Release Notes & Changelog | Essential Rental for Business Central

v28.4.3.213 11 September 2026 Minor

New Features 3 changes

New Rental transfers between separate Business Central tenants and environments - request a unit from a company in another tenant or environment and they ship it across to you, the same way transfers already work between companies that share one environment. The request lands in their transfer inbox, the unit shows on your side as inbound and in transit, and you check it in and post the receipt to take it into your own fleet, with its serial number, type and group carried across. The sending company's unit is retired as transferred out. Same-tenant and cross-tenant pairings both work.
New Choose how an incoming transfer posts - a new Inbound Posting setting decides whether an arriving unit posts to your fleet the moment it arrives, or is recorded and posted by your own background sync. The second option means the sending environment never needs write access to your fleet.
New Five new interface languages - Essential Rental is now available in Spanish, French, Italian, German and Portuguese across the whole interface. Choose your language in My Settings.

Improvements 3 changes

Impr Group companies appear on their own - companies in your environment that share a Global Equipment hub now see each other's fleet automatically. There is no list to build or company to tick; naming the same hub is what puts companies in one group, and a company that names a different hub stays a separate group.
Impr Transfers deliver without a scheduled job - queued cross-environment messages go out as you post, as you open a Global Equipment page, and on demand from the Global Equipment Outbox. If a connection is briefly unreachable the message waits and resumes rather than being lost, and a message that fails for a fixable reason, such as a wrong secret or a missing permission, waits for you to resend it once the cause is sorted.
Impr Test and pull from the connections list - Test Connection and Pull Now are now on the connections list itself, so you can check a pairing or pull another environment's stock position without opening each connection in turn.

v28.4.2.210 2 September 2026 Minor

New Features 1 change

New Buy your rental fleet straight through Business Central purchasing - put a rental item type on a purchase order and receiving it now creates the rental units for you, one per quantity received, each with its own fixed asset linked and ready to hire. Invoice the purchase and what you paid is posted as each unit's acquisition cost, so the fixed asset carries a real value from the start, and it works the same in a foreign currency. You can also buy an existing rental item to give an already-created unit its fixed asset and cost. Cancel the purchase invoice or undo the receipt and it all unwinds cleanly, units and fixed assets included, so a mistaken receipt or a supplier return leaves nothing stranded. Until now a newly bought unit had to be built by hand in the fleet and its fixed asset acquired separately.

v28.4.1.203 29 August 2026 Minor

New Features 1 change

New Combine Invoices - turn on Combine Invoices for a customer and their open rental orders bill onto a single sales invoice instead of one each. The setting comes from the customer being invoiced and can be overridden on any individual order. It applies to bulk invoicing: the Invoice Suggestion Worksheet, which shows you which orders will merge before you create them, and the Batch Process Invoices action on the rental orders list. Orders that differ in currency, payment terms or invoice discount stay on separate invoices, so every invoice is valid, and project-billed orders are never combined.

Improvements 1 change

Impr Rental Invoice Frequency now sets the billing cycle - a customer's Rental Invoice Frequency now carries onto their new rental quotes and orders as the billing cycle, so how often a customer is invoiced is set once on the customer and applied everywhere. Leave it blank on the customer to fall back to the default in Essential Rental Setup, and you can still change the cycle on an individual order.

Fixes 1 change

Fix One-time charges on a shipped order - adding a one-time charge to an order that already has shipped lines no longer stops to warn you about changing a shipped line's start date. One-time charges carry no hire dates, so there was never anything to change.

v28.4.0.201 20 August 2026 Minor

New Features 3 changes

New Move a rental price list to and from Excel - export a list to a workbook, edit it or use it to bulk-build new lines and tiers, then import it back. Existing lines update by their line number, new lines and new lists are added, and nothing is ever deleted, so removing a line still means deleting it in Business Central. A List Code that does not exist yet arrives as a new Draft price list.
New Groundwork for sharing equipment between separate environments - Global Equipment Connections lets you point at another Business Central environment, authenticate to it, and confirm the two sides can talk, including which country version and currency it runs. Nothing moves yet: this release only establishes the connection, and the transfers themselves come next. If all your companies live in one environment, nothing here changes for you.
New See what a unit you transferred away is doing - a Transferred-Out unit now shows Remote Status and the time it was read, so you can tell whether the company holding your machine has it on hire, back on the yard, or in for repair. Refresh a single unit from its card, or the whole lot from the Global Equipment overview. Ownership is untouched: the unit is still yours and still Transferred-Out.

Fixes 2 changes

Fix A transferred unit arrives with its tax group - if you run in a sales-tax country such as the US or Canada, equipment transferred from another company used to arrive with no tax group, so renting it out worked out the wrong tax or none at all. VAT countries were not affected. Existing transferred units need their tax group setting once; new transfers are correct.
Fix You choose where a transferred-in group gets its posting setup - when a transfer arrives carrying a rental item group your company has never seen, that group has to be created, and it used to copy posting setup from whichever group happened to sort first. Name the one you want in Posting Template Group on Global Equipment Setup, and receiving refuses until you do rather than guessing. A group you already have is reused untouched as before. The setup wizard fills this in when there is only one group to choose from.

