Consolidated Invoicing

Normally, OnRent raises invoices against individual orders.

For customers with several rental, sale or works orders running at the same time, this can result in a large number of separate invoices.

Consolidated Invoicing lets you group eligible orders together during an Invoice Run and create one combined invoice instead.

This gives your customer a single, clear bill while still keeping a clear link back to the individual orders that contributed charges to it.

It's particularly useful for B2B customers who prefer one periodic invoice covering several contracts, sites or orders rather than receiving a separate invoice for each one.

Consolidated Invoicing is available on Premier tier and above.

Before using it, there are a few things you'll need to check:

By default, Consolidated Invoicing isn't available for supplier accounts.

There are three areas you may need to configure:

Open your Company record and enable Enable Consolidation.

This is the main switch for Consolidated Invoicing and makes the feature available to customer accounts within that company.

Once customer accounts are using consolidation, you won't be able to turn this setting off until consolidation has first been disabled on those accounts.

If you try to disable it while accounts are still using Consolidated Invoicing, OnRent will let you know what needs to be changed first.

Once Consolidation has been enabled for the company, a Consolidation Groups section becomes available on customer accounts.

From here:

The Consolidation Method determines how that customer's orders will be grouped together when invoices are generated.

Before enabling Consolidation, make sure Can Take Payments is set to No.

You also won't be able to switch Can Take Payments back on while Consolidation remains enabled on the account.

The Consolidation Method determines what OnRent uses to decide which orders should appear together on the same invoice.

You can group orders using:

Regardless of the method selected, orders must always belong to the same Account and Depot before they can be consolidated together.

Orders belonging to different customer accounts can never be combined.

Orders from different depots will also always produce separate invoices.

The Consolidation Code method lets you assign a code to an order and group matching orders together.

To create your codes, go to:

System Settings > Consolidation Codes

Each Consolidation Code contains:

Once created, Consolidation Codes can be assigned to rental orders, works orders and purchase orders.

When a consolidated invoice is created using a Consolidation Code, the invoice takes its Name and Description from the code.

The Name and Description entered on the Invoice Run relate to the overall invoice batch rather than the individual invoices.

Orders without a Consolidation Code are grouped together into their own "no code" group.

The Place method uses the order's Delivery Place to decide which orders should be grouped together.

Orders for the same Account and Depot with the same Delivery Place can be consolidated onto the same invoice.

A Delivery Place must be entered before the order can be invoiced.

If Consolidation is enabled on the order but no Delivery Place has been provided, the Invoice Run will report an error and the order won't be invoiced until the missing information has been added.

The Customer Reference method uses the Customer Reference entered against the order.

Orders for the same Account and Depot with matching references can then be grouped together.

Customer References aren't case-sensitive.

For example:

ABC123

and

abc123

are treated as the same Customer Reference for consolidation.

When you create an order for a customer using Consolidated Invoicing, the account's Consolidation Method is copied onto the order automatically.

The order is also set to consolidate by default.

If you don't want a particular order to be included in a consolidated invoice, you can turn Consolidation off against that individual order.

What you need to enter depends on the Consolidation Method being used.

Where the customer uses the Consolidation Code method, a Consolidation Code field becomes available on the order.

Select the code you want the order to be grouped under.

Orders with the same Account, Depot and Consolidation Code can then be combined onto one invoice.

Where the customer uses the Place method, make sure the correct Delivery Place has been entered against the order.

Orders with matching Account, Depot and Delivery Place details can then be grouped together.

Where the customer uses the Customer Reference method, enter the required Customer Reference against the order.

Orders with matching Account, Depot and Customer Reference details can then be grouped together.

You don't need to run a separate process to create consolidated invoices.

They're generated automatically through the normal Invoice Run.

Go to:

Finance > Invoices > Invoice Run

You'll need the Perform Invoice Run permission.

Complete the Invoice Run as normal, including:

Once confirmed, the Invoice Run is processed in the background.

As invoices are generated, OnRent checks each eligible customer account.

Orders belonging to customers using Consolidated Invoicing are grouped according to their configured Consolidation Method.

Other customers continue to receive normal individual invoices.

When processing has finished, you'll be notified and can open the resulting Invoice Batch to review the invoices.

Yes.

The same Invoice Run can contain both consolidated and standard invoices.

Customers using Consolidated Invoicing are grouped automatically, while other customers continue to receive invoices using the normal process.

Invoice Run Codes and Consolidation Codes sound similar, but they perform two different jobs.

Invoice Run Codes determine which orders should be picked up by the Invoice Run.

Consolidation Codes determine how eligible orders should be grouped together once invoices start being created.

The two can be used together.

For example, an Invoice Run Code could determine which orders should be included in this month's run, while a Consolidation Code determines how those orders are divided between the customer's consolidated invoices.

Consolidated invoices are clearly identified within OnRent.

From the Invoices screen, you can filter by Consolidated to find them.

When you open one, a Consolidated badge is displayed against the invoice.

The invoice lines also include an Order column showing which order each line originated from.

You can use this to open the original order directly.

Unlike a normal invoice, a consolidated invoice doesn't have one single parent order.

Instead, it's linked to all of the orders that contributed charges to it.

On printed and emailed consolidated invoices, the invoice lines are grouped by their original order.

An:

Order: {order number}

heading is displayed above each group.

This gives the customer a clear breakdown of where each charge came from while still providing everything on one invoice.

Check the grouping information against the orders.

Orders may remain separate because:

The Account and Depot must always match before the selected Consolidation Method is considered.

When using the Place method, an order with Consolidation enabled must also have a Delivery Place.

If it doesn't, OnRent won't simply create a separate invoice for it. The Invoice Run will report an error until the Delivery Place has been provided.

You can switch Consolidation off against the individual order.

Alternatively, you can give the order a different grouping value.

Depending on the method being used, this could mean assigning:

Remember that orders belonging to different depots will always be invoiced separately.

Use Invoice Run Codes.

Assign the order an Invoice Run Code that isn't selected when carrying out the Invoice Run.

This prevents the order from being included in the run completely, rather than simply stopping it from being consolidated.

No.

Quick Credit isn't currently supported against consolidated invoices.

If you try to use it, OnRent will prevent the action and let you know that it isn't supported.

Yes, but there are some safeguards.

You can't disable Consolidation against a customer account while that account still has invoices flagged as consolidated.

You also can't disable the company-level Enable Consolidation setting while customer accounts within that company still have Consolidation enabled.

Disable Consolidation against the relevant customer accounts first before switching off the company setting.

Check that:

Consolidated Invoicing is available to customers on Premier tier and above.