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For Party Rental Operators

Why Your Delivery Day Needs a Plan, Not a Group Text

Two trucks, twelve stops and a Saturday full of party start times. When the plan lives in a text thread, the first sign of trouble is a call from the customer. Here's what changes when every stop, every arrival time and every driver's route sit on one board.

November 5, 2026  ·  7 min read

Most rental companies plan a busy Saturday the same way. Somebody prints the weekend's orders, sorts them into a pile per truck, and texts each driver a list of addresses. It holds up until something moves: an order gets rescheduled, a rental truck joins for the weekend, a pickup lives on a sticky note. By Saturday morning the real plan is a group thread, and nobody can scroll it fast enough from the driver's seat.

Sound familiar?

The bounce house was meant to be up before an 11:00 party. At 11:15 the customer called to ask where it was.
A pickup never made it onto anyone's list, so the water slide spent the night in a backyard
A driver texted for the next address while the customer watched from the porch
The truck reached a concrete driveway with stakes on board and no sand bags
Cash came back in a driver's pocket, and nobody wrote down which order it paid
You only knew a stop was done when the driver remembered to text "dropped off"

One Order, Two Trips

Every Order Is Already Two Stops on the Board

A delivery order isn't one job. It's a drop-off before the party starts and a pickup after it ends, often on a different truck and a different run. When you plan from a printed list of orders, the pickups are the half that goes missing.

The Delivery Planner starts from the orders you already have. Every order with the Delivery method becomes two stops: a delivery on the event start day and a pickup on the event end day. You never type an address in. Client pickups, quotes, cancelled orders and completed orders stay off the board, so everything on it is work a truck actually has to do.

Each day you deliver gets its own plan. A new plan can bring over the trucks, drivers and start times from your most recent one, so a regular Saturday starts with the trucks already in place. Stops are never copied: they always come from that day's orders.

Then you build the routes where you can see them, on the map. Click a pin and the planner lists your trucks by how close each one's nearest stop is, measured in a straight line, closest first. Pick a truck and the stop goes in right after that nearest stop. You can also drag a stop onto a truck, or click the numbered square for a truck on the stop's card.

Six orders make twelve stops. Five deliveries are on T1. Daniel Brooks's delivery and all six pickups wait in Unassigned, and the blue 1 on his card adds him to the end of T1.
A pickup can't hide. Until a stop is on a truck, it sits in Unassigned, and the top of the board keeps count: 5 of 12 stops assigned. The evening pickups are on the board before anyone has to remember them.

Arrival Times

Catch the Late Stop Before the Truck Leaves

A printed list can't tell you that six stops, in this order, won't all make their start times. Nobody adds up the drive between each stop and the half hour of setup at every one, so you find out at 11:15, from the customer.

A Timed truck has a start time. Press Recalculate and every stop gets an arrival time, worked out from traffic-based drive times between the stops, the setup or takedown minutes at each one, and the drive back to the depot. Any delivery that would arrive after its event starts is flagged late, in red, while you can still fix it.

In the example, T1 leaves at 7:00 AM with six deliveries. Daniel Brooks went on last, and his party starts at 11:00 AM. Recalculate puts the castle at his door at 11:17 AM. Drag him up to third, recalculate, and he gets it at 8:52 AM, with nothing late on the truck: 6 stops, 7:00 AM to 12:00 PM, 50 miles.

T1 after Recalculate. Daniel Brooks's party starts at 11:00 AM and the truck gets there at 11:17 AM. You see it while you plan, not from the customer on Saturday.

Not every run needs a clock. Evening pickups after the parties end only need a sensible order. Make that truck Flexible and it keeps its stop order with no times. Optimize order puts its stops in the shortest drive, and Undo puts your order back if you preferred it.

Planned times, not a tracking dot. Arrival times are worked out when you press Recalculate. The planner doesn't follow your trucks by GPS, and a stop shows as done when the driver marks it done.

Load-Out

The Truck Leaves With the Right Gear

The route is half of what a driver needs. The other half is in the back of the truck: blowers, cords, stakes for the lawns and sand bags for the driveways. Load that from memory and something stays on the shelf.

Every truck gets a route sheet: one page with its stops in order, each arrival time, the customer's name, phone and address, and the items for each stop. At the top is the LOAD LIST, which adds up the setup items for every delivery on that truck. Each order's items are matched to its setup surface, the same way the Packing Slip does it, then totalled once for the whole run. A pickup truck's sheet lists what to bring back. There are no prices anywhere on it.