Upgrading

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Set the tax group on units you already transferred in. Only affects sales-tax countries such as the US and Canada. New transfers are correct; existing transferred-in units need their tax group setting once. VAT countries are unaffected, and the price-list Excel feature needs no upgrade steps.

v28.3.0.197 7 August 2026 Minor

New Features 8 changes

New Hired stock leaves the warehouse - set an On Hire Location Code in Essential Rental Setup and shipping an inventory line moves that stock into the on hire location, with returns bringing it back. Until now hired inventory stayed on the shelf as far as the rest of Business Central was concerned, so it looked available to sell for the whole hire. Cancelling a shipment or a return puts everything back where it was. Leave the setting blank and nothing changes.
New Consumables leave stock when they go out - flag an item as non-returnable and shipping it writes it off, so what a customer keeps stops sitting on the shelf waiting for a stock take to find it. Items you sell outright rather than charge as hire are left for the sales invoice to relieve, so nothing is ever taken off twice.
New Bins on rental lines - ship from a location that uses bins and the line picks one up from the location's own bin policies, offers only bins that exist there, and tells you before posting if none is set. Returns work the same way.
New Record a partial loss - a return line now carries a Quantity Lost, so losing 3 of 100 hired items writes off 3 and charges for 3. Marking a line lost used to write off and charge for the whole line, whatever had actually gone missing.
New Lost items are charged at a real value - a rental item uses its Sales unit Price, falling back to a new one on the rental item type, and an inventory item uses its unit price. An order in a foreign currency is charged in that currency, at whatever rate the contract has agreed. Lost items used to be charged at nothing.
New Choose what you write off rather than charge on - Do Not Recharge if Lost is available on the item, the rental item, and the rental item type. Set it on a type and you are asked whether to apply it to the units you already have.
New Shipment and return orders carry their own location - it comes from the rental order and fills in for any line that does not name one, so a document going out of one depot does not have to be set line by line.
New The on hire location is protected - it cannot be changed or cleared while anything is still out on hire, because a return brings stock back from whichever location the setting names. Choose a location with no inventory posting setup and you are told which posting groups are missing and offered a way to fix it, instead of a shipment failing weeks later.

Improvements 3 changes

Impr Marking a return line lost warns you about the right thing - a consumable is told its stock is written off; a rental unit is told about its fixed asset and any open maintenance.
Impr Return lines default to where the hire went out from - taken from the posted shipment. Change it before posting and the goods come back somewhere else.
Impr Availability is faster - checks on large orders are much quicker, and the progress bar counts the work being done rather than every line it passes. Opening the availability matrix on a rental item type now shows its component types too, however many levels deep they go.

Fixes 7 changes

Fix A unit swapped out and marked lost goes through the full lost process - the customer is recharged, open maintenance is cancelled, and you can dispose of the fixed asset. A swap used to set the unit to Lost and stop, so nobody was ever charged for one lost that way. You are asked about the fixed asset once, when you pick Lost on the swap worksheet.
Fix Posting a return no longer stops to ask questions - you are asked when you mark the line lost instead, so a return posted overnight behaves exactly like one posted by hand. An unattended return used to answer yes on your behalf and could dispose of a fixed asset with nobody asked.
Fix A lost write off comes off the right location - it now names the location the goods were actually at, rather than no location at all.
Fix Selling a rental consumable takes the stock from the right depot - it comes off the depot it shipped from, not whichever location the invoice happened to default to.
Fix Bin codes longer than eight characters work - they no longer break shipment or return order creation. Shipment lines also record which bin the stock left from.
Fix Short stock is explained properly - ship a line with too little stock and the message tells you which line, which item, which location, and how short you are, instead of naming only the item number part-way through posting.
Fix Pooled headings stand out when getting lines - the heading of a pooled block and the units underneath it share a rental item type, so every row used to look the same and the one row worth ticking was impossible to pick out. Return order lines also show kit structure the way shipment lines already did.

Upgrading

→

Name a Lost Item Journal Batch before your first loss. New companies get one from the setup wizard. An existing company is asked to name one the first time something is marked lost, rather than having its write off quietly filed among the fleet conversions.

→

On hire stock is off until you turn it on. Leave On Hire Location Code blank and shipping and returning behave exactly as they did before.

v28.2.0.201 29 July 2026 Minor

New Features 3 changes

New Agreed exchange rates on rental contracts - quote a long hire in a customer's currency at a rate you have negotiated, and every invoice against that contract bills at it, whatever the market does in between. Set it from the AssistEdit on the Currency Code field of a quote or order. The rate carries through to the order, the invoice, the credit memo, the pro forma and the archive. Leave a document on Floating and nothing changes from how it works today.
New The system asks before it discards a rate - change the currency on a contract that holds an agreed rate and you are asked first, because a rate negotiated in one currency does not apply in another. Change the rate on a contract you have already invoiced and you are warned, so a mid contract re-rate is a decision rather than an accident.
New Blank Currency Pricing - a price list line with no currency code has always meant a local currency price. It is now treated as one. Choose whether such a price is converted into the document's currency at the contract rate, or whether the line is refused so a foreign currency customer is only ever charged from a price list entered in their own currency. Duration tier prices convert alongside the unit price.

Improvements 3 changes

Impr Re-rate a contract and the lines follow - change the agreed rate after the lines exist and any price that came from converting a local currency price is recalculated. A price you typed by hand, or one taken from a price list already in the customer's currency, stays exactly where you put it. You can still re-rate a contract you have already invoiced, which matters on a long hire where the rate is renegotiated part way through: you are told the date it has been invoiced to and asked to confirm, invoices already posted are untouched, and the new rate applies to the periods still to bill. Reopen the order first if it has been released.
Impr Push maintenance rules to a whole fleet - set the rules once on a rental item type and use Push to Child Rental Items to roll them out to every unit. Only missing rules are added, so a unit whose intervals you have tuned by hand keeps them. Delete a rule at type level and you are asked whether to take it off the units too, rather than the system deciding for you.
Impr Apply a multi-rate schedule to many lines at once - select the lines on an order or quote, choose Multi-Rates - Multiple, build the schedule once and apply it to all of them. You are told up front how many lines it will reach and how many already hold windows that will be replaced. Pick the heading row of a pooled block and the schedule reaches the units underneath it, so you do not have to select them one by one.

