Managing and tracking dispenser and bottled water rentals is crucial to ensure businesses’ success. Bottled water ERP is a powerful system that can help you automate and streamline your entire business process.
What is bottled water ERP?
The bottled water ERP is a SaaS-based water enterprise management software that is integrated with Water Delivery Solutions for bottled water businesses. It automates and streamlines entire business operations, including ordering processes, dispenser and bottle rental management, inventory leveling, deliveries, and payment processing and reconciliation. This software provides three platforms: an admin panel, a customer app, and a driver app.
ERP, with its centralized database, aims to provide real-time updates and monitoring. This blog focuses on dispenser and bottle rental management, delivering detailed information on how ERP can help you.
Understanding the dispenser and bottled water business
The global bottled water market size was estimated at USD 348.64 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a 6.4% CAGR from 2025 to 2030. The global water dispenser market size was valued at USD 2.98 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.6% from 2024 to 2030.
These numbers are significant. Bottled water businesses offer bottled water delivery services and dispenser rentals to their direct consumers or B2B customers. There are various types of water, including still water, carbonated water, flavored water, and mineral water, which bottled water businesses offer. Managing the production, deliveries, orders, recurring payments, and rentals is complicated. Businesses have or are adopting software solutions to manage their operations, ensuring smooth processes and seamless deliveries.
Features of the bottled water ERP to manage dispenser and bottle rentals
An ERP for bottled water businesses provides advanced features to manage water bottles and dispensers. These features are configured within an ERP system to provide specialized functionalities, empowering you to manage and optimize operations seamlessly. The features of ERP for dispenser and water bottle management are:
Subscription management
You can define different subscription plans, like monthly, quarterly, and annual. The system also allows you to create products, including types of water with various water capacities per plan and standard dispenser. Customers can place a custom subscription for their preferred subscription order. These customizations include delivery frequency, schedule, and number of deliveries. The system automates recurring invoice generation based on the customer’s subscription cycle.
You can automate subscription renewals and enable customers to pause, resume, and cancel subscription orders. The system supports a partial billing period if the customer starts or stops subscriptions mid-cycle. Customers can modify their subscription and adjust billing accordingly. You can offer promotional offers on subscription orders, improving customer engagement and increasing customer lifetime value.
Rental invoicing
For rental products, the system generates recurring rental invoices. These invoices are automatically sent to their customers via email, SMS, and WhatsApp. The invoice lists rental fees for dispensers and bottles, water delivery charges, service fees, late fees, and other applicable charges.
The system enables flexible tax calculations based on the country where you operate. The ERP supports multiple payment gateway integrations, offering flexible payment options to your customers. The system generates credit notes or processes refunds for returns or service adjustments.
Automated maintenance scheduling
This system feature is crucial for operational efficiency and scheduling. You can schedule routine maintenance for filter changes, dispenser cleaning, and sanitization based on usage, time interval, or specific dates for each dispenser. The system allows scheduling of repair services when a dispenser breaks down.
This bottled water ERP maintains a comprehensive history of all maintenance and repair activities performed on each dispenser by its serial number. It automatically assigns maintenance tasks to available technicians, monitors their progress, and optimizes routes. The system links maintenance tasks to required spare parts inventory, ensuring its availability and reducing downtime. Customers are notified about the upcoming maintenance response times. The ERP system tracks adherence to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for maintenance response times.
Deposit management
The system enables you to track deposit collections, linking the deposits to specific rented assets, such as the dispenser serial number and the total number of bottles. The system can auto-calculate refunds when the assets are returned, reducing any damages and outstanding dues. You can track the deposit status, including collected, refunded, partially refunded, or adjusted, for each order. The ERP can generate reports on outstanding deposits, refunded deposits, and deposit liabilities.
Analytics and reporting
The system auto-generates advanced reports on inventory, finances, customer relationships, operational performance, and asset utilization. The customer reports enable you to track customer churn, customer lifetime value, subscription plan popularity, and payment behavior. You can monitor dispenser utilization rates, bottle turnover rates, breakdown frequency by dispenser model, and the ROI on different dispenser types.
The financial reports include revenue recognition (recurring and one-time), profitability by customer, plan, or region, accounts receivable aging, and cost analysis for maintenance, logistics, and water sourcing.
Operational reporting consists of delivery success rates, maintenance completion rates, technician performance, and inventory levels (bottles, dispensers, and spare parts). The software enables users to create customizable dashboards with key performance indicators (KPIs). The advanced analytics and reporting features are essential for businesses to make informed decisions and for growth.
Bottles & dispenser return management
The ERP offers features to streamline the asset recovery process. Customers or delivery drivers can initiate return requests. Delivery drivers can record the condition of returned dispensers and bottles (damages, good condition, missing parts). This is crucial for making adjustments to the deposits. The system auto-updated the inventory for dispensers (making them available for re-rental after inspection/maintenance) and bottles (for cleaning and refilling). The integrated Water Delivery Solutions can enable you to schedule pick-ups for returns. You can record damages or losses associated with a specific customer account for billing or deposit deductions.
