16

Canadian Rental Week

The Canadian Rental Association runs it to make the case for renting over buying. Their line is "Need It? Rent It!" Post your gear that week with #CanadianRentalWeek and it lands in front of people already thinking about renting.

Source: Rental Equipment Register, Sep 20

A new house frame going up on a gravel pad, seen from above.
Photo: Avel Chuklanov, Unsplash

Halifax is still building

The province released its housing report on September 16. Counting from 2023 to the end of June, more than 2,630 homes are finished or underway across 16 special planning areas in HRM, and 515 new public housing units are coming online. More houses going in means more digging, grading, gravel and topsoil.

Source: Government of Nova Scotia, Sep 16

Rental keeps growing

The American Rental Association expects construction and tool rental in Canada to grow 5 per cent this year, to $6.3 billion, and 5.8 per cent next year.

Source: ARA and S&P Global, via Heavy Equipment Guide, May 19

One thing to try

Look past the day rate

A piece in the Daily Commercial News this summer made a point worth stealing. The money in rental is less about the rate you charge and more about how much your machines actually work. A machine that sits in the yard for three weeks still costs you its insurance and its payment.

Once a month, look at which machines are earning and which are sitting. In Haulbase, Fleet shows what each machine has earned, what it's cost you in repairs, and how much of its price it's earned back. The one that's always idle might be priced too high, or it might be the one to sell before winter.

A Fleet card from the demo: a 24 foot enclosed cargo trailer at $135 a day, paid $16,500, earned $0, earned back 0 per cent.
From the demo: $135 a day on the sign, and nothing earned back yet on a $16,500 trailer.

Source: Justin Wharton, Cooper Equipment Rentals, in the Daily Commercial News, Jul 17

Getting ready for the slow season

A small orange excavator parked in fresh snow in front of a house.
Photo: Margo Evardson, Unsplash
  • Book spring now. The customers who rented from you this fall will want the same in April. A quick message to this year's regulars is easier than finding new ones in March.
  • Winterize before the first hard frost. Check the antifreeze, add fuel stabilizer, and keep the batteries charged, so your machines start when you need them.
  • Collect what's owed before the snow. Chase open invoices while people are still around and still working.

One question

What's the one thing that slowed you down in the yard this month?

Tell me at hello@haulbase.ca. I read every one, and it's how I decide what to build next.

Run a rental or supply yard? Haulbase gives it a booking page of its own, set up with you. Free to start.

See how it works