Fixes 3 changes

Fix Rentals billed through a project came out wrong in foreign currency - where a project invoices in a currency of its own, rental billing was overstated by the exchange rate. Project rentals now plan in local currency and invoice in the contract's, which is how Business Central expects a project to work, so the invoice matches the order. Anything already posted is unaffected.
Fix Rental lines on a foreign currency invoice now carry the document's currency - local currency figures and the currency formatting on the line were wrong before posting. Posted invoices were not affected.
Fix Currency groups in the Rental Projection Matrix - a view containing more than one currency repeated its currency headings and subtotals, once per period, with only the last figure in each group correct. Each currency now appears once, with a single accurate total.

v28.1.0.190 27 July 2026 Minor

New Features 4 changes

New Rental Analysis Views - a forward view of what your live rental orders and released quotes will bill, laid out as a matrix with billing periods across the top and a row axis you choose: customer, location, responsibility centre, rental item type or a dimension. Pick the column width from day up to year or your own accounting periods, page the window forward and back, and filter the rows down to a customer, depot, centre or equipment category. Click any figure to see the periods behind it, and again to open the contract itself.
New Overdue billing is counted, not lost - billing that has already fallen due and has not been invoiced is reported in the first period and totalled in its own Overdue column, so money you are owed appears in the forecast instead of dropping out of it.
New Print what you see - a pooled block prints the way it looks on screen. Print an order or quote with the block collapsed and you get the heading row with the block's total; expand it first and you get a line per unit. The document total is identical either way.
New Summarised invoicing for a pooled item type - an item type added straight to an order at a quantity of more than one is now invoiced as one grouped line showing units and days together, for example 2 x 152, rather than a separate line per unit. Kits already invoiced this way; item types entered on their own now match.

Improvements 3 changes

Impr Saved views with their own refresh - each analysis view keeps its own scope, horizon and refresh setting. Refresh it yourself, have it keep up as documents are posted, or leave it to a scheduled job. Figures are held in each contract's own currency and grouped by currency, so nothing is silently blended into a single cross-currency total.
Impr A collapsed pooled block shows its value - the heading row now carries the block's total. Previously it showed no amount at all, because the units underneath carry the charge, so the default view of a block appeared to be worth nothing until you expanded it.
Impr Quantities read as units and days - a pooled heading's quantity prints as units multiplied by periods rather than the raw total, so it ties out against the unit price and the amount on the page.

Fixes 9 changes

Fix Expected Rental Amount now reflects tiered and multi-rate pricing. A line priced with duration tiers or rate windows showed a single flat rate applied across the whole term, so the figure on the order did not match what the invoice would charge.
Fix An order containing a pooled item type no longer shows double the expected value. The pooled heading is not itself charged, but it was picking a rate back up from the price list after shipping, so its value was counted twice. An order already showing the doubled figure needs the heading's unit price clearing once.
Fix An order containing a pooled item type now invoices the units beneath it. Previously the invoice came out with no lines at all, because each unit was waiting for the pooled heading to bill it and the heading never did.
Fix Invoicing an order that contains a pooled item type no longer fails with a "standard text does not exist" error.
Fix A pooled item type can be shipped again. Posting a shipment insisted the pooled heading be allocated, even though allocation is only ever done on the units listed beneath it.
Fix A pooled order no longer stays locked as Pending Invoice after its invoice is posted.
Fix A component marked Non-Billable stays non-billable once a pooled block is expanded. The unit lines beneath the heading were always created as billable, so a bundled-in accessory showed as chargeable and reached the invoice as a line of its own. Blocks already exploded on an existing order keep the old setting until the line is re-entered.
Fix Multi-rate windows set on a kit component are now honoured when the kit is invoiced.
Fix A multi-rate window can be set to a zero unit price, so a period can be genuinely free of charge rather than falling back to the base rate.

v28.0.0.185 20 July 2026 Major

New Features 7 changes

New Invoice Suggestion Worksheet - a journal-style worksheet that gathers every rental order due for its next invoice, or never invoiced, showing the amount, tax and total for each before anything is created. Enter a posting date, Suggest Lines, untick any to hold back, then create the drafts or create and post in one step. Drill into a row to see the rental lines behind it, tag orders with an Invoice Batch to scope the fetch, and Recalculate without losing your selection. Each user keeps their own named worksheet; job-linked orders produce job planning lines.
New Preview an invoice before you raise it - a Preview Invoice action opens a pro forma of the selected order as at the posting date.
New Automatic credit for an early return - returning an in-advance billed unit early raises a prorated credit for the unused tail of the period, shown as a Credit Memo row and created as an unposted Sales Credit Memo (or a negative job planning line). In-arrears lines are never credited.
New Catch up several billing periods at once - a customer, or the setup default, can bill every whole period closed by the posting date in one run, not just the next. Price terms and billing cycles now have separate pickers.
New Documents scoped to your responsibility centre - quotes and orders carry a Responsibility Center that defaults from User Setup or Company Information, and all six document lists are scoped to it. Shipments and returns inherit it from their order, and Location Code re-resolves from the centre when the customer has none.
New Rental documents honour a customer's Blocked status - blocked for Ship stops new quotes/orders and shipping; blocked for Invoice stops invoicing; blocked for All stops everything. Returns and off-hire are always allowed.
New Rental dates kept in order - start, expected return, actual return and off-hire dates are validated wherever entered or posted, not just on the card. A return can't be posted before the unit shipped, and editing a date after the event is blocked for users and confirmed for admins.

Improvements 4 changes

Impr No more typed Invoice to Date - each line's billed period is worked out automatically from its own timing, period basis and next invoice date.
Impr Location Code flows through your documents - a new line inherits the document's location (including exploded kit components), and a line with its own keeps it. Choosing a customer with no location no longer wipes one already set.
Impr Pick availability locations from a list - the Availability Location Filter has a multi-select picker instead of typing it by hand.
Impr Cleaner default price terms and billing cycles - the Setup Wizard creates a tidier set, with billing cycles offered as explicit In Arrears and In Advance pairs for Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly and Last Day of Month.