Availability management
The availability management feature is essential to ensure that you know what is ready to be rented. The system maintains accurate, real-time counts of available dispensers (by model and capacity) and bottles (clean, filled, and empty bottles). It empowers businesses to track the status of each asset (available, rented, in maintenance, out for delivery, retired). The system provides meaningful insights into inventory levels, helping you plan new dispenser and bottle purchases.
Benefits of ERP to manage dispenser and bottle rentals
ERP for bottled water acts as a central nervous system for your business, integrating various functions and data. The system offers benefits crucial for sustainable growth. The benefits of implementing ERP for dispenser and bottle rental management are:
Operational efficiency
The system automates routine tasks, including subscription billing, payment reminders, maintenance scheduling, and inventory updates. It automatically generates recurring invoices for rentals, removing manual data entry and mitigating errors. The ERP also automates payment reminders for upcoming payments or overdue invoices, improving cash flow and reducing manual collection efforts. It automates maintenance scheduling to reduce unexpected breakdowns and improve asset longevity. The system enables you to track bottle and dispenser inventory in real time, ensuring accurate stock levels.
ERP systems aim to streamline workflows for a seamless order-to-delivery cycle, returns, and deliveries. It streamlines and tracks the entire order-to-delivery cycle, from customers placing rental orders to scheduling delivery and final invoicing. Automating returns, assessing asset condition, and calculating deposit refunds minimizes manual efforts. Water Delivery Solutions‘ integration with an ERP optimises delivery and rental pick-up routes, saving fuel and money. Automation can significantly minimize manual errors. Centralized data entry and automated calculations mitigate human errors, improving billing, inventory, and financial accuracy.
Improved customer service
The system automates invoicing, provides clear, itemized invoices, builds trust, and reduces billing disputes. Offering accurate billing and transparency fosters long-term relationships with clients. The enterprise resource planning platform encourages proactive communication between stakeholders. The system automates notifications and service request tracking, ensuring improved customer engagement and timely resolutions.
With all the customer information available on the CRM module, it enables customer service representatives to provide quick and informed support. You can offer a personalised experience, proactively address issues, and make tailored recommendations to increase customer loyalty when you have access to customer data.
Cost reduction
Streamlining inventory management ensures accurate inventory data, preventing unnecessary purchases of dispensers and bottles. It minimizes the chances of stockouts and overstocking, reducing lost rental opportunities and holding costs. The system empowers you to track inventory in real-time, minimizing losses due to misplacement, damage, or theft.
Automation reduces the need for manual administrative tasks. The delivery management module optimizes routes and enables proactive vehicle maintenance, minimizing vehicle running and emergency repair costs. Asset availability management and dispenser status updates can help you maximize their utilization, delaying the need for making new purchases. Automated payment reminders and overdue payment tracking ensure consistent cash flow and reduce bad debts.
Better decision-making
The system generates advanced real-time reports on sales, inventory, customer churn, maintenance costs, and profitability. These reports enable you to identify popular rental plans, track asset performance, high-value customers, and high-demand regions. The system leverages AI and ML, which use historical data and trends to forecast accurate demand for water and dispensers, assisting in procurement and resource allocation. Identifying potential issues empowers businesses to take prompt action.
Scalability
ERP for bottled water is designed to handle increasing volumes of data (customers, transactions, inventory, and employees) without any disruption. The system can adapt to expanding businesses or the addition of new product lines. It standardizes workflows to maintain quality and efficiency.
The enterprise resource planning platform can integrate new dispenser models, bottle sizes, or rental services into the system. It facilitates geographical expansion to new markets, providing a centralized system to manage operations, regardless of location.
Compliance
The system automates calculations, GST, and relevant tax reporting, reducing the risk of errors and penalties. It helps maintain the records required for audits specific to packaged drinking water and environmental regulations, treat water, and dispose of waste. The ERP can enable you to track compliance with quality standards.
It provides a precise audit trail for all transactions, making it easy to comply with internal and external audits. The ERP offers robust security functionalities to protect sensitive customer and business data, helping comply with data protection norms.
Conclusion
Bottled water ERP transforms a dispenser and bottle rental business from manual operations into streamlined and data-driven operations, providing a competitive edge in the market. Implementing an enterprise resource planning platform can help bottled water and dispenser rental businesses achieve greater control, efficiency, and profitability. If you are looking for a solution to improve your bottled water and dispenser rental business, schedule a meeting to discuss your requirements.
He loves to explore. His passion for helping delivery industries in all aspects flows through in the vision he has. In addition to providing smart solution to make delivery process flawless, Ravi also likes to write sometimes to make it easier for people from business industry looking for digital solutions.
