You rent out cars and you want to know, at any moment, which car is free and which is with a customer, who is late bringing one back, what each customer still owes, what each car has earned and cost in maintenance, and when its insurance or licence runs out. The free car rental sheet answers these from three logs you fill in: cars, bookings and maintenance.
The problem it solves
In many rental offices bookings live in a notebook, insurance dates on a slip of paper and repair invoices in a drawer. A car is overdue and nobody notices; a policy lapses unseen. The sheet keeps it all in one file and recalculates whenever you open it.
How it works, step by step
- In "Settings" type today's date and how many days ahead you want a warning before insurance or a licence ends.
- In "Cars" write each car's code, plate, model, and insurance and licence end dates.
- In "Bookings" open one row per booking: car code, customer, pickup, agreed return, daily rate, deposit and what the customer has paid.
- When the car comes back, type the actual return date. The booking becomes "returned" and days are counted to that date.
- In "Maintenance" log each job with its cost and whether it is in progress or finished.
- Days, rental value, balance and status are worked out for you; read the result in "Follow-up" and "Summary".
What each sheet does
- Cars: bookings, rental days, booking value, maintenance cost and net after maintenance for each car, its status now (available, rented or in maintenance), insurance and licence alerts, and average income per day.
- Bookings: days, rental value, balance, status (upcoming, active, overdue or returned) and days late. An overdue booking turns red.
- Maintenance: jobs by type, cost and status.
- Follow-up: overdue bookings, longest first, with the customer's phone and what is owed.
- Summary: cars and bookings by status, booking value, paid, balance owed, deposits held, maintenance cost and net.
A walk-through with the sample sheet
The names and numbers below are sample data inside the sheet, not real people, and "today" in it is 1 November 2026.
- Booking B002: car K01 was picked up on 10 October, agreed back on 14 October, and returned on 16 October. That is six days, not four: rental 5,400 at 900 a day. The customer paid 3,600, leaving 1,800 for the two extra days.
- Booking B006: car K05 was due on 27 October and is not back, so it is "overdue" by five days and tops the follow-up list with 2,250 owed.
- Booking B013: three days late, second on the list, nothing owed.
- Car K04: a maintenance record is "in progress", so it shows "in maintenance". Maintenance of 4,500 against booking value of 1,300 gives a net of minus 3,200.
- Cars K03 and K02: K03's insurance ended on 10 October ("expired"); K02's ends on 20 November ("ending soon").
The summary shows seven cars (four rented, one in maintenance) and thirteen bookings, two overdue. Booking value is 49,900, paid 38,850, balance owed 11,050. Maintenance is 19,950, leaving a net of 29,950, and deposits held on cars not yet returned are 16,000.
What you get out of it
Every car's position at a glance, overdue returns in one ordered list, what each customer owes with rent kept apart from the deposit, and which cars earn and which cost you. It works in Excel 2016 and later, Google Sheets and LibreOffice, free, and holds 200 cars and 1,000 bookings.
Using the online version
The sheet page opens straight on this example. Type in the white cells and the grey ones update at once, and add cars, bookings and maintenance records from an entry form instead of typing into the table. You can import your own xlsx made from this sheet, export your work to xlsx. Your data stays in your browser and is not sent to a server. See the templates list.
Who it suits, and when it is not enough
It suits a small or medium rental office run by its owner or one employee. One caution: the sheet does not stop two bookings on the same car for the same dates, so check a car's status before confirming a new one. It does not calculate late fees, and extra days are not counted until you type the actual return date. If staff need to book and an accountant to review, each with their own permissions on the same data, that is what a custom system is for. For your own company's vehicles see the fleet fuel and maintenance sheet, and for a workshop that repairs cars the car workshop job orders sheet.