Fixes 5 changes

Fix Pooled orders with nested sub-headers can now close completely.
Fix Entering a line on a copied whole-term order no longer crashes.
Fix An order with nothing to invoice no longer stages a blank worksheet row.
Fix A pending worksheet row can be unticked again; the tick no longer springs back.
Fix The Has Open Pre-Flight column reads blank when nothing is outstanding.

v28.0.0.180 12 July 2026 Major Requires BC v28

New Features 8 changes

New Move rental units between companies in your group - request a unit, or a quantity of a type, from another company in the same environment, from the group view or straight from a rental order line. They send it and you receive it into your own fleet, allocated to the order that needed it. The unit keeps its serial number, availability is checked when you ask and again when they send, and the sending company keeps a record of where it went.
New Global Equipment transfers work as documents - incoming requests arrive as batch documents in a Transfer Request Inbox. The source fulfils, rejects or recalls its lines then Posts a Shipment to dispatch them; the requester checks units in as they arrive then Posts a Receipt. Both sides can post in part, and the transfers list flags how many units are waiting for you to receive.
New Scan units in and out of a transfer - fulfil a request by scanning units from your fleet on the sending side, and check units in by scanning the unit number or serial on the receiving side. It works like the order scan and allocate screen, and you post the shipment or receipt when the scanning is done.
New Move equipment between your own locations - reclassify a unit to a new location, either straight from the units list for one or many units at once, or in a simple reclassification journal. Every move is recorded, so each unit keeps a full location history.
New Location Transfer document - move equipment between your locations as a proper document, shaped like a Business Central transfer order. Create a transfer with a from and to location, Ship it so the units go in-transit at a dedicated in-transit location (on-hand stock never drops mid-move), then Receive it so they land and become available at the destination. Turn on Direct Transfer to move in one step, receive part of a transfer and leave the rest in-transit, cancel an open transfer, or undo a shipped line to send its unit straight back to the origin. The document carries shipment and receipt dates, shipping method, agent and service, and read-only from and to addresses, and each unit shows the transfer it is currently on with one click to open it.
New Swap out a broken unit without interrupting the hire - when a unit on a live order fails, use Swap Out on the order line to return it and bring in a replacement in one step. Pick the replacement unit, the same type or an approved substitute, and a swap date; the broken line is returned as of that date and a linked replacement line takes over on the same terms, so billing carries straight on with no gap and no double-charge. Choose whether the returned unit goes back to Available, into Maintenance, or is written off as Lost. The replacement then ships through the normal flow, and you can swap several lines at once.
New Cancel a posted shipment, and cancel shipments or returns on kits - Cancel Document on a posted rental shipment now reverses the whole shipment, where before it did nothing. Cancel Shipment and Cancel Return on an order line now understand kits, cancelling every shipped component under a kit in one action and re-opening the kit if it had been closed. Cancelling is blocked on a line that has already been invoiced or returned, so you cannot unwind something that has already moved on.
New Bring a batch of units on-hand at once - select off-hand units on the Rental Items list and choose Positive Adjustment to bring them all on-hand in one step, at an optional stock location. Units that are already on-hand, are bulk, or are out on a transfer are skipped, and you get an up-front eligible count and a closing summary of what changed.

Improvements 4 changes

Impr Transferred units arrive as proper fleet assets - a received cross-company unit keeps its original item number, comes in with its posting details, is booked into a location you choose on the request, and shows both the company that owns it and the company that holds it now. Sending and receiving move the unit's stock, so the group ledger reflects where each unit really is.
Impr Safer receiving of cross-company units - a unit returning to a company it left comes back as its original record instead of a duplicate, including non-serialized units, while a serial that clashes with a unit you already hold, or a type code that means something different in your company, is caught before it can muddle your fleet. You also cannot manually adjust the stock of a unit that has been transferred away or that belongs to another company, so shared counts stay correct across the group.
Impr Global Equipment transfer ledger - moving a unit between companies records a clear ICO Transfer or Stock Transfer entry against the transfer batch, and every line names the company it came from and the company it went to, so a cross-company move reads at a glance instead of having to pair its two legs by batch number.
Impr Safer, location-aware single-unit adjustments - the item card's Positive Adjustment now stops you adjusting a unit that is in transit or has been disposed of, and lets you choose the stock location it comes on-hand at. Negative Adjustment records where the unit currently sits.

Fixes 1 change

Fix No false "ledger entries already exist" message when creating a bulk rental item - a new bulk item whose number was still being assigned could trigger the message against an unrelated entry. The check now waits until the number exists.

v27.4.8.177 4 July 2026 Major

New Features 3 changes

New Pre-flight preparation before a hire ships - define the prep work a unit needs before it goes out, such as programming a two-way radio or imaging a laptop, as a maintenance rule with the new Pre-Flight trigger. Essential Rental raises a pre-flight maintenance order when the unit is allocated to a rental order, or you can raise one by hand from the order line. The unit stays on hire throughout - completing the prep doesn't take it off the booking. Per rental item type, or as a default in Rental Setup, choose whether an outstanding pre-flight order blocks the shipment, only warns, or is ignored.
New One-time commissioning preparation - raise a commissioning pre-flight order straight from a rental item for the prep a unit needs before it first goes into service. An open commissioning order also stops the unit shipping when pre-flight handling is set to block.
New Release status for rental quotes - a quote now has its own Released status, a distinct step before it becomes a rental order, and only a released quote can be turned into one. Once released, a quote counts as live demand in the "available including quotes" figure, so other quotes competing for the same stock can see it.

Improvements 3 changes

Impr Reach pre-flight orders in a click - open the pre-flight orders for a whole rental order from the Order tab, or for a single line from the line's Related Information. Raising a pre-flight order now confirms with the order number, and will not raise a duplicate for a hire that already has one open.
Impr Pre-flight prep on the maintenance schedule board - pre-flight prep now shows in amber, clearly separate from routine servicing, with open prep distinguished from prep already in progress. Task bars also drag smoothly and snap to the day when you release them, instead of jumping between days as you drag.
Impr Quotes are released before they convert to an order - converting a quote now always starts from a committed, released quote, so the availability the quote consumed carries cleanly into the order.

