New operator setup checklist — from empty account to first booking

Setting up a rental business touches a lot of screens, and the order matters: several steps are blocked until an earlier one is done. This checklist is the order that works. Each step is short and points you to a deeper article when you need one.

The built-in guide covers the essentials

When you log in, the Home page shows a Guide with the six steps the system checks for you:

Join Rentalbuddy — done automatically when your account is created
Create your first Location
Create a Product
Configure payments
Set up locks & access (only shown if you have an unmanned location)
Activate your account

Work through the Guide and it will tell you what is still missing. The checklist below is the same journey with the steps that the Guide does not track — taxes, open dates, the booking button, email texts and a test booking.

1. Create your account and verify your email

Sign up on the Create Account page with Name, Email (username), Phone number and Password, and accept the Terms and Conditions.

You are then taken to Verify your email: "Please check your inbox and click the verification link we sent you." You cannot log in until you do — the login page will say "Email address not verified, sign-in forbidden." If the email doesn't arrive, check spam and use Send a new link (there is a short cooldown between sends).

2. Fill in your company details and choose your currency

In the left menu, open Settings → the Account tab, and fill in Company Information. These details show up to your customers, so get them right early.

Under Settings → Payments you set your Currency. Do this before anything else money-related: currency can only be changed while the account has no active or future bookings on any location. Once bookings exist, the field locks.

3. Connect Stripe

Rentalbuddy takes card payments through Stripe. Open Settings → Payments → Online payments and click Connect with Stripe to start handling payments.

You will be asked to choose:

I am new to Stripe → Set up a new account — you complete a short sign-up on Stripe's website.
I already use Stripe → Connect my existing account — note the warning: "Stripe only allows your account to be linked to one business platform at a time. If your Stripe account is still connected to another service, disconnect it there first or use a different Stripe account."

When it works you will see Stripe successfully connected!

See also: Rentalbuddy or Stripe — where do I go for what?.

4. Set up your tax rates

Tax rates are set once for the whole account, then chosen per product. Open Settings → tax settings.

This step needs Stripe first — without it the screen says "You need to connect Stripe to create and manage taxes." The fastest route is Generate default taxes, which creates the standard rates for your country. You can also use Add New Tax (country, Tax Type, Percentage (%), Exclusive/Inclusive) or, if you already maintain rates in Stripe, Sync from Stripe.

5. Create your location

In the left menu, open Locations → Add new location.

On the Location settings tab, fill in Name of your Location, the address fields, and Timezone. Set Staff presence to Unmanned if you plan to use smart locks, or Manned if staff hand out the equipment — the helper text says exactly that. Under Language & Timezone you also choose Main language and Languages to show in booking view.

Almost everything else — products, payments, locks — is blocked until a location exists.

See also: Locations and stations explained (and which settings live where).

6. Decide how customers reach your booking

Open the location's Book button tab. Under Where do customers book? you choose:

Rentalbuddy website — a simple booking page hosted by us. Nothing to install.
My own website → Booking link — you paste a link on your site.
My own website → Embedded on your website — the booking button lives on your own page. This is the option that needs the two pieces of code, and the one where you must fill in URL where book button is implemented.

If you choose the embedded option, get that URL right — Rentalbuddy builds the start-rental, return, extend and reschedule links in your customer emails from it. A wrong address sends customers to the wrong page.

See also: Install the booking button on your website.

7. Set your open dates

Open the location's Open dates tab. Nothing is bookable until you do this: "To accept bookings, create at least one time period below. Time periods define when your location is available for rentals."

Use Create new time period, give it a Period Name, a Period start and Period end, and set Pickup hours and Return hours per weekday (Match all days to Monday saves time). Then check Booking interval (the time increments customers can book in), Booking Length Limits (minimum and maximum rental duration) and, if you need cleaning time, Blocking time after booking. Single days that differ go under Custom dates.

See also: Opening hours and open dates.

8. Create your products with prices

Make sure a location is selected in the navigation bar, then open Products → Add new product in the left menu.

Choose the type (Rental Product, Rental Accessory, Insurance, Event or Membership), fill in Basic Information and Product Names & Descriptions, set Inventory (Number of units — how many you physically have), and pick your tax under Taxes.

