Rental & Tracker Software in the US

About Rental & Tracker Software

We build rental and tracking software: live GPS and IoT tracking, geofencing, booking, KYC, and billing for businesses that rent out vehicles, bikes, or equipment. This sits on real work. We have built telemetry pipelines and firmware bridges for connected hardware, including an EV cycle's rider app and dashboard and the telemetry behind PlugEV.

What the engagement includes

• GPS and GSM tracker integration
• Device servers for Teltonika, GT06 and AIS 140 trackers
• Live map with real-time asset location
• Geofencing with entry and exit alerts
• Trip history and route playback
• Rental booking app for rider and operator
• KYC, deposits, and damage handling
• UPI and card billing (Razorpay)

California's telematics limits, damage waiver rules and Washington's rental car tax in US rental software

If the fleet includes passenger vehicles rented in California, the telematics feed in a rental platform is fenced by statute before it is a product feature. Civil Code section 1939.23 says a rental company may not use, access or obtain information about a renter's use of the vehicle that came from electronic surveillance technology, except in listed cases. It may locate a vehicle that the renter or the police report missing or stolen, one the company discovers has been stolen or abandoned, or one that is the subject of an AMBER Alert. It may activate tracking once a vehicle is 24 hours past its return date or the end of an extension, but only after notice by telephone and electronically 24 hours before activation, and only if the agreement advised the renter of this and the renter initialed it, with the advisement also given orally for rentals made in person or by phone. Each activation has to be recorded with the agreement, the return date and the time tracking was switched on, kept for at least 12 months and produced on the renter's request with any codes needed to read it. Since 1 January 2026, under AB 1197, geofencing is also allowed for two things: a car leaving the country when the agreement forbids it, and a car entering an impound or tow yard. Otherwise the company may read only departure and return times, total mileage and fuel level, and it may never track a renter to impose fines or surcharges. In software that means the telematics store is purpose-gated rather than open to every dashboard: a recovery case that opens location data for one vehicle only after its notice clock has run, a geofence engine limited to borders and tow yards, a return reconciliation job that reads those four fields, and no speed or out-of-area rule wired to billing. Which of your vehicles and locations this reaches is for your own counsel.

The damage waiver is the other California screen rental software tends to get wrong, because section 1939.09 regulates it down to the wording. A waiver sold for a fee has to be disclosed clearly and conspicuously in the contract and on signs where the renter signs, covering the nature and extent of the renter's liability, that personal auto insurance or the card used to pay may already cover it, that the renter should check with their insurer, that the waiver is optional, and the range of charges. Renters outside the company's membership program must also be told orally that the waiver may duplicate their own insurance, and must initial an acknowledgment beside the place where they accept or decline it, with a statement next to it that the waiver is optional. Once sold, a waiver is deemed to remove all liability for damage, loss and loss of use, and every limitation is void except the exclusions the statute itself lists, such as an unauthorized driver or use outside the United States. The daily price is capped for vehicles in the five smallest ACRISS size categories, and the cap has risen each January since 2023 with the CPI-U. That gives the contract generator four jobs: a California template carrying the statutory notice and the price line, a waiver choice that starts unselected with an initials field and a timestamp, an ACRISS code on every vehicle class so the cap applies to the right cars, and the cap held as dated configuration that someone updates each January rather than a constant in code. AB 1197 also changed the theft rule in section 1939.03: a renter is now presumed not liable for theft if an authorized driver returns the ignition key the company furnished and reports the theft to police within 24 hours, so the check-in screen records the key return as an event. How that applies to app-based digital keys is a question for your own counsel.

Rental tax is where a platform serving several states needs the most configuration, and Washington shows why the rate has to be a dated table rather than a field. On top of the state's 6.5 per cent retail sales tax and local sales taxes, RCW 82.08.020 levies an additional tax on each retail car rental of 11.9 per cent of the selling price from 1 January to 31 December 2026, falling to 9.9 per cent from 1 January 2027. A rental car for this purpose is a passenger car rented by a rental car business without a driver for periods of not more than thirty consecutive days, and loaner cars from repair shops and taxicabs are outside it, so the classification depends on the vehicle type, the business and the length of the agreement. A booking engine therefore has to price a vehicle class, location and date range together, flag any extension that carries a contract past thirty days, and apply one rule to a rental that straddles the new year, a rule your accountant settles once so the code does not answer it differently on every invoice. Peer-to-peer car sharing changes from 1 January 2027 as well. Where the owner obtained the shared vehicle for resale using a reseller permit or an approved exemption certificate, the sharing transaction carries the same additional tax, and the platform may not list the vehicle until it has received an electronic certification from the owner saying whether that is so, which it keeps for at least five years. A platform that relies on that certification in good faith is not liable for the owner's tax. So the owner onboarding flow gains a required attestation, stored per vehicle with its date and the wording the owner saw, and a vehicle without one cannot be published. How your rentals are classified, and which rate applies to each, is for your accountant.

How we work with US clients

A US engagement gets agreed twice. Once with the person who wants the thing built, and then again with legal, security, procurement and finance, who arrive separately and rarely in the same week. That second round is where a supplier outside the country loses the calendar: a master services agreement to redline, a security questionnaire, a certificate of insurance, and a vendor portal that assumes everyone it onboards can sign a W-9. Send all of it while the scope is still being written rather than in the week you wanted to start, and where the honest answer to a row is that we do not hold something, we write that in rather than leaving it blank.

You are also buying from a company you cannot drop in on, so the evidence has to do the work an office would otherwise do. What we send is live production URLs rather than a deck, a written scope with one fixed number against it, and the names of the people who will do the work rather than a bench that changes after signature. What we will also tell you is the shape of what you are hiring: a small team in Noida that has been building since 2021, not a firm that can put four more people on your project next Monday. If that is what your timeline needs, we say so before the contract rather than after it.

Indicative pricing in USD

Converted from our published Indian rates and rounded. Exchange rates move, so the figure on your quote is calculated on the day it is issued.

Questions US clients ask

Rental & Tracker Software: common questions

Other markets we work in