Rental charges determine how you charge for your rental equipment. OnRent comes with some rental rate definitions set up out-of-the-box, but you can set up additional ways of charging in System Setup > Accounting and Charging > Rate Definitions.
When you create a rate definition, you need to consider the specific rate details you require, in particular:
The periods that you want to set rental charges for in the initial charging period - 1 Day, 2 Day, Week, Month, and so on
How charges subsequent to the initial period will be charged for, and when the transition to the subsequent charges takes place
Whether the rate type is for a 5 day week or a 7 day week
If required, a minimum hire period
Whether the rate type is based on a calendar day or the 24 hour clock
This guide is tailored to provide you with everything you need to know to set up your own rental charging rates.
Lets Begin!
To add a new rate definition, click the blue Add Rate Definition option, you will then get to the following screen:
Firstly, you need to give your rate type a Name, if it is product or account specific, make sure you add that in the name to identify it quickly when assigning products a specific rate type.
You can also add in a Description, to help describe the desired state from this rental rate type.
If you require this to be a Company specific rate type, a drop down list will provide you with all of your companies to select from.
Rate Engine
You now need to select the rate engine, we have three types of rate engines in OnRent, here is a breakdown:
Daily Rate:
The Daily Rate Engine provides you with a simple daily charge, this will allow you to apply a daily charge to rental items. For example, 1 x product at £10 for 5 days would be £50, since £10 x 5 = £50.
You can select whether to use Amount or Percentage as an option. For example, day one for Percentage would be 100%. This could be used if you charge more for the first day rental and subsequent days are cheaper e.g. 1st Day Rent is £100 (100%) and the subsequent days are £80 (80%). You can also apply this percentage to weekend if you charge a different rate for the weekend.
If you select Amount, this will apply the specific prices you require when you apply the rate definition to a product. For example, Day is £65 subsequent days are £50 and weekend is £40. The invoice charge will be based on the above amounts and won't be based on a % of the day charge.
Note: You can select the subsequent/weekend options to be inactive and the daily charging will then simply repeat the day rate and multiply it by rental days per week or number of chargeable days on the order period.
Weekly Rate:
The Weekly Rate Engine allows you to select the number of days that you want to charge for in a week or whether you want a week only rate.
For example, a rate type that has a 1 day charge, a 2 day charge, a 3 day charge, a 4 day charge, and a weekly charge. You would use a 5 day week, so there will be no charge for weekends (as below).
If the hire period runs into a second week, you can create a charge for subsequent days or subsequent weeks. If you wanted to just charge for a week and not days, you could just keep them all inactive and select subsequent weeks at 100% too.
You can fill in your requirements in the rate type, see below:
If you select Percentage, set the day you require to be Active and enter a percentage.
If you select Amount, then you just need to set the days required to Active. You can type in the actual amounts against the product, product stock level or order.
Monthly Rate:
The Monthly Rate Engine allows you to charge for a rental item monthly and does not consider chargeable days, it regards the months as 'calendar months' and will charge the same rental charge every month. You simply select the Rate Definition and enter the monthly price against a stock level or on an order and it will calculate the monthly fee for you on the invoice.
Use Pro Rata
You can enable Use Pro Rata on monthly charging. This will consider the start date and end date from the on Rent and off Rent, it will still count whole months however if the charging period does not equate to a month charge it will pro rate the remaining period based on days.
Quick Tip: Take a look at the default system rate definitions to get an idea of how to set up your own!
Rate Type
Percentage - This uses the charging engine to calculate rental periods based on a % provided in the rate type.
Amount - This uses the specific amount provided against the order, product or product stock level to calculate rental periods.
Active
If you mark the Rate Definition as inactive, it will be hidden from selection screens on the drop down list of Rate Definitions.
Calendar Day
Calendar Days - The number of days to charge is based on whole days; the start & end times aren’t taken into consideration
24 hour clock - The number of days to charge is based on 24 hour periods; the start & end times are used to calculate rental charging
Rental days per week
Use this option to determine whether weekend days are considered chargeable. If you do not charge for Saturday or Sunday set this to 5, otherwise leave at the default value of 7. You can select the whole value number you require in this field.
Minimum Rental Period
The minimum number of days/weeks/months to charge, for example if this was set to 2 on a Daily Rate and an Order started and finished on the same day, it will charge for 2 days as a minimum.
This is dependent on which Rate Engine you select;
If you select Daily Rate - It will give you the option of Minimum Days
If you select Weekly Rate - It will give you the option of Minimum Weeks
If you select Monthly Rate - It will give you the option of Minimum Months
Important: The option "Apply Minimum Rental Period" as shown above ensures that the minimum rental period is billed on the first invoice. This means you can improve cash flow, but the customer may dispute being charged for rental charges in advance. If its turned off, then the minimum hire period is invoiced on the following invoice run, but the minimum rental period must actually have elapsed in terms of time for this to occur.
For example if your minimum rental period is one week, and the option is switched off, the charge will be created after one week has elapsed when you do your invoice run.
If its switched on, and two days have elapsed before you do your invoice run, the whole week will be charged.
Leeway Minutes
This option is only used when the day type is set to 24 hour clock. It adds a grace period to the end of a rental.
For example, if a rental that starts January 2nd at 11am and finishes on January 3rd at 11:30am then the total rental period is 1 day and 30 minutes. This is considered two days of rental charge. However, if you set 60 leeway minutes then the same period would be considered 1 day of rental charge as 30 minutes is less than the leeway minutes.
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