Product documentation
Usage charges are a feature that allow to charge additional, non-periodical fees and hours to a customer via the rental order. This could, for example, be an installation fee or the hours of a driver of the equipment you rented out. The rental order has a separate invoicing section for usage charges. It also uses a separate planning section to setup the usage lines.
Usage charges can be added manually to a rental order, or they can be suggested by using the usage provision setup. This provision setup is used to automatically add usage lines to a rental order and can be done on rental item level or serial-number level.
Usage charges use a price agreement to determine its sales price. Price agreements can have multiple levels on top of each other. For example: a base agreement, a customer agreement on top of it and a project agreement or rental order agreement on top of both.
Rental Management - HSO > Setup > Usage > Rental usage types
Rental usage types can be setup with either transaction type fee or hour.
A project category and a line property need to be selected for invoicing purposes.
The text for the usage charges on the project invoice can be adjusted using the transaction text functionality. If for example %6 and %7 are added to the text line, that will show the quantity and sales price in the description fields of the rental order and the invoice (proposal).
Default financial dimensions can be selected per rental usage type. This is optional.
Resource requirements can be added to the rental usage type. This is also optional.
Usage charges use a price agreement to determine its sales price. Price agreements can have multiple levels on top of each other. They can be setup per customer, per project, or per rental order. The rental parameters have a default price agreement (setup in the prices section).
Navigate to Rental Management - HSO > Price agreements > Price agreements
New Price agreements can be created via the '+New' button at the top of the ribbon.
The Price agreement tab of the ribbon offers the following options:
| Price agreement | |
| MAINTAIN |
| Update status | A price agreement can have 3 different statuses: • Open: When created its status will be ‘open’. This is the designer mode in which changes can be made to the agreement. • Active: Once activated its status will be set to ‘active’. Once activated lines cannot be added or deleted, and prices can not be changed. The price agreement needs to be set back to status ‘open’ for any changes to be made. • Cancelled: A price agreement can manually be cancelled. |
| Base price agreements | Allows for setting up a structure underneath the agreement being worker on. This way prices can be inherited from agreements that have already been set up and form the base of the (new) agreement. Lines added to the agreement overrule those of a base agreement if they overlap. |
| View hierarchy | Shows a more graphical representation of the price agreement (and any underlying base price agreements). |
| SET UP | |
| Add to...customer | Adds the price agreement to the selected customer. If a price agreement is already assigned, the copy form will show that as information. |
| Add to...project | Adds the price agreement to the selected project. If a price agreement is already assigned, the copy form will show that as information. |
| COPY FROM | |
| Copy price agreement |
Allows the user to fill a new price agreement with data from another price agreement. The source needs to be selected and then the following options are available: - Copy all levels (or not) - Delete the source agreement (or not). - Use a period selection to make all copied lines valid for that period. (Meaning that it fills all new lines with the selected start-date/time and end-date/time. |
| SELECT | |
| Rental usage types | Provides the option to select lines based on Rental usage type(s) |
| Rental objects | Provides the option to select lines based on Rental object(s) |
The price agreement general section holds the price agreement Name, Description, Status, Currency code and a Default period. The default period has a Start date time and End date time which will be used as defaults for the lines when filled in.
The lines section of the price agreement holds the following fields:
| Field | Description |
| Rental object | Select a Rental object (either a parent or a specific (serialized) rental object to limit the pricing to that rental object, for a detailed price agreement. Optional, can be left blank. |
| Rental usage type | Select the Rental usage type from the dropdown to specify which Rental usage type the price or discount is applicable to. |
| Start date time | Set a start date time (and End date time) to limit the setup to a specific time period. Default from the header will be copied to the lines, but can be overruled. Optional, can be left blank. |
| End date time | Set an End date time (and Start date time) to limit the setup to a specific time period. Default from the header will be copied to the lines, but can be overruled. Optional, can be left blank. |
| Type | Select if the line setup is for a price or a discount. |
| Price | Set the price or discount % |
| Site | Select a site to make the agreement specific to a certain area. Optional, can be left blank. If selected, it will overule blank (Base) price agreements. |
| Warehouse | Select a warehouse to make the agreement specific to a certain area. Optional, can be left blank. If selected, it will overule blank (Base) price agreements and site settings. |
| From price agreement | Shows information of the source when hierarchy is used. |
With this feature any rental usage type (and thus charge) can be manually added to a rental invoice.