Fixes 2 changes

Fix Multi-rate pricing now applies to kits and to project invoicing - a multi-rate window on a kit, or on a line billed through project (job) planning, was being ignored and charged at the base rate. It now splits the charge across the rate windows like any other rental line, with non-working days still excluded.
Fix Maintenance, certificate, archive and availability features work without administrator rights - a number of pages, reports and actions were missing from the Essential Rental permission set, so users without SUPER hit a permission error. They are all now granted, so the feature set works on the standard permission set.

v27.4.7.174 29 June 2026 Minor

New Features 2 changes

New Tiered pricing on rental price lists - set up duration-based price tiers on a rental price line, so a longer hire automatically earns a better rate. Each tier carries an "up to" duration and its own unit price; billing then charges each period at the rate for the tier the hire has reached so far, with anything beyond the last tier billed at the base rate. Choose the calculation method in Rental Setup. The matched tiers are locked onto the line when it is priced, the same way the base price is, so the quote and the order carry exactly what was agreed even if the price list changes later. Tiers carry across when a quote becomes an order.
New Pricing schedule on the Rental Quote and Rental Order documents - the Rental Quote and Rental Order reports now print a per-line pricing schedule, so the customer can see why a line's price varies over the hire. It shows the tier ladder (each "up to" band with the dates it covers, worked out from the hire start, and its rate, then the rate that applies thereafter), any multi-rate date windows with their category and rate, and the minimum billing period where one is set. Only lines that actually have tiers, multi-rate windows or a minimum show a schedule; everything else prints as before.

Fixes 1 change

Fix Rental price lookup no longer drops to zero when more than one price list applies - a rental line could occasionally price at zero when several price lists were in play, because a non-matching list checked after the matching one cleared the result. The lookup now keeps the matched price.

v27.4.7.171 22 June 2026 Major

New Features 3 changes

New Minimum billing period - set a shortest charge period on a price line. If a unit comes back early you still bill the minimum, and the line's expected amount reflects it. Choose whether the minimum applies up front or only on early return in Rental Setup. Returning a unit before its end date now also offers to off-hire it and pull the end date back to the return date.
New Optional kit and component configuration - mark each component on a kit or Rental Item Type as Mandatory or Optional. When you add a kit to a rental order the Edit Kit Structure editor opens, so you configure the job before anything lands on the order: tick off the optional items you do not need, swap any component for an approved alternative, then confirm. The structure lands on the order in one clean write, and you can re-open the editor later to reconfigure it. Mandatory components are protected from accidental deletion.
New Component substitutions - set up approved substitute Rental Item Types on the Rental Item Type card; standard items use BC Item Substitutions. A Substitute action on a component line lets you swap in an approved alternative on the order, and the pricing follows the kit's price method automatically.

Improvements 1 change

Impr Default quantity on G/L account lines - turn on Default G/L Account Quantity in Rental Setup and a G/L account line starts at quantity 1 instead of blank.

v27.4.6.167 18 June 2026 Major

New Features 5 changes

New Scan and allocate - scan a unit to pin a placeholder Rental Item Type line to that specific machine, from the rental order or from the unposted shipment. It matches the scan by item number first, then serial number, allocates the first open line of that type and reserves the unit, rejects a scan that does not fit (unknown, wrong type, unit not available, already allocated) and tells you why, and keeps a running tally so you can work down a pile of kit without stopping. See the Scan & Allocate guide.
New Allocate from the shipment - allocate or unallocate a placeholder line to a specific unit straight from the unposted shipment, not just the rental order. The choice writes back to the order and reserves the unit. Posting is now blocked while a line being shipped is still an unallocated placeholder, and a partial shipment that would leave placeholders behind asks first and lists them, so an order can no longer end up with a shipped placeholder line.
New Quick add down the hierarchy - raise a New Rental Item from a rental item type, or a New Rental Item Type from a rental item group, and the new record opens ready to edit with the parent's defaults already carried down.
New Kit attachments - the rental kit card now holds document attachments, links and notes, the same as the other cards.
New Extended texts for rentals - set up standing descriptive text on a rental item group, type or item, and it drops onto an order or quote as comment lines when you put that item or type on a line. A unit uses its own text, or falls back to its type, then its group. Standard items with extended texts work too. A new Rentals section on the Extended Text page lets you say whether each text shows on rental quotes, rental orders, or both. There is an Insert Ext. Texts action on the line if you want to pull them in by hand, and the comments follow the line: they refresh when you allocate a type to a unit and clear when you delete the line.

Improvements 4 changes

Impr Reservation handling - choose how clashes are handled in setup (Warn, Block, or Off), reserve a unit open-ended when there is no end date, get a heads-up when a unit already committed elsewhere is entered on a quote or another order, and an Allocate alternative prompt when converting such a quote to an order.
Impr Handling time shows on new records - a new rental item group, type or item is now created with the handling time filled in from the level above (group from setup, type from group, item from type), so the effective value is on the card instead of a blank field that quietly inherits.
Impr Setup wizard defaults - the setup wizard now seeds a Certificate Expiry Notice and a Maintenance Due Notice of 30 days, and a Maintenance Standard Day of 7 hours.
Impr Shipment line formatting - shipment lines now read like the rental lines, with Rental Item Type and Resource Group in bold and a kit header in bold blue.

Fixes 4 changes

Fix Bill Once charge picked up by invoicing - a one-time Bill Once charge is now picked up by invoicing. It was being skipped when its line status was blank, which is also why a lost-item recharge was not appearing on the invoice.
Fix Deleting an unposted rental invoice frees the lines - deleting an unposted rental invoice now frees the linked rental lines and their kit components so they can be invoiced again, instead of leaving them stuck waiting to be invoiced.
Fix Returned and lost units leave the board - returned and lost units no longer show as on hire for the rest of the booking on the availability board. The bar now ends at the actual return date.
Fix Credit memo reverses the rental ledger - a credit memo against a rental invoice now reverses the rental ledger entry instead of recording the revenue twice. Kit fan-out reverses the same way, one negative entry per component.

