Your First 30 Minutes: Setup Checklist

Your First 30 Minutes: Setup Checklist

This checklist gets your TrailerBase account from empty to bookable in about 30 minutes. Knock these ten items out in order and you will be ready to take a real reservation by the end.

1. Complete your business profile (2 min)

Go to Settings > Business Profile. Fill in:

• Legal business name (this appears on invoices and contracts)
• DBA or public display name (this appears on your public rental site)
• Phone, email, and physical address
• Time zone (critical - all reservations key off this)

2. Upload your logo (2 min)

Still in Settings > Business Profile, click the logo placeholder and upload a PNG or SVG at least 400x400 pixels, ideally with a transparent background. Your logo appears on invoices, quotes, the public site, and email headers.

3. Set your branding colors (2 min)

Under Settings > Branding, pick a primary and accent color. These cascade through:

• Your public rental site
• Email button colors
• PDF invoice headers
• The renter-facing booking page

A safe starting palette: a strong brand color for primary and a neutral dark gray for accents.

4. Add your first trailer (5 min)

Click Trailers > Add Trailer. Fill in name, type, year/make/model, VIN, license plate, daily rate, and at least one photo. Mark it Active. See the Adding Your First Trailer article for a detailed walkthrough.

5. Configure base pricing (3 min)

On the same trailer form (or in Settings > Pricing Defaults), set:

• Daily rate
• Weekly discount (commonly 10-15%)
• Monthly rate (commonly 3-4x weekly)
• Cleaning fee
• Delivery fee per mile (if you deliver)

You can override any of these per trailer later.

6. Set a security deposit policy (2 min)

Under Settings > Deposits, choose:

• Pre-authorization (recommended) - Card is held but not charged; released on clean return.
• Charge and refund - Card is charged and refunded after return. Works for customers whose banks block pre-auths.
• A flat dollar amount or a percentage of the rental total.

7. Upload a contract template (3 min)

Go to Settings > Contracts > Templates. Either:

1. Start from the built-in Standard Trailer Rental Agreement (recommended).
2. Upload your own PDF or paste your existing contract language.

TrailerBase will inject merge fields like renter name, trailer, dates, and total automatically. Save the template as your default.

8. Set your tax rate (2 min)

Under Settings > Taxes, add your state or local tax rate. You can create multiple rates for different jurisdictions and tag trailers with the right one. Tax is calculated automatically on quotes and invoices.

9. Connect Stripe (5 min)

Under Settings > Payments > Stripe, click Connect. You will be redirected to Stripe's hosted onboarding to provide:

• Your business tax ID (EIN or SSN)
• Your bank routing and account numbers
• An owner ID document

Once approved (usually under a minute for US accounts), renters can pay invoices online and your deposits work.

10. Invite staff (Advanced only, 2 min)

If you are on the Advanced plan, go to Settings > Team and invite dispatchers, yard staff, or a bookkeeper. Assign roles:

• Admin - Full access
• Manager - Bookings, trailers, renters, reports - no billing
• Yard - Check-in/out only
• Read-only - Dashboards and reports, no edits

You are live

That is it - ten items, about 30 minutes. Your next move: create a test reservation on yourself to see the full flow end-to-end.