B2B IT Rental Glossary: AMC, DaaS, ITAD, ITC, SAC and more

Plain-English definitions of the terms that show up on IT contracts, invoices and audit reports in India, for procurement, finance and IT teams. For longer explanations, see our guides and answers.

Annual Maintenance Contract(AMC): A yearly service agreement for IT equipment a company owns, covering support and repairs at an agreed response level. Some AMCs include parts; others, like Techvity's, cover labour and quote parts at market price with your approval. AMC is priced separately from rental; rented laptops are repaired under the rental terms instead.
Device-as-a-Service(DaaS): A commercial model that combines the device with its lifecycle management — imaging, MDM, helpdesk, refresh and disposal — for a single per-seat fee. It shifts day-to-day management of the fleet to the vendor. Plain rental covers the hardware and repairs, with management left to your IT team or added as options.
IT Asset Disposition(ITAD): The process of retiring IT equipment at end of life: data sanitisation, refurbishment, resale and recycling of what cannot be reused. A good ITAD process produces per-device data destruction certificates and the paperwork your auditors need under the DPDP Act and the E-Waste Rules.
Fair Market Value(FMV): The price an informed, willing buyer would pay an informed, willing seller in an open transaction. In IT buyback, FMV is judged against current resale prices for the same model, age and condition.
Input Tax Credit(ITC): The credit a GST-registered business claims for GST paid on inputs used in the course of business. Laptop rental invoices carry 18% GST under SAC 997315; a registered customer using the laptops for taxable supplies can claim that GST as ITC against its output GST, subject to the conditions in the CGST Act.
HSN and SAC codes(HSN / SAC): The classification codes used on GST invoices. HSN (Harmonised System of Nomenclature) codes classify goods — laptops sold outright fall under HSN 8471. SAC (Services Accounting Code) codes classify services — laptop rental is invoiced under SAC 997315. Both should appear correctly on tax invoices.
Goods and Services Tax(GST): India's indirect tax on the supply of goods and services. Laptop rental attracts 18% GST, split as 9% CGST + 9% SGST within a state, or 18% IGST between states. A correct GST invoice carries both GSTINs, the SAC or HSN code, the taxable value and the tax components.
Mobile Device Management(MDM): Software that lets a company enrol, configure, monitor and remotely lock or wipe its devices. Common platforms include Microsoft Intune, Jamf, Kandji and Hexnode. On request, Techvity enrols rented laptops in your MDM before delivery.
NIST SP 800-88: U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-88, 'Guidelines for Media Sanitization'. It defines three levels — Clear, Purge and Destroy — and the right technique for each media type. Techvity wipes every returned or bought-back device to NIST SP 800-88, with a per-device certificate on request.
DPDP Act 2023: The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 — India's first comprehensive personal data protection law. It defines the Data Fiduciary, Data Processor and Data Principal, requires erasure once the purpose is served, and establishes the Data Protection Board of India. For rented laptops, the renting company is usually the Data Fiduciary.
ISO/IEC 27001: The international standard for an Information Security Management System (ISMS), last revised in 2022. It sets out the structure, the Annex A controls and the audit cycle for managing information security risk. Certification means an accredited body has audited the ISMS; 'aligned' is a vendor's own description.
Master Service Agreement(MSA): The umbrella contract between a buyer and a service provider. It covers terms common to every order — payment, liability, confidentiality, data handling — while individual purchase orders or statements of work add the scope and price of each order.
Statement of Work(SOW): A scope-and-deliverables document under an MSA. It lists exactly what is being supplied — number of laptops, configurations, locations, timelines and acceptance criteria — and is what finance ties to the PO and to invoices.
Purchase Order(PO): A buyer's document authorising a vendor to supply goods or services at agreed prices. The usual flow in India: the vendor quotes, the customer issues a PO, the vendor delivers and invoices against the PO number, and finance reconciles. Techvity accepts purchase orders.
NET-30 / NET-45: Payment-term shorthand: NET-30 means the full invoice is due 30 calendar days after the invoice date; NET-45 means 45 days. With Techvity, payment terms are agreed with your quote.
