The Hire Service Company

Putting THSC's data to work

Where the data stands today, and a plan to make it useful.

Hal Sarjant · 16 November 2026

The Hire Service CompanyToday
Today

Getting answers out of Syrinx is slow and costly

Reports

Slow to run, paid for one at a time

Each new report is a job for the supplier, quoted in the thousands.

Exceptions

Important, and hard to produce

Kit that should be off hire, or back in the yard, is difficult to spot.

Workarounds

Excel, and Ethan

Analysis happens by hand, and Ethan has built his own viewer to fill the gap.

As you described it on 10 November.

Putting THSC's data to work
The Hire Service CompanyWhat I found
What I found

The data itself is rich, and all of it can be read

97,000
contracts since 1 April 2026
671,000
hire lines
132,000
invoices
99,000
customer records
148,000
stock records
108
depots

Counted on 11 November through the two routes Point of Rental provides, using about 70 small read-only requests.

Putting THSC's data to work
The Hire Service CompanyWhy it is slow
Why it is slow

Syrinx was built for the hire desk. The routes to its data came later.

1

One contract at a time

It opens a single contract quickly. Adding up 97,000 of them is a different job.

2

Data access is recent

Point of Rental's guide to the Syrinx API was first written in September 2025.

3

The long way round

Each request passes through Point of Rental's central service before it reaches your database.

Putting THSC's data to work
The Hire Service CompanyThe evidence
The evidence

Same question, two routes in

"Which contracts are open?"

Global API
4 seconds
11,084 open contracts returned
Syrinx API
No answer. Cut off at 20 seconds.

Your database can answer in 4 seconds. The delay is in the route, which is Point of Rental's to fix.

Putting THSC's data to work
The Hire Service CompanyThe limit
The limit

Neither route can run reports on its own

Global API

Quick, and it filters well

It cannot say what has changed since a given time, so staying up to date means reading everything again.

Syrinx API

Richer, and it knows what changed

It carries prices, discounts, balances and aged debt. It is slow, and it times out on contracts.

A report across every contract would take about 1,000 requests each time someone opened it.

Putting THSC's data to work
The plan

THSC keeps its own copy of the data.

Syrinx carries on running the business. The copy answers the questions.

Most large businesses report from a copy for the same reason.

The Hire Service CompanyThe plan
The plan

How the copy works

Syrinx

Run by Point of Rental. Nothing in it changes.

Every hourabout 150 small requests

THSC's copy

A database THSC owns, laid out for questions.

Reports
Alerts
Analysis

Hourly, not instant: a contract raised now shows up within the hour. Once a week, the whole copy is checked against Syrinx.

Putting THSC's data to work
The Hire Service CompanyWhat it could look like
What it could look like

An exceptions board, refreshed every hour

THSC Data
TodayExceptionsRevenueKey accountsStockAlerts
ExceptionsAll depots · refreshed 09:00
37
Off-hired, not collected
12 waiting over 5 days
112
Past planned end, still on hire
64
Returned, not invoiced
£48,200 unbilled
23
Reservations past their start date
9
Hire lines at zero price
ContractCustomerDepotKitOff-hiredWaiting
1510204871Example Groundworks LtdMitcham3T excavator2 Dec9 days
3010198440Sample Construction plcSouthamptonGRP tower, 5.2m4 Dec7 days
2010201173Demo Fit-Out LtdHeathrowTower light × 26 Dec5 days
1510206302Specimen RoofingMitchamScaffold tower8 Dec3 days
3510207719Placeholder Civils LtdDoncasterPlate compactor8 Dec3 days

Illustration with example figures and made-up customers. Each measure uses fields I saw in your data.

Putting THSC's data to work
The Hire Service CompanyWhat it could look like
What it could look like

Revenue by depot, by account and by price achieved

THSC Data
TodayExceptionsRevenueKey accountsStockAlerts
RevenueThis week · all depots
Hire revenue this week
£412,300
▲ 6.2% on last week
Price achieved against rate card
81%
▼ 2 points on last month
Contracts on hire
11,240
▲ 180 on last week

Revenue by depot, this week

Southampton
£61,400
Mitcham
£52,900
Heathrow
£43,600
Doncaster
£35,700

Key accounts moving, month on month

Sample Construction plc▲ £18,400
Example Groundworks Ltd▲ £7,250
Specimen Roofing▼ £4,800
Demo Fit-Out Ltd▼ £9,100

Illustration with example figures and made-up customers.

Putting THSC's data to work
The Hire Service CompanyWhat it could look like
What it could look like

Alerts in Teams, and a monthly pack for each key account

!
Not collected for 6 days

3T excavator, off-hired 5 Dec, is still on site. Example Groundworks, Mitcham.

£
Over credit limit

Sample Construction is £12,400 over its limit with 14 items on hire.

↓
Key account slowing

Demo Fit-Out hired 38% less this month than last.

Key-account pack · November 2026Sample Construction plc
£86,400hire spend
312items hired
7depots used

Where more could be done

  • Hires towers from you, but no site lighting
  • Three new sites this month with no hires yet
  • Average hire is 9 days; a weekly rate would suit

Illustration with example figures and made-up customers.

