Rental charges

Rental charges are created automatically by Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations for all rental items on a rental order. These are used to invoice the customer but note that only realized charges can be invoiced. Realizing Rental charges can be done automatically at point of Invoice proposal creation. A charge line is created per period for each rental line for the planned duration of the order.

Rental charges for an order can be viewed by going to Rental management > Rental Orders > All Rental Orders >> Invoice tab > Rental action pane > Rental charges

 

Miscellaneous rental charges

To add extra charges (such as cleaning fees etc.) or give a credit easily against an invoice you can use the Miscellaneous rental charges functionality.

 

Creating Invoice Proposals

Invoice proposals can be created via the rental order or through a periodic routine. From the rental order it only creates an invoice proposal for that rental order, where the periodic routine will create invoice proposals for all rental orders selected e.g. for one customer.

Navigate to Rental management > Rental orders > All rental orders >> Invoice tab > Generate > Invoice proposals or go to Rental management > Periodic tasks > Invoices > Create invoice proposals

• Invoicing method: Choose either Both/Invoices/Credit notes
• Include transaction types
  • Hour: Select to include any hour transactions
  • Expense: Select to include any expense transactions
  • Item: Select to include Item transactions
  • Fee: Select to include Fee transactions
  • Fee-Subscription: Select to include Subscription fee transactions
  • On-Account: Select to include On-Account transactions
• Include sales order
  • Sales Order Line: Select if you want to include any Project sales order lines in the Rental Invoice proposal
  • Update Item Quantity: Select the stage of the Sales order process from which point the lines get included in the invoice proposal
• Project date
  • From date: Include transactions from project date
  • To date: Include transactions to project date
• Ledger date
  • Invoice date: Select the date the invoice will charge up to
• Use today: activate this slider to use today’s date
• Rental charges
  • Realize: To auto-realize the charges during proposal creation activate the slider.
• When using the periodic routine, expand the Records to include fast tab and click Filter - A new window will open
  • Enter your criteria in here, e.g. enter the customer account number if you want to invoice a single customer account. If you want to invoice all live rental order lines, then leave the selection criteria blank.
  • Click OK - The select form will now close.
• Click OK - The System will now generate the invoice proposals

When using the periodic routine the option exists to run it in the background as per standard Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations

Posting Invoice Proposals

Invoices can be posted either from the Rental order or via a Periodic routine. If you encounter an Invoice proposal that is incorrect and needs to be deleted, please make sure to use the Delete (including transactions) option that can be found on the top ribbon.

From Rental Order

Navigate to the relevant Rental order

• Open the Invoice Tab and click on Invoice Proposals under the Journals action pane a new window will open
• From in here you can view the created invoice proposal(s)
• From the top ribbon, select Post
• Activate the Print Invoice slider if you wish to print the invoice
• Click OK. The system will now post the invoice and print if you selected it.

From Periodic Routine

Navigate to Rental Management > Periodic Tasks > Invoices > Post Project Invoice Proposals

• Remove any invoice proposals you do not want to post
• Activate the Print Invoice slider if you wish to print the invoices
• Click OK or use the Batch functionality. The system will post and print the selected invoice proposals

 

Prepayments

This function allows the user to create a customer advance directly from the rental order on the rental order’s project.
On-account transactions jump directly from the rental order to the project on-account transactions.

Navigate to the Rental order ribbon > Invoice > Prepayments > Request a customer advance.

Prepayments can be deducted from the rental invoice. Such a deduction can split the initial on-account prepayment transaction allowing the user to use one prepayment over multiple rental invoicing periods.

The on-account transactions can be accessed via the Rental order ribbon > Invoice > Prepayments > On-account transactions.

        

Rental Sale

It's also possible to sell Rental objects, more information on this topic can be found here.

 

Customer Retention

The standard Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations Customer retention functionality can be used in combination with Rental Management. For this to work, some non-rental setup is needed.

Required setups

1. Setup number sequence for Customer payment retention term in Projects parameters.
2. Define a customer retention term e.g. withhold x% when y% of project is complete/deliverables met. Via Project > Setup > Retention.
3. Define Customer retention default GL/main account via General Ledger > Posting setup > Accounts for automatic transactions.
4. Ensure on the GL/main account the posting type (in the posting valuation section) is selected as customer payment retention (receivable).
5. Create a new project category (type fee) for customer retention. On the project section set customer payment retention to yes and select a billable/chargeable line property.

