Cancel a booking

Introduction

You cancel a booking with Cancel in the top bar of the booking screen. A small popup offers Cancel with email and Cancel without email, and each asks you to confirm. When it is done, the booking's Invoice summary opens, showing what the customer is still charged. Everything except a cancellation charge drops off the total.

Why you would use it:

• a customer rings to call the rental off
• the same booking was made twice by mistake
• a customer moves to another company and you want the car free for others
• a batch of old unconfirmed bookings needs clearing out in one go
• a customer cancels late, and your cancellation fee should apply

Every way a booking stops going ahead:

Use Cancel on the booking when a customer calls a single booking off; use the list's Cancel only to clear out many bookings nobody needs any more.

How to use

Configuration

Two things set up by an administrator decide what a cancellation costs and says:

• Cancellation fee bands. Open the price list, as described in Price lists, and click the Cancellation fees tile. Click New Cancellation rule, fill in Hours from, Hours to and Cancellation fee percentage, and click Save. The hours are whole numbers counted back from the contract pickup time; a new rule starts at 1, 2 and 100. Edit or delete a rule with the icons on its row. Bands only charge a booking that carries the extra your administrator set up as the cancellation fee — an extra whose special type is Cancellation.
• The email. Cancel with email uses the Booking cancellation template, which must be switched on under the email area's Bookings list. With no active template, nothing is sent and no message tells you.

Before you start: any staff account can cancel a booking from its own screen. The Cancel button there only shows while the booking is a draft, unconfirmed, confirmed or a quote. The Cancel button on the Bookings list is not shown on the most limited staff accounts.

Using the cancel buttons

Open the booking first: from the main menu open Bookings and click the booking's row. The booking screen has no Save button. Its Auto checkout switch is saved the moment you flip it, so leave it alone here; cancelling saves through its own buttons.

Cancel one booking

1. Click Cancel in the top bar.
2. Click Cancel with email or Cancel without email.
3. Confirm. The first asks Are you sure (this will also send an email to the customer)?, the second Are you sure (no notification is sent to the customer)?. Click Proceed; Cancel in that question leaves the booking alone.
4. If the booking has been invoiced, Please note that their are still invoices in booking. appears. Close it — the booking is cancelled anyway.

When it worked, the Invoice summary opens. It shows what is left to charge. A cancellation fee appears there as a single line carrying the name of the cancellation-fee extra, in place of the rental rate, insurance and extras that were on the booking before.

Cancel several bookings at once

1. From the main menu open Bookings and tick the bookings to cancel.
2. Click Cancel above the list. It asks Are you sure? Note: only qualifying bookins will be cancelled (e.g. draft, unconfirmed, confirmed).; click Proceed.

Ticked quotes are cancelled too. Bookings with any other status are skipped without a message, and no email goes to anyone. This route does not warn about invoices either: an invoiced booking in the selection is cancelled without a word. Each cancelled booking is still priced the same way as a single cancellation, so cancellation fees apply, and its key box access is withdrawn.

To undo a cancellation, open the booking and press Activate. It becomes Unconfirmed and its price is worked out again.

Key details

What is still charged. Cancelling works the total out again from scratch, keeping only a cancellation charge:

The rental rate, insurance, other extras and discounts all drop off.

How the hours are counted. From the moment you cancel to the contract pickup time, including part hours; once pickup time has passed, it counts as 0. A band applies when the hours are at least Hours from and at most Hours to. Take a booking worth €400 excluding VAT, with pickup on Friday at 10:00, and two bands: 0 to 24 hours at 100%, and 25 to 72 hours at 50%.

Cancelling a quote. The quote screen has the same Cancel button and the same popup, and the quote becomes a cancelled booking. That is different from Deny quote, which marks the customer's answer but leaves the booking in place. Cancel with email sends the Booking cancellation email even for a quote, so choose Cancel without email if the customer never agreed to anything.

What else happens. The vehicle is free for other bookings straight away, and the booking no longer shows on the Scheduler. Key box access is withdrawn — see Key box handover for when that fails. Invoices already issued are not changed. The cancellation email is sent once and not tried again if sending fails.

What to do next. Charge the fee from the Invoice summary with Create invoice. If the booking was already invoiced, the old invoice still stands and needs crediting.

Q&A

We have cancellation fees, but the customer was charged nothing. Why? Either the booking does not carry the cancellation-fee extra, or the hours to pickup fell between two bands — 24.5 hours matches neither 0–24 nor 25–72. Ask your administrator to add the extra to the vehicle class and to make the bands meet, for example 0–24 and 24–72.

Why was the cancellation fee charged twice? Two bands matched. That happens when bands overlap, or at the exact hour where two bands share an end, such as 24 in 0–24 and 24–72. Ask your administrator to remove the overlap.

It said "Please note that their are still invoices in booking." Was the booking cancelled? Yes. The message is only a warning. The invoice itself stays as it was; it has to be credited separately.

Why did Cancel on the Bookings list leave some bookings alone? Only drafts, unconfirmed and confirmed bookings and quotes are cancelled. A booking that has been picked up or returned is skipped: take the vehicle back instead, as in Take the vehicle back.

Why is there no Cancel button on the booking? The booking is picked up, returned, has a return notification, is already cancelled, timed out, or a no-show. For a customer who never came, set No Show with Status, as in Booking records and history.

What does a no-show cost the customer? Setting No Show changes nothing on the total by itself. The next time the price is worked out again — for example when you click Invoice — the booking is priced like a cancellation, with the hours counted as 0. A band starting at 0 then charges the whole booking total, not its percentage; with no band starting at 0, nothing is charged.

Why did the customer get no cancellation email? You chose Cancel without email, the Booking cancellation template is not switched on, or sending failed and was not retried. Ask your administrator to check the template under the email area's Bookings list, and let the customer know yourself.

I cancelled the wrong booking. How do I get it back? Open it and press Activate. It returns as Unconfirmed with its price worked out again; confirm it to send the customer a new confirmation, as in Confirm a booking.

Related pages:

• Take the vehicle back — clearing overdue bookings nobody collected
• Booking records and history — Status, and recording a no-show
• Key box handover — checking that access was withdrawn
• Price lists — where the Cancellation fees tile lives