Introduction
The Financial tab is the first tab on the customer form, and it is the one that changes what people are charged. Nothing on it looks dramatic — a few boxes and a column of yes/no switches — but a booking made for this customer reads these settings while it prices itself, and an invoice reads them again when it works out a due date.
Top to bottom the tab starts with the bank details: Iban, BIC Helper, BIC and VAT number. Below them come Price list, Credit limit and Pament terms, then three value-added tax (VAT) switches. Then the deposit and discount block: on account?, custom deposit?, Deposit, custom excess?, Excess Amount and Default discount. Three lease boxes close the tab. Five of these you can only change with a company administrator account; an ordinary staff account sees them greyed out.
You will use this when:
- a business customer negotiates thirty days to pay instead of fourteen
- a regular corporate account should never be asked for a deposit
- a customer has a standing discount on the daily rate
- a foreign business must be invoiced without VAT
- you need to check what a customer is allowed to run up before somebody stops them
Words used on this screen
Skim this once before you start; the switches are easy to confuse with one another:
| The screen says | It means |
|---|---|
| Pament terms | How long after invoicing this customer has to pay. The screen spells it this way |
| on account? | This customer is billed later and never asked for a deposit |
| custom deposit? | Use this customer's own deposit instead of the vehicle class's |
| Excess Amount | The most the customer pays towards damage — sometimes called the excess or deductible |
| Default discount | A standing percentage off this customer's daily rate |
| VAT reverse charge | The customer accounts for the VAT themselves, so your invoice shows none |
| VAT fiscal unity | This customer is part of a group treated as one taxpayer |
| BIC Helper | A switch between typing a bank code and picking one from your own list |
How to use
Configuration
Two of these settings have a company-wide default, and the screen that holds them can also push that default onto every customer you already have.
From the main menu open Settings, then click Financial. The screen is headed Financial settings.
- Set Default payment terms individual and Default payment terms company. New customers pick up whichever matches — a business gets the company value, a person gets the individual one.
- Set Default credit limit and Default credit limit on account. New customers get the first of the two. Both refuse a negative number with Should be positive.
- Press Save.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Default payment terms individual | 14 Days | The payment terms a new private customer is created with |
| Default payment terms company | 14 Days | The same for a new business customer |
| Default credit limit | 20000 | The credit limit a new customer is created with |
| Default credit limit on account | 20000 | Used only by the Override all on account button below |
Beside those four boxes sit four buttons that do something different and much larger. They are Update all individual payment terms, Update all company payment terms, Override all default and Override all on account. Each one asks Are you sure? with Proceed and Cancel, and each then overwrites that value on every customer already in your system. Override all default rewrites the credit limit of every customer who is not on account, and Override all on account rewrites it for every customer who is. Any figure a colleague set by hand on an individual customer is gone, with no list of what changed. Use them when you are deliberately resetting the whole book, never to fix one customer.
Before you start: editing the Financial tab needs a normal staff account, but Credit limit, on account?, custom deposit?, Deposit and Default discount can only be changed with a company administrator account — staff see them greyed out, and Credit limit does not appear for them at all. Financial settings is company administrator only as well.
Using the Financial tab
From the main menu open Customers, then click the Customers tile. Find the person on the list headed Customer, click their row, and stay on the Financial tab, which is already open.
- Type the Iban. A warning Iban not valid appears under the box as you type if it is wrong, and the customer form refuses to finish saving with IBAN is invalid.
- Fill in the bank code. Leave BIC Helper on no and type it into BIC; set it to yes instead and a Most used BICs picker replaces the box, listing the codes your company has saved. Bad codes are flagged as BIC not valid.
- Type the VAT number for a business. A wrong one shows VAT Not valid.
- Set Pament terms — Immediately, 7 Days, 14 Days or 30 Days.
- Check Credit limit. It is a figure to watch, not a barrier — see below.
- Set the VAT switches. VAT reverse charge for a business that accounts for its own VAT, and VAT reverse charge ignore thirty days underneath it, which only appears once the first is on. VAT fiscal unity is separate and always applies.
- Set the deposit and discount block. on account? removes the deposit altogether; custom deposit? reveals Deposit for this customer's own figure; custom excess? reveals Excess Amount; Default discount takes a whole-number percentage.
- For a lease customer, set Custom lease billing terms to yes and then Lease billing basis and Lease billing day.
- Press Save at the top right of the customer form.