Service Level Agreement(SLA): The contractual definition of service levels — response time, resolution time, replacement time — and what happens when a target is missed. Ask for every timeline you rely on to be written into the contract rather than accepting a verbal promise.
Capex (Capital Expenditure): Spending on assets that provide value over more than one year. Laptops bought outright are capitalised, sit on the balance sheet and are depreciated over their useful life. Capex ties up cash and leaves disposal to you, but suits stable fleets kept for many years.
Opex (Operating Expenditure): Spending consumed in the period it is paid — rental fees, AMC fees, subscriptions — recorded as an expense rather than capitalised. Opex preserves cash, scales with the size of the fleet and moves refresh and disposal to the vendor.
Total Cost of Ownership(TCO): The all-in cost of an IT asset over its life: purchase or rental, software, support, AMC, downtime, refresh and disposal. Compare rental and purchase on TCO, not on headline price. Rental tends to compare well when headcount changes, refresh cycles are short or in-house IT is small.
Refurbished Laptop: A pre-owned laptop that has been inspected, repaired where necessary, wiped and prepared for resale. Refurbished laptops bought from Techvity carry a warranty of 6 months standard, extendable to 12 months, and every laptop we sell comes with a 7-day replacement. A GST invoice lets a company claim input tax credit.
Endpoint: Any device — laptop, desktop, tablet or phone — that connects to a company network. Rental orders are usually counted in devices; company orders with Techvity run from 5 to 100+ laptops.
Gold Image: A pre-configured, tested software image — operating system, drivers, applications, security settings and MDM enrolment — that a company standardises on. On request, Techvity loads your image onto rented laptops before delivery so they start up in your environment.
Chain of Custody: The documented record of who handled an asset and when, from the moment it leaves your hands to its final disposal. For returned devices it should cover collection, transport, receipt, sanitisation and disposal, so each step can be checked in an audit.
Cryptographic Erase: A NIST SP 800-88 Purge technique that destroys the encryption key on a self-encrypting drive, leaving the encrypted data on the drive unreadable. It takes seconds and suits modern SSDs that support it.
ATA Secure Erase: A firmware-level command supported by most SATA drives that triggers the drive's own sanitisation routine. NIST SP 800-88 recognises it as a Purge technique where the drive implements it correctly.
Data Fiduciary: Under the DPDP Act 2023, the organisation that decides why and how personal data is processed. When a company rents laptops, the company is the Data Fiduciary for personal data on those laptops, and most statutory obligations fall on it.
Data Processor: Under the DPDP Act 2023, an organisation that processes personal data on behalf of a Data Fiduciary. A rental vendor that receives returned laptops with personal data still on them handles that data on the customer's behalf, and should do so only to erase it.
Data Processing Agreement(DPA): A contract between a Data Fiduciary and a Data Processor that sets out the scope, purpose, duration, security measures, third parties and incident-notice terms for the personal data being processed. It is the main evidence of 'documented instructions' under the DPDP Act 2023.
Bureau of Indian Standards(BIS): India's national standards body. For IT equipment, BIS runs the compulsory registration scheme that many electronic products must meet before sale in India. E-waste recyclers are registered with the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), not BIS.
E-Waste Rules 2022: The E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022 notified by India's Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. They place Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) on producers and require bulk consumers, including most companies, to hand e-waste only to registered refurbishers or recyclers.
Asset Tag: A unique identifier — barcode, RFID or printed label — fixed to each device for inventory tracking. Asset tags and serial numbers let finance and security teams match devices to invoices and wipe certificates.
Loaner Unit: A spare device provided while a primary device is being repaired, so the user can keep working. Whether a loaner is provided, and how quickly, should be written into the rental or AMC contract.
Company Buyback: When a vendor buys a company's used IT equipment, usually at the end of its life or at refresh time. Techvity buys back laptops, desktops, monitors, servers, networking equipment and other IT equipment from companies, with every drive wiped to NIST SP 800-88 first.