v27.4.5.163 12 June 2026 Major

New Features 4 changes

New Availability board - a timeline view of the whole fleet, so you can see at a glance which units are out on hire, which are pencilled in against a quote, and when each one is in or due for maintenance. Drill from item group down to type and on to the unit, and pan or zoom across the weeks ahead. Open it from the role centre or from any rental item, type or group list. Read-only for now.
New Maintenance scheduling - give a maintenance task a scheduled start and its end is worked out from the estimated hours laid across your working days, so an order carries a planned From/To window that rolls up from its tasks. The order's Closed Date is editable and drives the posting date when you close.
New Maintenance Schedule board - a drag-to-reschedule board off the Maintenance Orders list, showing open and in-progress orders with their tasks as bars you can move to re-plan the work. A capacity lane along the bottom shows each day's maintenance-team hours against what is scheduled and flags the days you are over. Resources can be flagged as maintenance workers with an efficiency percentage, and each worker's hours follow their own base calendar.
New Failed maintenance keeps the unit off hire and raises the rework - if a task fails, closing the order posts what was done, holds the unit in maintenance instead of releasing it, withholds the certificate for the failed work, and raises a linked follow-up order with the failed tasks ready to run again. A clean order closes and releases the unit as before.

Fixes 4 changes

Fix Pass/fail on all task types - a pass/fail result can be recorded on every maintenance task, not just inspection checks, and an order will not close until each task has one. Previously an order with a non-inspection task could never be completed.
Fix Maintenance order total cost updates live - a maintenance order's total cost now updates as you add or change a task's parts, labour or external cost, instead of only refreshing after you close and reopen the order.
Fix Invoice Discount Method "Invoice Discount" - now takes the discount off the invoice, distributed across the lines with VAT on the net, and the same value shows on the pro forma. The default "Line" method was unaffected.
Fix "Close won opportunity silently" now works - with the setup toggle on, turning a rental quote into an order closes the linked opportunity as won without popping the Close Opportunity dialog.

v27.4.0.153 5 June 2026 Major

New Features 5 changes

New Scheduled and reactive maintenance - set maintenance rules on a rental item type (by calendar interval, meter threshold, or off-hire return) and every unit of that type inherits them - tune them per unit if you need to. A unit coming back from hire raises its own maintenance order automatically when something is due, or you can raise one by hand at any time. While a unit is being worked it is taken out of service so it cannot be shipped; it returns to Available once the order is posted. See the Maintenance Setup guide for full configuration detail.
New Meters - track hours, miles, cycles, or any reading against a unit, log readings over time, and drive meter-based maintenance rules from them - for example a service every 250 hours. Meter history is preserved so you can see every reading against the date it was taken. Meters are attached per unit and are independent of the maintenance rule schedule, so a unit can carry as many meters as its equipment type requires.
New Maintenance orders and cost capture - a maintenance order lists the tasks to carry out on a unit and records the result of each. Every task captures its cost: labour priced from the work type rate multiplied by actual hours (on any task type, because even an inspection takes technician time), parts drawn from inventory, and external charges for work sent out to a third party. The order total rolls up for cost-of-ownership reporting. Completing an order posts a permanent record and writes a maintenance cost ledger entry - cost is captured as data and does not post to inventory or the general ledger. See the Maintenance Orders guide.
New Compliance certificates - track LOLER, PAT, and other compliance certificates against each unit. Issue them by hand or automatically when a maintenance order containing the relevant task is posted, attach the scanned certificate document, and get a heads-up before one expires. A unit holds one live certificate per type - a new certificate supersedes the old one - and you can optionally stop a unit going out on hire once a gating certificate has lapsed. See the Certificates guide.
New Maintenance registers and role centre cues - the Maintenance Due register gives a fleet-wide view of every rule that is coming due or already overdue, with the ability to raise an order directly from the list. Maintenance History shows every posted maintenance visit per unit with dates, downtime, and total cost. Four role centre cue tiles surface open orders, in-progress orders, due-soon rules, and overdue rules at a glance; two further tiles cover expiring and expired certificates - so the things that need attention find you rather than you finding them.

v27.3.1.146 3 June 2026 Minor

New Features 2 changes

New Standard Rental Codes - build a named set of rental lines once and reuse it. On any quote or order, Get Recurring Rental Lines drops the whole set onto the document in one step. Link a code to a customer and their usual kit lands automatically when you pick them - after a quick prompt, or only when you ask for it. Lines pick up the document's dates, billing cycle, and current prices, so one code works for any hire, any length, any site.
New Quotes from Opportunities - raise a rental quote straight off a CRM opportunity. The contact and salesperson come across, the quote links back to the opportunity, and a FactBox on the opportunity lists the rental documents you've raised from it. Turn the quote into an order and the opportunity's value is set from the order and it closes as won - through the standard dialog, or silently if you switch the setup toggle on.

v27.3.1.142 31 May 2026 Minor

New Features 1 change

New Pro Forma Rental Invoice - preview exactly what your next invoice run will bill, straight from the rental order, before you raise it for real. Open the order and use Next Invoice Preview to print the pro forma, or use the email action to send it to your customer for sign-off. It lists the lines, rental periods, and amounts the upcoming invoice would carry, with the same tax treatment, so the figures match when you come to bill. Clearly marked as a pro forma for review and agreement only - not a tax invoice or a request for payment - and producing one leaves the order untouched: nothing is locked or posted. Job-linked lines appear on the preview too, so you see everything that is coming. Set the "invoice up to" date to match the period you intend to bill.

Improvements 2 changes

Impr Regional Resilience - tax labelling follows local convention automatically - tax labels on rental quotes, orders, and pro forma invoices now follow the local convention of your environment automatically, so documents read correctly whether your region works in VAT, GST, or Tax. No setup required, and no per-document changes.
Impr Clearer rental emails - the covering emails for rental invoices and pro formas have been rewritten to read properly: a greeting to the customer, a plain note on what is attached and what to do next, and your company sign-off - in step with the rental order email.

