Digital skills for small vehicle rental businesses: what a 1–10 vehicle agency actually needs

Running a rental agency with one to ten vehicles means handling bookings, contracts, inspections and invoices with very few people. Most of this work is digital, but the skills it requires are rarely written down.

This free guide, published by Lexio, a software company serving vehicle rental businesses, sets out the practical digital skills that owners and staff of micro rental agencies need in their day-to-day operations. Each regulatory statement links to an official source.

Skills covered

• Fleet register: how to structure a spreadsheet reliably, when to move to dedicated software, and how to make sure data can always be exported.
• Photo inspections: a fixed photo sequence, reliable timestamps and numbered damage records at check-out and return.
• Electronic signatures: the three levels of signature defined by the eIDAS Regulation (EU) No 910/2014, as amended by Regulation (EU) 2024/1183.
• Drivers’ personal data: data minimisation, retention periods, copies of driving licences and breach notification under the GDPR.
• Backups and shared access: automatic, tested backups and individual accounts for each staff member.
• Basic cybersecurity: multi-factor authentication, software updates and phishing awareness, based on ENISA’s 12-step guide for SMEs.
• Telematics and electric-vehicle data: recording state of charge, reading alerts and handling location data in line with European Data Protection Board (EDPB) guidance.

Self-assessment and checklist

The guide maps each skill to a competence in DigComp 3.0, the European Commission’s digital competence framework. It then points readers to the Commission’s free Test your digital skills tool and closes with a 19-point checklist that agencies can use to identify gaps.

How to use it

Owners and staff can read the guide on their own, or use it to plan a first set of improvements. It is general guidance and not legal, data-protection or IT-security advice: rules on contracts, retention and electronic signatures also depend on national law. The guide is available in English.

Topology of competences

DigComp 3.0 (information and data, collaboration, digital identity, data protection, protecting devices, problem solving, identifying competence needs)

Methodology

Self-paced written online guide with a checklist and a link to the Commission’s self-assessment tool.