From the Rental order ribbon, navigate via Invoice > Rental > Usage charges
After adding a new record to the Rental order usage overview, fill out the following fields:
| Field | Description |
| GENERAL |
| Rental usage type | Select the Rental usage type |
| Description | Will be defaulted from the Rental usage type, but can be adjusted. |
| Project ID | Will be defaulted from the Rental usage type. |
| Category | Will be defaulted from the Rental usage type, but can be adjusted. |
| Line property | Will be defaulted from the Rental usage type, but can be adjusted. |
| Activity number | Optional, select if applicable. |
| Rental object |
Select a Rental object if applicable. This could be important for finding the right price (in cases where the rental object number was used as a filter on the price agreement), but the field can be left blank. |
| Rental transaction date | Defaults to today's date, but can be adjusted. |
| FINANCIALS | |
| Quantity | Set the quantity. |
| Currency | The currency is defaulted but can be changed if needed. |
| Sales price | Sales price will be filled via the Pice agreement or can be entered manually. |
| Discount percent | Enter a discount percentage if applicable. |
| Amount | Shows the calculated amount result (Quantity * Amount - discount%). |
| Item sales tax group | Will be defaulted but can be adjusted if needed. |
| Sales tax group | Will be defaulted but can be adjusted if needed. |
| FINANCIAL DIMENSIONS | |
| Default financial dimensions | Standard functionality, use if applicable. |
Via related information in the ribbon, the rental object, linked project transactions and the posted project transactions can be accessed. The last two are only showing results when the usage line has been realized.
Note that it is possible to realize the usage line(s) from this form, but the process can also be skipped here: the creation of the Invoice proposal also realizes the line(s) during its process. Realizing the lines creates a posted project transaction.
The usage provisions functionality is used to automatically add usage charge lines to a rental order. They can be setup on the rental objects. This can either be at a generic level or on a specific serial number level.
Navigate to Rental Management - HSO > Rental objects > Rental objects > Setup > Usage provisions.
Usage provisions can be setup per resource type. Each type using a different link/resource filter on the rental order.
The following types are available:
We advise to use the facility type for generic fees.
Select a rental usage type for each provision line. For type fee, the fields quantity and multiplier are active, for type hours they are not. The multiplier can either be used as a fixed quantity or for multiplying by line quantity. Meaning the sales price gets either multiplied by the quantity alone or the quantity the line quantity of the linked rental line.
If the usage type is hours and the selected rental usage type uses the scheduler (schedulable = yes) then the resource requirement is automatically filled. The requirement is updated to the correct resource type once the usage provision is saved.
When a usage provision is setup on serial-number level, the parent usage provision section shows the usage provision that where setup at parent level. Meaning: they are also active for this serial-number.
Rental Management has functionality to define default resources per rental object. Setting these up speeds up the rental order usage process. For default resources to be setup, usage provisions first need to be setup. That can either be done on parent rental object level or on child/serial-number rental object level.
Navigate to Rental Management - HSO > Rental objects > Rental objects > Setup > Default resources
Usage provisions with type machine or human resource have added lines in the opened form. Select the default resource (from the standard resource table that is setup in the organisation administration module). The drop-down is filtered on resource type.
When a rental order is created for a (serial-numbered) rental item, all usage provisions are added to the rental order usage section and the default resources are filled in the resource fields on those lines.
The usage charges section on the rental order is regarded as the charges planning section. Lines in this section need to be processed to make them into usage charges that can actually be invoiced. This process is called finalizing of the usage line:
From the Rental order ribbon, navigate via Invoice > Generate > Generate rental invoice proposal
Please note that the project functionality only allows a quantity of 1 for fees. We suggest to use the description to show quantity and sales price information: the text used on the project invoice can be adjusted using the transaction text functionality. For example, if you add %6 and %7 to the text line, it will show quantity and sales price in the description fields of the rental order and invoice (proposal).
Hour usage lines can also be processed using the scheduling overview.
From the Rental order ribbon, navigate via Manage > Availability > Scheduling overview
On the scheduling overview: select the rental usage line then drag and drop it to the resource. When dropped on the resource the rental order information is shown on the scheduling board.
After scheduling the status is changed from created to scheduled and the resource is filled.
Rental Management has functionality to automatically create a machine resource every time inventory is added for an item. This happens when it is purchased, a sales-to-rental journal is posted, or when a positive rental inventory adjustment is done. The resource field on the general tab of the rental object is automatically filled with the created resource number. When a rental order is created for such a rental item, the scheduler is automatically updated. The rental order and (machine) resource are linked there.
Navigate to Product information management > Products > Released products
Open a released product to set up automatic resource creation on the Rental fast tab:
Set up a Number sequence under the Rental parameters for Rental object work centre. This seauence is used to create machine resources for every rental object.