Fixes 2 changes

Fix Live footer totals on Rental Quotes and Orders - the Total Expected Billing Period Amount and Total Expected Term Amount shown in the document footer now recalculate live as you add or change lines, adjust the rental dates, or set an invoice discount, and both are shown net of that discount. The invoice discount entered on a quote now persists and drives those figures, and the order footer shows the resulting discount amount as it changes. Previously these totals could sit stale or read zero until something forced a refresh.
Fix Company logo on emails and the pro forma - the company logo now shows on the rental order, quote, invoice, and pro forma emails, and on the pro forma invoice document, where it had previously been missing.

v27.3.1.126 17 May 2026 Minor

New Features 1 change

New Approvals workflow for Rental Quotes and Rental Orders - configure approver chains in User Setup, send a quote or order for approval from the document itself, and the request lands on the approver's Approval Request Entries list alongside their standard sales-side approvals. Approve, Reject, Delegate, and Cancel paths are all wired up, with the document Status moving through Open, Pending Approval, and Released as the workflow progresses. Quote-to-Order conversion respects the approval gate when one is configured: a quote must be Released before it converts to an order. Two workflow templates ship with the extension: H2BRENQAPW (Rental Quote Approval Workflow) and H2BRENORAPW (Rental Order Approval Workflow), both in the H2BRENTAL category. Mirrors the standard Microsoft Sales Order approval pattern so your team already knows how it works. See the Approvals user guide for setup and usage detail.

Improvements 7 changes

Impr Status colour-coding on Rental Quotes and Rental Orders - Closed renders in red, Released in bold, Open in green, Pending Approval in amber. Consistent across list and card pages so the document's stage is immediately visible.
Impr Approval activity FactBox on Rental Quote and Rental Order cards - shows the current approver, when the request was sent, and the most recent approval comment, without leaving the document. Hidden when no open approval entries exist to keep the card clean.
Impr Filtered Type picker on rental subforms - the Type dropdown on rental document lines now shows only the values that make sense for the document context. Order and Quote regular subforms show the full Rental Line Type set; Bill Once subforms show only Comment, G/L Account, Item, and Resource. Matches Business Central's standard Sales Order Type picker pattern, with type-ahead and option captions visible inline.
Impr Default Document Line Type setting on Rental Setup - a new field on Rental Setup chooses what Type new lines start with on Order and Quote regular subforms. Defaults to Rental Item Type out of the box, settable on the setup wizard or directly on the Rental Setup page. Saves a click on every new line.
Impr Non-Returnable visibility on the Item Card - the Non-Returnable field moved out of the Inventory FastTab so it's now visible on every Item regardless of Type. Previously hidden on Service and Non-Inventory Items, which made it impossible to mark consumable sundries as Non-Returnable without changing the Item Type.
Impr Copy Comments to Invoices - the Rental Setup toggle of the same name is now functional. With it on, Comment-type rental lines are copied across to the generated sales invoice in document order, so handover notes and special-instruction lines carry through to the printed invoice. Job-linked rentals deliberately skip (project planning carries its own comment surface).
Impr Kit Base Calendar propagates to rental lines - the Base Calendar Code on a Rental Kit Header now flows to the rental line when a Kit-type line is added. The kit's billable-days calendar is used for line date arithmetic without you having to set it manually. Base Calendar Code is now also editable on the Rental Kit card.

Fixes 5 changes

Fix Kit lines surface missing posting setup at line-add - adding a Kit-type rental line now validates the Kit Header's General Product Posting Group at the point of entry, so a missing-setup error appears immediately rather than waiting until invoice generation. Fixes the "General Posting Setup with a Sales Account not found for DOMESTIC, on kit parent" surprise that previously only showed up at invoicing.
Fix Allocate no longer overwrites user-edited line dates - allocating a Rental Item Type to a specific Rental Item, or a Resource Group to a Resource, used to reset the line's Rental Start Date and Rental End Date to the header dates regardless of any edits made on the line. The line's user-set dates are now preserved through allocation.
Fix Approval send-error clarity - when a user clicks Send Approval Request and their User Setup record has no Approver ID configured, the error now reads "No approver is configured for user {USERID}. Set User Setup.Approver ID before sending rental approval requests." instead of the previous generic message. Tells you exactly which user record needs the fix.
Fix Generate Invoice dialog: Include Components toggle removed - the toggle was no longer driving anything downstream, so it's gone from the dialog. The component-inclusion behaviour itself is unchanged; only the unused toggle has been removed.
Fix Quote line edits blocked outside Open status - on a Rental Quote in Pending Approval, Released, or Closed status, line inserts and line edits are blocked with a clear error. Closes a gap where line changes during the approval cycle could quietly diverge from what the approver was looking at.

v27.3.0.116 8 May 2026 Major

New Features 4 changes

New Regional Resilience - Essential Rental is W1-clean and works across all supported Business Central localisations - the solution handles all three Business Central tax frameworks: VAT (UK, Ireland), GST (Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, India), and Sales Tax (US, Canada). Rental orders, invoices, and price lists compute the correct tax end-to-end for whichever framework your environment is running. Rental forms adapt to your country's field set automatically, and tax classification flows down from Rental Item Groups and Item Types - set it once at the top of the hierarchy.
New Customer Price Group and Customer Disc. Group on rental price lists - you can now write rental price list lines that target a Customer Price Group or Customer Disc. Group, the same way you would on a Microsoft sales price list. Customer-specific lines beat group lines, and group lines beat All-Customers lines, so your most specific deal always wins.
New Allow Updating Defaults toggle on Rental Price Lists - a new switch on the price list header lets you choose between locked or unlocked line behaviour. Lock it down so every line follows the header's Source Type and Source No., or open it up so individual lines can target a different customer or group. Same lock/unlock behaviour you'll already know from the standard Microsoft price lists.
New Source Type and Source No. behave like the standard Microsoft price lists - choose a Source Type and the Source No. dropdown filters to match. Switch the type and the No. clears. When the type doesn't need a number (e.g. All Customers), the No. field is hidden entirely.