Putting THSC's data to work
The Hire Service CompanyHow fast
How fast

The screens you just saw are a few weeks of work away

Week 1

Foundations. Accounts and code home in place. The hourly refresh of live contracts is running.

Weeks 2 to 3

First screens in use. I suggest the exceptions board and the key-account pack.

Weeks 3 to 6

History and proof. Closed contracts loaded, the copy checked against Syrinx, the revenue view and the first alerts.

This is my estimate, and it is hard work for Ethan. The clock starts when the accounts exist and IT security has agreed.

Putting THSC's data to work
The Hire Service CompanyCost
Cost
$5a month

Cloudflare hosting, at US list price before tax.

About $60 a year, against custom reports quoted in the thousands.

  • GitHub: free, or $4 a person each month to require a review before changes go live.
  • Web address: no extra cost on a domain you already own.
  • Not counted: Claude subscriptions, which you need on any route.
  • To confirm: whether Point of Rental charges for the API modules this needs.

Assumes the copy stores only what changes each hour. Prices checked against Cloudflare's and GitHub's price lists on 11 November.

Putting THSC's data to work
The Hire Service CompanyWhere it lives
Where it lives

One Cloudflare account, owned by THSC

Scheduled job

Fetches from Syrinx every hour.

Database

Holds the copy. Stored in the EU.

Internal site

Shows the reports and charts.

Staff sign-in

Work Microsoft accounts only.

Putting THSC's data to work
The Hire Service CompanyWho runs it
Who runs it

Ethan, with AI agents doing the legwork

Agents
  • Write and deploy the code
  • Watch the hourly job
  • Build new reports on request
Ethan
  • Decides what gets built
  • Reviews changes before they go live
  • Is the named owner
THSC
  • Owns the accounts
  • Decides who sees what
  • Signs off on security

I stay alongside as adviser while Ethan takes it on.

Putting THSC's data to work
The Hire Service CompanyWhat gets set up
What gets set up

Everything sits in THSC's name

Cloudflare account

Company-owned, with two administrators and two-step sign-in.

GitHub organisation

The private home for the code. Two owners at THSC; I join as an outside collaborator.

A Syrinx API user

Dedicated to this job and used only for reading, so nothing depends on one person's login.

A web address

For example data.thehireservicecompany.com, behind staff sign-in.

Security sign-off

IT security agrees the set-up. A short data-protection check, because customer contact details are in the copy.

Putting THSC's data to work
The Hire Service CompanyRisks
Risks

What could get in the way

The API terms

Point of Rental's terms restrict keeping copies of API data. We ask for written confirmation that a reporting copy of your own data is allowed.

Access could be limited

They can slow or block a key. A dedicated user and agreed limits reduce that risk.

It rests on Ethan

The code lives in THSC's GitHub with its notes, so someone else with an agent can pick it up.

Data entry

Gaps in what is keyed into Syrinx will show in the reports. The copy makes them visible; closing them is a process change.

Room to grow

This database tops out at 10 GB and has no direct link to Excel or Power BI. If either matters, a standard database costs about $20 to $25 a month.

Putting THSC's data to work
The Hire Service CompanyQuestions for you
Questions for you

Six things that shape the plan

  1. Who looks after IT security, and could they join the next conversation?
  2. Can Claude be allowed on Ethan's laptop? The plan depends on it.
  3. What does the Point of Rental contract say about owning and exporting your data, and when does it renew?
  4. Which three reports would change a decision, and who would use them?
  5. Who should be able to see pricing and customer debt?
  6. How much of Ethan's week can go on this, and who is the second owner?
Putting THSC's data to work
The Hire Service CompanyPoint of Rental
Point of Rental

Going to Point of Rental with evidence

Lead with a measurement

The same question takes 4 seconds on one of their APIs and gets no answer on the other. That is specific and hard to wave away.

Ask for it in writing

Rate limits, and permission to keep a reporting copy. Their API terms date from February 2023 and make no distinction for a customer reading its own data.

Ask what already exists

Since December 2025 Syrinx has had a Data Explorer that exports database views, and they sell a Power BI add-on that links to Syrinx databases.

Know where you stand

It is your data. The contract's ownership and exit clauses, and its renewal date, are your leverage.

Their Syrinx Conference is in Reading on 18 and 19 November.

Putting THSC's data to work
The Hire Service CompanyPoint of Rental
Point of Rental

What to ask Point of Rental

Easy to say yes to
  • A dedicated API user and key for reporting
  • Your rate limits, in writing
  • Written confirmation that we may keep a reporting copy of our own data
  • A description of the database tables
  • Which API modules we hold, and what the others cost
Bigger asks
  • Fix the timeout on contract queries: 4 seconds on one API, no answer on the other
  • Make "changed since" work on the Global API
  • A scheduled backup of our database, or a read-only connection to it
  • In the contract: we own the data, can take it on exit, and access will not be cut or newly charged for
Putting THSC's data to work
Next

This week

  1. Ethan and I go through his database file and viewer.
  2. IT security joins the conversation.
  3. THSC opens the Cloudflare and GitHub accounts.
  4. You choose the first report.
  5. A date goes in with Point of Rental.
The Hire Service CompanyAppendix
Appendix

Where the numbers come from

Putting THSC's data to work