How to have every rental agreement signed before the handover

Write your rental agreement in Contracts, let Otto fill it from each rental, send it to the renter to sign, and hold check-out until it is signed.

Updated 2026-10-24

Your rental agreement is a template in Contracts, kept with your other templates. When you press Send agreement on a rental, Otto fills it in with that rental's renter, vehicle, dates, rate, deposit, miles, fuel and late charges, and sends it to the renter to sign on a page of their own. Until it is signed, the rental cannot be checked out.

Write your agreement once, in Contracts

Open Fleet, then the Rentals tab. In the Rental settings panel, press Write one in Contracts. (Or open Contracts and find Rental agreement under Templates.)
Press Use this starter. It is a starting point, not legal advice: read it and change what you need.
Change the Template name and the Contract title if you want. The vehicle is added after the title, for example "Rental agreement — 2023 Toyota RAV4".
Press Save template.

To change it later, press Edit in Contracts in Rental settings, or open it under Templates in Contracts.

Choose which one Fleet sends

Your first rental agreement is chosen by itself. If you write more than one, such as a weekly one, pick the one to send under Rental agreement in Rental settings. Only rental agreements are offered there, not your other contract templates.

Words in curly brackets are filled in from the rental when it is sent:

{renter}: the renter's name.
{vehicle} and {plate}: the vehicle and its plate.
{pickup} and {return}: the pick-up and return day and time. {place} is the pick-up place, and {days} is how many days the rental is.
{rate}: the daily rate, and the weekly rate when the rental has one. {price} is the rental's price.
{deposit}: the deposit, or "No deposit".
{extras}: each extra and its price, or "None".
{mileage} and {mileage_charge}: the miles included and the price of each extra mile, from your rental settings.
{fuel}: return it with as much fuel as it left with, and your refuelling price for each eighth of a tank short.
{late}: one day's rate for each day or part of a day late, after your grace minutes.
{business}, {date}, {amount}, {customer} and {address} work as they do in any contract.

Write [initials] after a clause the renter must initial. A word in curly brackets that Otto cannot fill is refused when you save, and Otto says which ones it can fill. The template editor lists them all; press one to add it.

A rental agreement is only sent from a rental, never started as a plain contract under New contract: nothing there could fill in the vehicle, the dates or the price.

Nothing about the renter's driver's license goes into the agreement. Otto keeps only that the license was checked, and its expiry.

Send it from the rental

Open the rental.
In the Rental agreement box, press Send agreement.
Open Reviews and approve the email to the renter. Nothing is sent until you do.

The renter gets a link, reads the agreement filled in for their rental, confirms a six-digit code sent to their email, and signs. The box on the rental shows where it stands: Waiting for approval in Reviews, Sent, not signed yet, Opened, not signed yet, then Signed.

When it is signed, the box shows the day it was signed and Open the signed agreement, which opens the signed copy with its certificate. The signed agreement stays on the rental after check-out and check-in.

Find them in Contracts

Every agreement you send is also in Contracts, tagged Rental agreement with its vehicle. Press the tag, or Open the rental, to go back to the rental in Fleet. The Rental agreements tab shows only these.

The renter needs an email address on their contact. Only positions that can write quotes can send an agreement.

Check-out waits for the signature

While the agreement is not signed, Check out is grayed out and the reason is written under it, for example "Waiting for the renter to sign the rental agreement."

If you change the rental after the agreement was sent, such as its dates or vehicle, the box reads Out of date and check-out waits again. Press Send a new agreement: the old one is voided, with the reason kept, and the renter signs the new one.

Switch the requirement off

To hand over vehicles without a signed agreement, switch off Require a signed agreement before check-out in Rental settings. You can still send agreements; check-out just no longer waits for them.

A business that already used Fleet before rental agreements arrived starts with this switched off. A new business starts with it switched on.

If it doesn't work

"There is no rental agreement to send. Write one in Contracts, then choose it under Rental settings." — press Write one in Contracts beside the grayed-out button, and save the template.
Write one in Contracts is grayed out with "Switch on Contracts under Settings" — the agreement is written in Contracts, so switch Contracts on first.
"{vehicle} is filled from a rental. Send a rental agreement from the rental in Fleet…" — the text was started as a plain contract. Send it from the rental instead.
"(Name) has no email address. Add one to the contact to send the agreement." — add an email address to the renter's contact.
"This rental has nothing to fill {plate} with. Add it to the rental or the vehicle, or take it out of the agreement." — fill in what is missing, such as the vehicle's plate or the rental's pick-up place, or take that word out of the agreement.
"This rental's agreement is already signed." — there is nothing to send. Change the rental first if the agreement is wrong.
"The rental agreement was declined by the renter. Send a new one." — talk to the renter, then press Send a new agreement.