Under Price setup choose how you charge: Price per unit, Price per hour, or Structured Pricing ("Set different prices for different time lengths") when a 3-hour rental should not simply cost three times the hourly price.

See also: Create and manage products and Add-ons and accessories.

9. Create your stations and pair your locks

Skip this step if your location is Manned.

In the left menu, open Stations → Add new station, give it a Name of the Station and pick the Location and Locker type. A station is the physical spot where your locks sit; a location is the business site it belongs to.

For Igloohome locks, the Connect with Igloohome guide walks three steps: Download the app, Pair your locks (using Igloohome's own guide) and Sync with Igloohome. One thing that trips people up is called out in the app itself: after you authorize Rentalbuddy, your locks will not sync until you add a payment method in the Igloo Connect portal.

See also: Connect and manage your smart locks.

10. Link each product to a lock

Open the station and use the locks table. Each lock row has a Product column — choose which product that physical unit is. A lock with no product shows No product assigned, and the station warns you: "Customers cannot book these locks until each has a product."

Also switch Active on. The tooltip is explicit: "When a lock is active, customers can book the product on that lock. When it is inactive, that product is hidden and cannot be booked." Use Activate all locks to do them in one go.

This is the step operators most often miss — availability is controlled by locks, not by the product's inventory number alone.

11. Put the booking button on your website

If you chose Embedded on your website in step 6, this is where you install it: copy Copy booking engine code once into your site-wide code, and Copy button code onto the page where the button should appear.

The single most common failure here is pasting the script more than once — it breaks checkout. The full instructions, per website builder, are in Install the booking button on your website.

12. Edit your confirmation email

Open Settings → Email Settings. Under Default emails you will find Confirmation email — expand it to edit the Email subject, Introduction text and Closing text, and to choose which blocks and buttons the email contains (Booking details, Directions – Location, Download receipt, Start booking, End booking, and so on). Email preview shows the result.

Under Your emails you can create additional automated emails with their own trigger and location scope. The Active switch matters: "If Active is turned off this email will not be sent out to customers."

See also: Edit your confirmation email and set up reminders.

13. Activate your account

The final Guide step is Activate your account — "Add a subscription to activate your account and start taking bookings." Use Add billing, or Settings → Billing later. Your trial will not keep you live forever.

14. Place a test booking, end to end

Do not go live without doing this once yourself. You want to see the whole chain: booking → payment → confirmation email → PIN code or pickup → return.

Use a 100% promo code so you don't have to pay yourself. Open Promo codes → Create promo code, set Discount type to Percentage and enter 100 in the Percent field. 100 is allowed — the form's own validation message is "Enter a percentage from 1 to 100". Give it a short expiry and set Max usage total to 1 or 2 so a real customer cannot stumble onto it, then set Status of the code to Inactive when you are done testing.

Two things to watch: if you set a Minimum order value on the code it may not apply to your small test booking, and the payment step still appears at a zero total — Stripe just asks for no card details. The full trick is in Create and manage promo codes.

Then book as a customer would: open your own booking page or your website page with the button on it, complete the booking, and check that the confirmation email arrives with a working link. There is a Preview button on the Book button tab that opens your booking flow in a new tab, which is handy for checking the embedding — but a preview is not a real booking, so do a real one too.

See also: Customers aren't getting a PIN code (or the code doesn't open the lock) and The customer says no confirmation email arrived — the two things most likely to surprise you on your first live day.

Quick reference

Step	Where
Create account, verify email	Sign-up page
Company details, currency	Settings → Account / Payments
Connect Stripe	Settings → Payments → Online payments
Tax rates	Settings → tax settings
Location	Locations → Add new location → Location settings
How customers book, site URL	Location → Book button
Open dates and hours	Location → Open dates
Products and prices	Products → Add new product
Stations and locks	Stations → Add new station
Product on each lock	Station → locks table → Product, Active
Booking button on your site	Location → Book button
Confirmation email	Settings → Email Settings
Subscription	Settings → Billing
Test booking	Promo codes → 100% code, then book for real