Skim the table below once; you will come back to particular rows as they come up:
| Field | Default | What it does | What it will accept |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pament terms | 14 Days | Sets the invoice due date: 0, 7, 14 or 30 days after the invoice | One of the four values |
| Credit limit | 20000 | Compared against what the customer owes, to raise a warning | A positive amount, decimals allowed |
| on account? | no | Sets the deposit on this customer's bookings to nothing | Yes or no |
| custom deposit? | no | Uses Deposit instead of the vehicle class's own figure | Yes or no |
| Deposit | 0 | The deposit taken on this customer's bookings | Whole amounts only |
| custom excess? | no | Uses Excess Amount instead of the insurance's own figure | Yes or no |
| Excess Amount | 0 | The most this customer pays towards damage | Whole amounts only |
| Default discount | 0 | A percentage off the daily rate, and nothing else | Whole numbers, so 10 means ten per cent |
| Lease billing day | 1 | Which day of the month a lease is billed on | A whole number; the screen wants Should be > 0 and < 31 |
A worked example, because the discount is narrower than it looks. A customer with Default discount set to 10 books a van for three days. The daily rate is €80, so the base lines come to €240 and a discount line of €24 appears against them — ten per cent of €80, three times over. The insurance at €15 a day is untouched, and so is every other extra, so the customer pays €216 plus €45, not ten per cent off the whole €285.
Key details
The credit limit stops nothing. Nothing in the app refuses a booking, an invoice or a handover because a customer is over their limit. All it does is put a Credit limit exceeded strip at the top of their customer form, with a View button through to what they owe. Somebody has to look.
On account beats every other deposit rule. When on account? is yes the deposit on this customer's bookings is set to nothing, whatever custom deposit? or the vehicle class says. With it off, custom deposit? decides between this customer's Deposit and the vehicle class's own figure.
Reverse charge needs more than thirty days. With VAT reverse charge on, the invoice drops the VAT only when the rental runs longer than thirty days, or is a lease. A thirty-day rental is charged VAT as normal; make it thirty-one days and it is not. Turn on VAT reverse charge ignore thirty days and the length stops mattering — every rental for that customer is then reverse-charged.
The standing discount wins over a promotion code. On the daily rate, a customer with a Default discount above zero gets that percentage and any promotion code's own reduction on the base rate is ignored. Set it back to 0 for the code to take effect again.
Changing these settings does not rewrite invoices already sent. An invoice keeps the due date and the amounts it was made with. Bookings behave differently. A booking that has not been invoiced re-reads the deposit, the excess and the discount every time its price is worked out, so a change here does show up on it. The exception is a booking where somebody typed a deposit by hand, which stops the customer's figure being used at all.
What to do next: if you changed anything in the deposit or discount block, open one of the customer's uninvoiced bookings and check the totals before telling them a price. For what the customer currently owes, use the View button on the Credit limit exceeded strip.
Q&A
Why is a customer still being asked for a deposit after I set one? custom deposit? has to be yes before Deposit is used at all — the box appears only when it is, and a figure typed there while the switch is off is ignored. Check the switch, then reopen an uninvoiced booking so the price is worked out again.
Why is VAT still on the invoice for a reverse-charge customer? The rental is thirty days or shorter. Reverse charge only applies above thirty days, or on a lease. If this customer should never be charged VAT regardless of length, turn on VAT reverse charge ignore thirty days underneath the first switch.
Why did a promotion code do nothing for this customer? They have a Default discount above zero, which takes the daily rate and leaves nothing for the code to reduce there. Set Default discount to 0 if the code should apply instead.
Why did every customer's credit limit change overnight? Somebody pressed Override all default or Override all on account on Financial settings. Both rewrite the limit on every matching customer and there is no record of what the old figures were. The limits have to be set again by hand, one customer at a time.
Why is a manual invoice due in fourteen days when the customer has thirty? An invoice you raise by hand always uses fourteen days and does not look at Pament terms at all. Change the due date on the invoice itself.
Why can I not change the credit limit or the deposit? Those five settings need a company administrator account. An ordinary staff account sees on account?, custom deposit?, Deposit and Default discount greyed out and does not see Credit limit at all. Ask whoever administers your company.
The Iban will not save. The customer form checks the bank account when you press Save and stops with IBAN is invalid. Note that the customer record itself has already been stored by that point, so correct the Iban and press Save again rather than starting over — see Create a customer record.
Where does the BIC list come from? From your own company's list, kept under Customers in the main menu on the BICs tile. Adding a code there makes it available in Most used BICs for everybody.
Related pages: Create a customer record for the rest of the customer form and what Save checks, and Confirm a booking for the point at which these settings turn into a price the customer is told.