When an order has no surface set, the sheet doesn't guess. It names the stop and the items it left off, and the stop itself tells the driver to check with the customer. Someone can call ahead before the truck leaves, instead of after it arrives. The load list comes from your products' setup items, so the more of your catalog has them, the more complete it is.

T1's route sheet. The load list totals the setup items for all six deliveries and names the one order whose surface nobody has set.
Paper for the crew that wants it. Print route sheets for every truck at once or one truck at a time, and packing slips for every order on the plan, in truck and stop order, for whoever loads.

On the Road

Each Driver Gets Their Route, Not the Whole Thread

A group text sends every driver every message. The Delivery Planner gives each driver their own route. Drivers sign in on their phone with their own login and see only their own trucks: Today, Upcoming and Recent, the last 7 days.

Nothing reaches a driver until you publish. Publishing locks the plan, so the route a driver is following can't change under them halfway through the morning. Need to move a stop? Unpublish, change it and publish again.

At each stop the driver has what the office would otherwise be texting. Navigate opens Apple Maps or Google Maps, Call rings the customer, and the stop lists its items, setup items, surface and notes. The driver can add up to six photos of the setup, then tap Mark delivered or Mark picked up, with an Undo for the rest of the day if they tapped too soon.

Money works the same way. Drivers see the balance due and what's been paid so far, never your prices or totals. On the day of the route they can record a cash or check payment, up to the balance due. If the customer paid by Zelle, Venmo or Cash App, or will pay the office, the driver leaves a note for the office instead.

Marcus at stop 5. Priya Shah has $180.00 left to pay, he takes it in cash, and records it before he moves on. Her balance turns to Paid in full.
No texts to send. The planner doesn't text your drivers or your customers. A driver opens the app and every route you've published for them is there.

From the Office

The Office Gets the Receipts Without Calling Anyone

On a group-text Saturday, you find out a stop is done when the driver remembers to say so. With the planner, the driver's tap is the record.

When Marcus marks Priya Shah's delivery done, her order on the Orders page shows it on its route chip: ✓ Delivered 10:41 AM. The Route card on the order says who delivered it. The $180.00 in cash appears in Payment Information like any other payment, and Invoice History lists both the payment and the delivery under Marcus Reed's name. Today's published plan picks up done stops within about a minute, so the board counts them as the morning goes: 5 of 6 done.

At the end of the day, count the cash and checks each driver hands in against Invoice History, where every payment they recorded carries their name.

Order #10495 after Marcus's stop: delivered at 10:41 AM, paid in full, and both entries in Invoice History under his name. Nobody had to call in.

Who It's For

Built for the Weekends You Run More Than One Truck

With one truck and a short day, a list in your head may be all you need. The Delivery Planner earns its place once two or more trucks are out on the same day, and most of all on the peak weekends when you rent another truck to keep up.

  • Two or more trucks on busy days, each with its own driver and its own route
  • A rented truck for a peak weekend, added to that day by name (a U-Haul, say) without saving it to your fleet
  • Your own trucks saved to a fleet if you want them, with unit number, description, plate and a colour that follows the truck on the board and the map. The fleet is optional.
  • No limit on trucks, and one driver can run two in a day: a morning delivery run and an evening pickup run
  • Drivers who should see their stops and the balance due, and nothing else in your back office

Available as an Add-On

What the Delivery Planner Does for You

The Delivery Planner is an add-on to your Party Rental Studio account. It opens from the Orders page and works from the orders you already take.

Every Stop, Already There

Each delivery order becomes a delivery and a pickup on the right days. Nothing to type in.

Routes Built on the Map

Click a pin and pick the truck with the closest stop, or drag stops where you want them.

Arrival Times With a Late Flag

Traffic-based drive times plus setup minutes, and a red flag on any delivery that misses its start.

Route Sheets With a Load List

One page per truck: stops, times, customers and the setup items to load. No prices.

A Driver App on Every Phone

Navigate, call, add photos, mark stops done, and record cash or check up to the balance due.

Receipts on the Order

Done times and driver payments land on the order and in Invoice History under the driver's name.

Put Saturday on One Board

Already on Party Rental Studio? The tutorial walks you through your first plan, from planner settings to the driver app, in about 15 minutes. Want the Delivery Planner on your account? It's listed with the other add-ons on our pricing page.

Open the Delivery Planner Tutorial See Plans and Add-Ons

Already a customer? Party Rental Studio support can turn the Delivery Planner on for your account.