Introduction
Every customer record has a Language box. It decides which language the app uses for that customer's PDFs (the rental agreement, the quote, the pickup and drop-off forms, the invoices and credit notes) and which email template the app picks when it writes to them. The box sits on the customer's edit screen, on the tab Other, under a grey line that reads Language used for determination of communicator template and PDF language. Leave blank for default.
The app works in five languages: English, Dutch, German, French and Spanish. A customer with an empty Language box gets your company's own language.
You come here when:
- A German or French customer is renting from you and should get their agreement in their own language.
- A customer says their invoice or agreement arrived in the wrong language.
- A regular customer has moved abroad and now wants English paperwork.
- You want to see how a document looks after RentVisie changed its layout.
Terms used on this page
| The screen says | It means |
|---|---|
| Language | The customer's paperwork language |
| Renew agreement | Produce a fresh rental agreement for this booking |
| Gemaakt op | "Created on", the date column in the booking's document list |
| Email template | The stored text of an email the app sends, one per kind of email and per language |
Use this page to set or correct a customer's language. For translating your website texts, see Translate your website texts into other languages.
How to use
Configuration
There is nothing to switch on. Two things are fixed for the whole app, and you cannot change them yourself:
- Your company's own language is set on your company record by RentVisie support. It is the language every customer without a Language of their own gets.
- The list of languages is the five above. You cannot add a sixth, such as Italian.
If your company's own language is wrong, ask RentVisie support to change it.
The wording of each email lives in your email templates, one per kind of email and per language. A customer's language only produces an email in that language if a template in that language exists. How to set templates up is on the automated emails page.
Before you start: any staff account can change a customer's Language and press Renew agreement. You do not need an administrator.
Using the customer's language
From the main menu open Customers, then click the Customers tile. Search for the customer and open their record.
- Click the tab Other. It sits in the row of tabs after Emails and before Invoices.
- Find Language, below is verified and the grey help line.
- Pick the customer's language from the list. To go back to your company's language, clear the box.
- Press Save, top right.
The change counts from the next document and the next email. Nothing already produced is changed; see Key details.
To get a document again in the new language. A rental agreement you can reproduce yourself:
- Open the booking and click the tab Documents.
- Press Renew agreement (the orange button). A new rental agreement is produced in the customer's current language. Nothing is emailed.
- Press Refresh so the new agreement appears in the list. The newest one has today's date in Gemaakt op.
- Click the eye icon on its row to download and check it, or the envelope icon to email it.
Renew agreement does not show on a booking that belongs to a lease.
Key details
How the app picks the language of a PDF. Every time a document is produced, the app goes down this list and uses the first one it finds:
| Order | Where the language comes from |
|---|---|
| 1 | The Language on the customer's record |
| 2 | Your company's own language |
| 3 | The language of the colleague whose action produced the document |
| 4 | English |
Steps 3 and 4 only matter if your company has no own language, which support normally sets up.
Worked example. Your company works in Dutch. Mr Weber from Cologne books a van for €245.00. His record has Language set to German, so his rental agreement, pickup form and final invoice print in German. His colleague Ms Dubois has an empty Language box, so her documents print in Dutch, even though she books from France. You set her Language to French and press Save. Her next invoice prints in French. The quote you sent her last week stays in Dutch, and so does its PDF if you email it again.
Which customer counts. The language comes from the customer the booking or invoice is for, the one who pays. A second driver or a contact person on the booking does not change it.
What changes and what does not. The wording the app prints itself (headings, labels, column titles) switches to the customer's language. Text that someone typed in, such as a note or your agreement text, prints exactly as it was typed.
Emails follow the same order, but only among the templates you have. For each email the app looks for a template in the customer's language, then your company's language, then the language of whoever is signed in, and finally a template with no language set. A customer set to French therefore gets a Dutch email if you only have a Dutch template, while the PDF attached to it is still in French.
Customers who book on your website. A new customer who books through your website gets the language they used on the website, as long as it is one of the five. A customer who already had a record keeps the Language they had.
The signing page. A customer who opens the signing link sees the line Want to read it in another language? Toggle languages on the top right of this page. Switching there only changes the words on that web page, not the agreement's PDF. See Send the rental agreement for signing.
Previewing a layout change. The layout of the PDFs is built by RentVisie and cannot be changed or previewed from the app. There is no preview screen. When RentVisie tells you a layout has changed, check it on a real booking: open the booking, press Renew agreement on the Documents tab, then click the eye icon on the new row. To see the layout in another language, do this on the booking of a customer who has that Language. For an invoice, a company administrator can open the invoice (main menu Financials, then the Invoices tile) and press Unofficial copy, which produces and downloads a fresh copy in the customer's current language.
What to do next: if an email still arrives in the wrong language after the customer's Language is right, check that a template in that language exists on the automated emails page. To send a document again, see finding and re-sending a document.
Q&A
Why is an invoice in the wrong language, when the customer's Language is set correctly? Check the date in Gemaakt op against the day you set the language. A document keeps the language it was produced in, and emailing it again with the envelope icon sends that same PDF. For a rental agreement, press Renew agreement on the booking's Documents tab. For an invoice, ask a company administrator to open it and press Unofficial copy; the invoice list is described in Delete a draft invoice or export invoices to a spreadsheet.
Why is one document in a different language when the customer's record and the booking look right? When two documents are produced at the very same moment for customers with different languages, one of them can come out in the other customer's language. This is rare. Produce the document again: Renew agreement for an agreement, Unofficial copy for an invoice. If it happens often, report it to RentVisie support.
Why is the email in Dutch while the attached PDF is in German? The PDF follows the customer's Language. The email text follows your templates, and you have no template in German for that kind of email, so the app used your company's language instead. Add a German template; see the automated emails page.
Why did a customer who booked on our English website get Dutch paperwork? They already had a record with an empty Language, or with Dutch. The website only fills in the language for a customer it creates new. Set Language on their record by hand.
Why is a document in English, when nobody here uses English? Your company has no own language on its record, and the document was produced without a colleague's action behind it, for example overnight or from a website booking. Ask RentVisie support to set your company's language.
Can I pick a language just for one document? No. The language belongs to the customer, not to the document. Change the customer's Language, produce the document, and change it back afterwards if needed. When you email a document again, the email screen has a Change template button that lets you pick a different email template for that one email; the PDF stays as it is.
Can I add Italian or Polish? No. The list is fixed to five languages. Ask RentVisie support if you need another.
Related pages:
- Create a customer record: the rest of the customer screen.
- Translate your website texts into other languages: the website texts, which work separately from documents.
- The documents the app produces: which PDFs exist and when they are made.
- What prints on a document: the content and layout choices you can influence.