Improvements & Fixes 2 changes

Impr Cleaner tooltips on Prices Including VAT - the toggle on Rental Order, Rental Quote, and Rental Price List now has a tooltip that explains what it does.
Impr Documentation, EULA, and privacy links unified - every in-product hyperlink now points at essentialrental.h2business.systems.

v27.3.0.107 30 April 2026 Major

New Features 5 changes

New Invoice Discount on Rental Orders - apply a percentage or fixed-amount discount to every invoice generated from a rental order, bidirectional. Two posting methods (Line / Invoice Discount), configurable in Setup. Locks once the order is Released.
New Invoice Discount on Project Rental Orders - when an order is on a project, the discount flows through to the generated Job Planning Lines as a negative discount line. Project-billed customers get the same treatment as direct sales-invoiced customers.
New Kit invoicing on project rental orders - kit lines on project orders now generate Job Planning Lines in the same three shapes already supported for sales invoices (Kit / Kit w/Components / Components).
New Live "Total Expected" footer on Rental Orders - two new live footer totals show the expected per-invoice cost and the full contract-term cost, net of any Invoice Discount. Refreshes immediately as you edit the discount or any rental line.
New Tree view on Rental Order Lines - kit parents now collapse and expand on the Rental Order Lines subpage, matching the Shipment Lines subpage.

Improvements & Fixes 4 changes

Impr Total Expected footer estimates are accurate and live - correctly returns 31 days for May / 30 for June etc. on monthly billing cycles, and refreshes on discount edit instead of waiting for a navigation or shipment.
Fix Discount line description renders as Rental Discount (10%) - was previously rendering with a literal double-percent (10%%).
Fix Kit components close cleanly on final return - Non-Billable components no longer get stuck at "Pending Invoice", and billable components now close in lockstep with the kit parent instead of remaining at "Returned" indefinitely.
Fix Edit Kit Structure dialog loads reliably - the modal previously opened empty due to a buffer-binding issue. Now loads the kit's current structure ready for in-place edits.

v27.2.0.85 21 April 2026 Major

New Features 4 changes

New Multi-Rate windows on rental lines - define date-window rate overrides on an individual rental line. Each window carries its own unit price and optional category tag. At invoicing time the billing period is automatically split into one sales line per rate segment. Windows are preserved when a Rental Quote is converted to an Order, and when an order is archived.
New Multi-Rate Category on sales invoices - the category tag on each multi-rate window flows through to both draft and posted sales invoice lines, enabling per-segment reporting without extra setup. Visible by default on the sales invoice subform; also shown on the posted sales invoice subform.
New Extending a rental re-opens closed lines - when you extend the Rental End Date on a rental order (or on an individual rental line), the system now offers to re-open any lines that were previously closed for billing. A confirmation prompt shows exactly how many lines will be re-opened so there are no surprises. Lines that were already returned or genuinely closed are left alone.
New "Nothing to invoice" now explains why - when Create Invoice finds no lines to bill, the message now spells out the cause per line: closed for billing, already invoiced through the Invoice To Date, not yet shipped or returned, marked non-billable, or stuck on a prior invoice that wasn't posted. No more guesswork about why an invoice didn't generate.

Improvements & Fixes 2 changes

Impr Rental dates and Multi-Rate Category on posted sales invoices - the Posted Sales Invoice subform now shows Rental From Date, Rental To Date, Multi-Rate Category, and Rental Quantity, matching the unposted subform for consistency.
Impr Read-only H2B fields across invoice and job planning surfaces - all derived rental metadata fields (Rental From/To, Rental Quantity, Price Term Code, Non-Working Days, Multi-Rate Category) are now read-only on the Sales Invoice subform, Posted Sales Invoice subform, and Job Planning Lines, preventing accidental edits.

v27.0.1.80 2 January 2026 Major Minor

New Features 8 changes

New Bill Once functionality - a new billing option has been added to support one-time charges within a rental order, alongside the existing recurring billing modes.
New Automatic posting date calculation - posting dates are now calculated automatically when rental ledger entries are updated, removing the need for manual entry.
New Price Term Code on Rental Item Groups - a Price Term Code field has been added to Rental Item Groups and enabled on Rental Item Types, allowing price terms to be inherited down through the item hierarchy.
New Price Term Code priority logic - the system now resolves Price Term Code by priority order during validation on rental lines, giving more predictable and consistent pricing behaviour.
New Re-Open Closed Rental Orders - a new field in Essential Rental Setup allows closed rental orders to be re-opened where needed, with associated rental line logic updated accordingly.
New Role Centre enhancements - Essential Rental cues and quick-access actions have been added to the Business Manager and Accountant role centres, improving visibility of rental activity.
New Reservation management codeunit - reservation logic has been refactored into a dedicated ReservationsManagement codeunit, streamlining reservation entry checks and updates across the product.
New Invoice discounts & expected amounts on rental quotes - additional fields for invoice discounts and expected amounts are now visible in the rental quote subform for greater visibility during the quoting process.

Improvements & Fixes 10 changes

Fix Rental End Date calculation - corrected the logic for setting the Rental End Date on rental lines so it now calculates correctly in all scenarios.
Fix Rental End Date mandatory check on quotes - corrected a variable name error that was preventing the mandatory field check from firing correctly on the Rental Quote page.
Fix Reservation End Date - the Reservation End Date is now only recalculated if it has not already been set, preventing unintended overwrites on existing reservations.
Impr Rental Quote report - enhanced with additional fields for clarity, improved address formatting, and picture field calculations for a more professional output.
Impr Rental Shipment report - updated with improved address formatting and removal of unused fields, bringing it in line with the Rental Quote report layout.
Impr Subscription check handling - improved how subscription checks are performed during rental order processing, with added shipment date validation to catch invalid entries earlier.
Impr Invoice creation flow - refactored into a CreateInvoiceWithDialog procedure, making invoice creation more consistent and easier to maintain going forward.
Impr Tooltip & field caption improvements - clarified tooltips across the Setup Wizard, Rental Quote, Rental Item, and Auto Reservation fields to better describe inheritance and default behaviour.
Impr Registration Wizard - updated the welcome text to more clearly guide users through the product activation process.
Impr General code cleanup - removed unused fields, commented-out code, unnecessary namespaces, and blank lines across multiple pages and tables for a cleaner codebase.