Very early planning for equipment rental solution - is this relationship graph on the right track?

[travelindude]

Hello,

 

Somewhat of a novice and at the very early stages of planning an equipment rental solution to track equipment rentals, perform invoicing and some CRM. Before I delve further into adding fields/layouts etc., I'd like confirmation that my relationship graph is sound. My thoughts are that the join table "rentals" would be where all invoicing would be performed. Is this assumption correct?

 

File attached shows the relationship graph. Any feedback would be appreciated. My apologies if this post is in the incorrect location.

 

Ian

[Matthew F]

I assume that a rental can include more than one piece of equipment, correct?  If so, then you have a many-to-many relationship, and will want a "join" table between Rentals and Equipment.  You might call this join table "Rental Items".  Place both  "Rental ID_fk" and "Equipment ID_fk" on this table.

 

If there other bits of information about this equipment item that is specific to a particular rental episode, you can create a field for this too, like "amount of gas in tank", or "condition upon return".

[travelindude]

Matthew,

 

Thank you for your input; I definitely overlooked this scenario when planning the solution. Your suggestions for other bits of information are also 

very useful... I'll be adding those as well. This forum is great for soliciting feedback/problem solving; invariably by reading the threads, I find suggestions that I may have failed to plan for.

 

Thanks again.

 

Ian