On Monday morning the van is back in the yard with a fresh scrape on the bumper and the fuel gauge on reserve. It was booked twice over the weekend. Nobody can say who brought the scrape back with them, and nobody knows how full the tank was on Friday. So both land on you.
With a handover record you would know between which pickup and which return the scrape appeared. This post gives you a checklist to copy for pool vehicles and loaned equipment, compares three ways to keep it, and shows how to attach it to the booking in Dispoly. Move-in and move-out inspections for apartments are a separate topic and not covered here.
Two moments, one comparison
The pickup record and the return record are two halves of the same document. The pickup captures the state the vehicle or device left in, the return captures how it came back. The comparison is what tells you something: kilometers driven, fuel level, new damage, missing accessories. With one half missing, the other proves little.
The legal points in this section refer to Germany. There, no law requires a record, or any particular form, for the internal handover of a pool vehicle or the club's projector. The record is evidence for yourselves, and you decide how much goes into it. It has little to do with a tax logbook. For every business trip, a tax logbook needs the date and odometer readings plus destination, purpose and the business contacts visited. It only matters once a vehicle may also be used privately or for the commute and you want that use taxed at its actual share instead of at the flat 1% rule. What a logbook for the tax office has to deliver is covered in Mileage and trip logs, and whether your pool vehicles need one in Pool vehicle logbook requirements. This is general information, not legal or tax advice.
The checklist
The table works for the van just as well as for the projector or the backup generator. Copy it into your own template and delete what does not apply to you.
| Area | At pickup | At return | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Identity | Plate number or inventory number, name | the same | For several identical devices, the serial number |
| Time | Date and time of pickup | Date and time of return | The actual time, not the booked one |
| Who | Name of the person picking up | Name of the person returning | The driver often did not make the booking |
| Counter | Odometer or operating hours | Reading at return, difference | Read it off, do not estimate |
| Fuel or battery | Fuel level or charge | Level, refueled or recharged (yes/no) | Rough steps are enough: full, ¾, ½, ¼, reserve |
| Condition and damage | Known damage, cleanliness | New damage, dirt, anything unusual | Name the spot: "dent, rear left door" |
| Accessories | Keys (how many), registration papers, fuel card, warning triangle, first aid kit; for devices the power supply, remote, cables, bag | Complete, or what is missing | A fixed list per vehicle or device avoids arguments |
| Purpose (optional) | Trip purpose, project or cost center | not needed | Only ask if someone actually uses the answer |
Keep the form short. Every extra required field raises the chance that someone guesses instead of reading the gauge. Make the counter reading required and leave the rest optional. Known damage is best kept once per vehicle instead of being copied out at every handover. The record then only needs what is new.
Many templates online include signatures from both sides and photos of the damage. That makes sense when you rent to outsiders or return a leased car, because two parties stand next to the vehicle. With a pool vehicle the key is often in a key box and nobody countersigns. There, a name and a timestamp are the evidence you can realistically get. Some templates also include a license check and driver briefing. Both concern the person, not the individual trip. German law sets no fixed interval for license checks. The recommendations for pool vehicles range from twice a year to every handover when the group of drivers is not fixed.
Three ways to keep the record
| Paper form | Shared spreadsheet | Attached to the booking | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where it is filled in | At the vehicle, in a notebook or on a clipboard | Usually later, at a desk | On a phone, right on the booking |
| Who had it? | There, if someone writes it down | Cross-check with the calendar | Comes from the booking |
| Differences | By hand | With a formula | Calculated by the system |
| Gaps flagged | No | Only if you build it | Depends on the system |
| Signature, sketch | Possible | No | Depends on the system |
| Cost | Paper and a pen | Nothing extra | Software |
A paper form in the glove box needs no signal and no training, and it takes a signature and a sketch. For a single vehicle with three drivers, that is enough. The weakness shows later. Nobody sees the entries until someone opens the notebook, and gaps only surface at the end of the quarter, when someone adds up the monthly kilometers by hand.
A shared spreadsheet in Excel or a SharePoint list can be analyzed. It rarely gets filled in at the vehicle, though, more often at a desk and from memory. Who had the vehicle is in the calendar, the odometer reading is in the spreadsheet, and only someone who cross-checks brings the two together. Outside borrowers usually have no access to the spreadsheet. What the move from a list to a booking calendar looks like is covered in From Excel to a booking calendar.
If the record is tied to the booking, name and time period are settled before anyone types anything. The system knows the last counter reading and calculates the difference itself. In return you need software and a phone with signal, and a person still has to read the gauge. People can forget the return here as well, but the system can at least remind them.
How to set it up in Dispoly
In Dispoly the feature is called "Pickup & return". Admins set it up per resource, because the van needs different details than the projector. Plan roughly ten minutes for the first resource; each one after that goes faster.
- Open the resource, click "Set up" in the "Pickup & return" section and choose a starting point. The "Driver logbook" template brings odometer, driver, purpose, fuel level, "Refueled?" and damage/remarks. "Operating hours" fits generators, pumps and machines. For the projector, choose "Start empty".
- Adjust the fields to match the checklist. There are four types: text, number, select and counter. Accessories, for example, become a select field "complete / something missing" at return. For each field you decide whether it is asked at pickup, at return or both, and whether it is required. Each resource can have up to 20 fields, of which up to 8 can be counters.
- Enter the current reading. You can do that right when you set up the counter, so the very first trip gets a difference.
- Choose the enforcement level. "Optional" only shows the buttons and the logbook. "Remind" flags missing entries and sends an email two hours after the booking ends if the return is missing. "Enforce" additionally emails the resource's contact person if the return is still missing after three days. None of the levels blocks bookings.
- Set up further resources with "Copy from resource" and give each one its own initial reading.
What happens on the booking
Every booking of the resource then gets "Pickup" and "Return" buttons. Any member of the organization can record, and the name of the person entering it is stored. The counter is prefilled with the last known reading, and at return the difference updates as you type, for example "+55 km". Anyone who booked through your public booking page without an account, such as a club member, gets a link by email and records in the browser, with no app and no login.
Trips without a booking, say to the workshop, go in through "Entry without booking" in the app or through QR quick entry, a printed A4 sign that opens the form without a booking and without a login. When a booking is due, the same sign offers its pickup or return, without showing who booked. Everything ends up in the resource's logbook, with differences per trip and per month, and can be exported as CSV or Excel. Open handovers are collected in the "Handovers" tab under Reservations.
What Dispoly does not do here
- No photos and no signatures. You describe damage as text. If you rent to outsiders and need a signed record with pictures in case of a dispute, keep that on paper or with a phone camera as well.
- Four field types: text, number, select and counter. A checkbox becomes a select field with yes and no.
- Not a tax-compliant logbook. Entries can be corrected, and the original value stays visible when they are. The logbook is still not tamper-proof, and route or business contact are not enforced. It is a usage log for shared vehicles and equipment.
- No GPS, no telematics, no hardware in the vehicle.
- One automatic reminder email per missing return, no chain of reminders. Admins can follow up by hand with "Remind now".
- No native app; everything runs in the browser.
How pickup and return fit together for vehicles, equipment and guests is shown on the handover checklist solution page. Fire departments with callouts that nobody books will find more in A fire department vehicle logbook without paper, and clubs on the page for clubs. Every detail of the feature is in the September release.
Pickup & return is included in every plan, Starter too, at no extra cost. Trying it costs nothing: no contract, no setup fee, 30 days free.