There's a conversation we have with almost every rent a car company thinking about switching software. It goes something like this:
"Tell me, will the contract look like mine?"
"No, it'll look like the software's."
"Right... it's just that I've been using this contract for fifteen years."
And they're right to worry. The contract isn't just any piece of paper: it's the document your customer signs, the one you show if there's a problem, the one your team has been filling in with their eyes closed for years. Swapping it for another one just because the software can't produce yours is a pretty poor reason.
So we've solved it: in car-rent.es you design the contract.
Three ways to get your contract
Not everyone wants the same thing, so there are three routes, and all three end up in the same place.
1. Choose one from the gallery
Four professional designs, ready to use, which you can view at full size before you decide:
- Classic: sections with a colored band and a damage diagram. The general-purpose one.
- Compact: everything packed into a grid, no diagram. For high-volume counters where every second counts.
- Premium: understated, with plenty of white space and serif typography. For the high-end segment and corporate customers.
- Bilingual for tourists: every label in Spanish and English, with the diagram clearly visible. For airports and tourist areas.
You pick one, it's copied to your templates, and from then on it's yours: you can tweak it freely, because the original is never touched. Try all four if you like.
2. Upload the contract you already use and the AI builds it
This is the one that surprises people most. Take a photo with your phone of your company's paper contract (preferably a blank one) and upload it. The artificial intelligence reproduces its structure and links each blank to the data that belongs there: where the name goes, it puts the name; where the license plate goes, the license plate.
In under a minute you have your usual contract, but filling itself in.
Let's be honest about what it does and what it doesn't: the AI gets you 90% of the work done (the layout built and the data linked), but it's not a pixel-perfect copy. You add the finishing touches in the editor, which is what it's there for. And the template doesn't activate by itself: first you review it and preview it with data from one of your real contracts.
3. You edit it
If you want full control, the editor has all the rental variables one click away, grouped: customer, ID document, driving license, vehicle, dates, amounts, IGIC, deposit, offices. You place them wherever you want.
And the repetitive parts come ready-made in blocks: the full price table with insurance and IGIC, the additional drivers, your logo, the QR. One block, one line.
The detail nobody talks about: making it fit on one sheet
Here's a true story from this very month. We were reviewing printing and measured how many pages the contract took up with normal data. It came out at two.
Two pages means double the paper, double the toner and, most annoying of all, the customer waiting at the counter while the printer spits out a second sheet nobody wanted.
We redesigned it completely so that it fits on a single side of A4. But that alone isn't enough, because a contract isn't always the same length: some companies have very long legal terms, and some days there are two additional drivers.
So the contract adjusts itself: when the content gets tight, it shrinks the legal text, which is what varies between companies, just enough to keep fitting. It cuts nothing, and the rental data always stays at a readable size. We tested it with terms of more than 7,000 characters: it still fits on one side.
The damage diagram, where it belongs
If you rent cars, you know the critical moment isn't the signing: it's the return. "That dent was already there." "No, that dent wasn't there."
The contract has the car drawing printed on it (top and side views) with its legend: scratched, dented, paint, glass, missing part. Your operator marks the condition by hand at delivery, and again at return. Paper, pen and signature: the tried-and-tested system, and still the one that causes the fewest arguments.
And a QR code that eliminates reprints
Optional, but recommended. The contract can carry a QR code that the customer scans with their phone to open their full contract with all its terms. No app to install.
Three things it solves:
- The customer who calls three days later asking for a copy of the contract. They already have it on their phone.
- The small print. The full terms fit online without cramming the paper.
- The durable medium required by article 63 of the TRLGDCU, which asks you to hand over the contract in a format the customer can keep.
A technical note that matters to us: the QR is generated in the browser, not by an external service. The link to your customer's contract doesn't travel to any third-party company.
If you have dot-matrix printers, don't throw them away
This industry has a particularity that modern software tends to ignore: many dot-matrix printers are still in use with preprinted forms. And they work well: carbonless paper, one copy for the customer and another for the file, with nothing to scan.
In a company with several offices, it's common for the two to coexist: the airport office already prints on laser, and the long-established one carries on with its dot-matrix printer and its receipt book.
At car-rent.es, each office chooses its own format:
- Laser: prints the full contract, with your design, on a blank sheet of paper.
- Dot matrix: prints only the data, fitted into the boxes of your pre-printed form.
And here's the part the front desk will appreciate: you only calibrate the dot-matrix printer once. You adjust where each piece of data lands on your form, save, and you're done. From then on, you just click "Print" and it comes out. No more fighting with settings every time a customer walks in.
And if you're not convinced, go back in one click
You can keep several saved templates and switch between them. Duplicate one to try out variations without touching the one in use. And if you don't quite like the new design, you turn it off and go back to the standard one instantly, without losing anything.
Switching software already takes enough courage without also being afraid to touch your contract.
What's included in each plan
Contract templates, the gallery, the damage sketch and the QR code are included in all plans, even Starter. White label —removing the car-rent.es signature from the online contract your customer sees— is part of the Business plan.
We explain it in more detail on the customizable contract page. And if you'd rather see it with your own contract in front of you, call us on 623 63 48 00: send us a photo of yours and we'll show you how it looks.