Using Payment retention

The following describes how to use the Payment retention functionality within Rental Management.

Customers

Rental management requires their customer accounts to have a rental site project. See rental customers in the online help.

Adjusting the project contract ID

When the rental address creates the rental site project, manually adjust the (also created) project contract ID. The project contract can be accessed from either the (created) project or via the rental section of the customer account.

Adding the retention term

Add the customer payment retention term to the funding source section on the project contract ID.

On the rental order

When a new rental order is created with customer account that uses the payment retention setup, the system should have a (sub) project ID that is linked to the project contract ID that has the customer payment retention term setup.

Invoicing the rental order

When the rental invoice proposal is generated, the retention percentage, customer retained amount and amount less retention will all be filled/calculated.

When the proposal is posted and the invoice is generated, the retention amount is posted on a separate ledger account with posting type ‘customer payment retention receivable’.

 

Invoice consolidation

Rental management has functionality for consolidated invoices via the generate rental invoice proposal function. In the regular invoicing functionality the (project) invoice proposals are always split per rental order. Note that: the system splits per currency code as well, but one rental order can only have one currency code.

Consolidated invoicing allows for combining rental orders per project id, rental site project, and project contract on one invoice (proposal).

Configuration key

In the license configuration the configuration key ‘consolidated invoicing’ needs to be activated to be able to use this functionality. Note: please ask the system administrator about this as it requires administrators rights to change configuration key settings.

Parameter setup

A default consolidation level can be set in the rental parameters via: 

Rental management > Setup > Rental parameters >> Accounts receivable > Invoice consolidation level 

There are four possible options:

Default consolidation level	Description
Rental order	Gives the same result as the invoicing-job in the regular functionality. This is also the default value.

Project-id	Generates invoices per (sub)project.  If "create sub project" on the rental-order-header is selected, this generates invoices on a level that equals "order level".  In other words:  invoices are generated per project, not per rental site address-project.
Rental site project	Generates invoices per rental site address-project, regardless of whether "create sub project" on a rental order header is selected,  a single invoice per rental site address project will be created.
Project contract	All project-transactions (project level is irrelevant) will be grouped per project-contract ID.

When saving a change for the default consolidation level Parameters, the user is prompted with the following options:
• Ok – Updates all customers with provided default value except Customers marked to be overridden.
• Cancel – No changes applied to existing Customers, only default Rental Parameter is changed. 

 

Update operational companies

Once you have set the parameter and ran the update function that is triggered there, you need to run the ‘update site-project values’ job.

Navigate to: Rental management > Periodic tasks > Update site-project values

This job updates the rental site-project ID. This field is hidden in the background but is used for this type of invoicing. Once the job is run, a message appears reporting the number of records that were updated in the projects table.

 

Customers

The job that runs when the rental parameter is set, fills all customers with a default. When a specific customers needs a different consolidated invoicing level, this needs to be done on customer level.

To start editing/overriding the invoice consolidation level for a customer, first set the Override consolidation level field to “Yes”. This will prevent applying any consolidation level default value pushed from Rental Parameters to the customer. Next, select the consolidation level.

Selecting “No” for Override consolidation level and saving will automatically change the Consolidation level in the customer to default value set at Rental Parameters.

 

Invoice generation methods

Method/Location	Applied Consolidation Level
On the Rental order	Rental order (overrides consolidation level set at customer). This is the default value.

On a Project	Project (overrides consolidation level set at Customer)
Via the Customer	The customer’s consolidation level is used.

Using the Periodic (batch) job	Filters the customers based on the selection made. Note: it only creates invoice proposals for the selected consolidation level. Meaning: if a company uses all the options, this job will need to be started with every single option, one-by-one.
Rental charges overview	Generate a single invoice proposal for selected charges at Project Contract level (overriding any Consolidation level set at Customer)

 

Invoice proposals periodic job

Navigate to: Rental management > Periodic tasks > Invoicing > Generate rental invoice proposals

This rental invoice proposal generation periodic (batch) job operates based on the consolidation level set at the Customer level.
The invoice consolidation level parameter selected here is used as a filter to identify the customers with the same level.

If an invoice consolidation level selection in the periodic job differs from the customer(s), that/those customer(s) will not be considered (skipped) for invoice proposal generation when using this function.

Note: this function only creates invoice proposals for the selected consolidation level. Meaning: if a company uses all the options, this job will need to be started with every single option, one-by-one.