Your Gear is Expensive. You'd Better Know Where It Is

Flex Rental Solutions' suite of cloud-based inventory tracking platforms stores vital information about each item in a church's AV gear arsenal -- location, availability, barcode, and serial number -- for safekeeping and tracking.

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Today’s churches rely on a vast array of AV equipment that is as integral to their services as it is expensive to replace. And the cost of misplaced equipment isn’t just monetary: If an all-important piece of hardware isn’t available for a multisite/online service, the show very literally may not go on.

Mindful of these facts, multisite megachurches like the Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, Ala., and Dallas-area Gateway Church are using Flex Rental Solutions’ cloud-based “Flex” tracking platform to easily and efficiently manage their AV assets.

“Keeping track of 22 campuses is a challenge, but Flex makes it much easier to manage,” says Blake Barrow, audio engineer at Church of the Highlands.

“Flex provides us with a cost-effective inventory solution that accurately tracks our gear in the ways we need it most,” adds Geoff Franklin, the church’s lighting network engineer.

“Keeping track of 22 campuses is a challenge, but Flex makes it much easier to manage.” Blake Barrow, Audio Engineer, Church of the Highlands, Birmingham, AL

At Gateway Church in Fort Worth, Texas, Tim Logsdon, senior lighting specialist/live production, says, “Flex allows us to treat our AV warehouse as our primary location, and all of our campuses as rental clients. We can create a pull sheet (requisition) for each equipment request, specifying the gear and where it is going from ordering to shipping, delivery to return.”

A leader in AV inventory management

Located in Orem, Utah, Flex Rental Solutions is a leader in inventory and rental management software used by live events, entertainment, event and party rental, house of worship, and universities alike. To date, the company’s Flex (desktop)/Flex5 (mobile phones/tablets) and Flex Gear Tracking Solution (GTS) cloud-based tracking platforms are being used by over 900 clients worldwide, including many churches.

“Due to Covid-19, accurate deployment of AV equipment is more important to churches ... than ever before. With our Flex inventory platform, churches can stay in touch with their flocks using technology, particularly during a time of social isolation.” Chris Stein, CEO, Flex Rental Solutions, Orem, UT

"Churches depend on our software to streamline the complex logistics required to deliver high quality, memorable services to their congregation, ” says Flex Rental Solutions CEO Chris Stein. “They need to know what they have on hand and have their team easily sign inventory and equipment in and out from one campus or location to another. With Flex, churches can easily check what they have on hand, where it is, what they need, manage maintenance, and check replacement costs for equipment as needed. Flex allows church leaders to use data to make smart decisions on their available resources.”

Stein adds, “Due to Covid-19, accurate deployment of AV equipment is more important to churches and their congregations than ever before. With our Flex inventory platform, churches can stay in touch with their attendees using technology, particularly during a time of social isolation.”

Easy and intuitive to use

Flex/Flex5 and Flex GTS have been designed, developed, and supported by people with over 75 years of pro AV experience.

Both are easy and intuitive to use: Working through a browser or app interface, church AV users on various campuses can order (and return) the equipment they need just as easily as if they were shopping online. (All of the data associated with the AV equipment is populated by the churches’ AV managers and stored in the cloud for safe, secure, and fast access at all times.)

“Once we instituted Flex, anyone could see where any piece of equipment was at any time.” Tim Logsdon, Senior Lighting Specialist/Live Production, Gateway Church, Fort Worth, TX

This is just the beginning: Flex/Flex5 and Flex GTS store vital information about each item, such as its location, availability (singly and in quantity), barcode, and serial number. This data allows warehouses to optimize the storage, location, distribution, and restocking of AV gear in their facilities. Pull sheets are extremely easy to populate and process as a result.

In addition, the Flex inventory management model makes equipment maintenance, trouble reporting, and repairs simple to log, track, and reconcile. Tasks are also easy to assign and manage, along with contact data for clients, equipment suppliers, labor resources, and venues.

Flex GTS was created because many churches don’t require functions such as equipment quotations and invoicing that are offered in Flex/Flex5. “The result is a simple and intuitive asset tracking solution for churches who need to easily track equipment between church campuses, services, and special events, and understand important information such as the value of gear at each facility and missing and damaged items,” says Stein. “We simplify managing your gear so you can focus on providing a memorable worship experience for your congregants.”

This said, Flex GTS comes with powerful features that make it possible to:

* easily and quickly plan projects using virtual packages;

* track serialized and non-serialized AV assets;

* log equipment for maintenance and repair;

* know what equipment is on hand and where it has been assigned;

* organize campus locations and projects using event folders;

* improve loss prevention and reduce time to delivery.

Churches endorse Flex

Keeping 22 campuses supplied with the right AV equipment—as they do at the Church of the Highlands—is a major undertaking. Thankfully, moving to Flex Rental Solutions’ Flex inventory management platform has lightened the associated workload considerably.

“Before we began using Flex, it was difficult to keep track of what equipment went where, who was responsible for it, and what resources we still had available to allocate to projects,” says Barrow. “Now we are able to maintain points of contact as we send gear from our warehouse. This way, we know who to call when questions arise later or repairs need to be made. We have a clear trail of how many locations each item passes through, the hours spent there if applicable, and where it’s currently located.”

“Now we are able to maintain points of contact as we send gear from our warehouse…. We have a clear trail of how many locations each item passes through, the hours spent there if applicable, and where it’s currently located.” Blake Barrow, Audio Engineer, Church of the Highlands, Birmingham, AL

“Flex also allows us to monitor items currently in inventory and alert us at defined reorder points,” says Franklin. “In the past, we had to physically count shelf stock. Now we know what we have on hand at all times so we never run out of important gear, or have to postpone pending projects or resolve technical issues at our locations.”

Gateway’s Logsdon is similarly impressed by Flex and how it helps manage his house of worship AV equipment at nine physical locations.

“Once we instituted Flex, anyone could see where any piece of equipment was at any time,” Logsdon explains. “It saves us the communication hassle of asking clients, ‘Hey, where's this gear at, where's it going, and when will it return?’ Flex also lets us visualize what is happening with our AV inventory at all times, and when issues do arise, Flex Rental Solutions’ support is easy to access via email or phone.”

The right solution during the pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has fundamentally disrupted life everywhere; including church life in America and the world.

By enabling churches to know where their AV equipment is, and to dispatch that equipment quickly to where it is needed most, Flex GTS is helping churches to solve the social disconnection caused by the coronavirus. As a result, churches can continue to offer meaningful and compelling virtual services to their parishioners online and on TV.

Stein closes, “Our mission is to help simplify and solve complex problems by providing our customers with a powerful, elegant, and intuitive software platform that shows them what resources they have, and that enables them to plan and allocate those resources for maximum efficiency and profitability. Churches need this high level of AV inventory control now more than ever.”

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