Introduction
A daily rate on a booking is not simply the number somebody typed into a rate table. The app builds it in four steps, in a fixed order, and any of them can move the figure. When a price looks wrong — or comes out at zero — this page is how you trace it back to the setting that caused it.
The four steps, in the order they happen:
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1. Pick the rates that apply | The app finds the dated period covering the pickup date, and every duration band the rental's length and pickup day allow |
| 2. Take off any last-minute discount | Each candidate rate is discounted first, then compared |
| 3. Take the cheapest | Of everything still standing, the lowest daily rate wins |
| 4. Layer on season and day-of-week | A season adjusts or replaces the winner; weekday factors adjust it again, if the winning band allows them |
That third step is the one that surprises people. The app does not pick the most specific rate — it picks the cheapest one. Adding a rate to a price list can therefore only ever bring a price down, never up.
You come here when:
- A quote is coming out at zero and nothing on the booking looks wrong.
- A customer is being charged less than you expected and you cannot see where the discount came from.
- You changed a rate this morning and the booking screen still shows the old figure.
- A price is right at the counter but different on the website.
Terms used on these screens
| The screen says | It means |
|---|---|
| Asset group | The vehicle class |
| Global rules, Period | The duration band — the rental-length range |
| Pricing period | The dated stretch of calendar |
| Price value | On a season, either a fixed daily rate or a multiplier such as 1.05 |
Everything you need to look at is inside one price list, on its tiles; none of these screens has its own main-menu entry.
How to use
Configuration
There is nothing to set up for this task — it is reading, not changing. If a check turns up a genuine gap you fix it on the screen that owns it, and each check below says which.
Before you start: you can run every check below with an ordinary Employee account, which can open the price list screens and read them. Changing anything you find needs the Company admin role. You will need the booking's pickup date and return date, and the vehicle class, before you start.
Using the six checks
Work down the list in order and stop at the first one that fails — each check only makes sense if the ones above it passed. From the main menu, open your settings and administration area, go to the pricing section headed Pricelist overview, and double-click the price list you are checking.
1. Confirm which price list the booking is on. A booking uses the price list on the customer's record if they have one, and otherwise the list marked Default?. Open Customers, find the customer and look at the Price list box. If it is empty, you should be checking your default list; if it holds a list, check that one. Getting this wrong makes every check below look broken. See Set up a price list.
2. Confirm a period covers the pickup date. Open the Periods tile. The pickup date must fall between a row's Date from and Date to; the return date is not looked at. No row covering it means no rates can be found at all, and everything prices at zero. See Set up pricing periods and duration bands.
3. Confirm a band covers the rental's length. Open Global rules and work out the rental in hours — three days is 72. The hours must fall between a row's From in Hours and To in Hours, both ends counting. Also check that row's Applicable on switches allow the pickup day, and that any Pickup after hours or Return before hours value does not rule the booking out.
4. Confirm a rate exists at that crossing. Open Asset gr. pricing, click the euro icon on the vehicle class, and pick the period from step 2 in the Pricing period box. Find the band from step 3 in the table. A blank or zero Price on that row is your answer. See Set rates and mileage prices for a vehicle class.
5. Check whether a discount is being applied. Open the Last minute deal tile. A deal marked Active and linked to this vehicle class takes its Discount percentage off before step 3's comparison, so it can change which rate wins as well as what it costs. Then open Seasons and look for one whose dates overlap the booking and whose Minimum days is no more than the rental's length.
6. Check the weekday factors. Back on Global rules, look at the band that won in step 3. If its Apply day of week adjusments switch is on, the per-weekday factors are being applied on top of everything else, day by day. If it is off, they are not — even though the factors exist.
Key details
How the four steps compose
Seasons work in one of two ways, set per vehicle class by Price type. Override replaces the daily rate outright with the Price value, and stops there — nothing else in the season step is considered. Percentage is a multiplier, not a percentage: the screen says "Fill in a percentage factor (e.g. 1.05 for 5%)", so 1.05 adds 5% and 1.2 adds 20%.
A percentage season is averaged over the whole rental. Days inside the season count at its factor and days outside it count at 1, and the average of those is applied to every day. A season covering half a rental at 1.20 therefore works out at 1.10 across the booking, not 1.20 on the days it covers.
Weekday factors are applied day by day, from the pickup day onwards, and days with no factor set are left alone. The result is averaged back into a single daily rate.
A worked example
A three-day hire of a compact car, Saturday to Tuesday. Two rates match: €80.00 on the band Up to 3 days and €75.00 on Up to 7 days.
| Step | Result |
|---|---|
| Last-minute deal, 10%, active for this class | €80.00 becomes €72.00; €75.00 becomes €67.50 |
| Cheapest wins | €67.50 |
| Season Summer, Percentage 1.20, covering 2 of the 3 days | (1.20 × 2 + 1 × 1) ÷ 3 = 1.1333, so €67.50 becomes €76.50 |
| Weekday factors on, Saturday 1.25 and the rest 1.00 | (€95.63 + €76.50 + €76.50) ÷ 3 = €82.88 a day, €248.63 in total |
Take the last-minute deal away and the same booking starts from €75.00, which becomes €85.00 after the season and €92.08 a day after the weekday factors.
What to do next
Checks 2, 3 and 4 account for nearly every zero price, so do those first and in that order. Once you have found the gap, fix it on the screen that owns it and then re-run the search or reopen the booking — a price already saved on a booking does not update itself when you change a rate.
Q&A
Why is a price coming out as zero? Something in the chain has no match, and the app returns nothing rather than guessing. Five causes, commonest first:
| What is missing | Which check finds it |
|---|---|
| No price list is marked Default?, and the customer has none of their own | 1 |
| No period covers the pickup date | 2 |
| No band covers the rental's length in hours | 3 |
| A band covers it, but its Applicable on switches exclude the pickup day | 3 |
| No rate exists for that class at that period and band | 4 |
I entered a rate but bookings never use it. Where has it gone? It is almost always attached to a band or a period the booking never reaches. Open the class on Asset gr. pricing, double-click it for the advanced view, and read the Period column on the rate — that is the duration band, and the Pricing period beside it is the calendar stretch. A rate on a band whose hours the booking never falls into is invisible, and nothing on any screen flags it.
Why did adding a cheaper rate change prices I did not intend to change? Because the cheapest matching rate wins, not the most specific. A rate meant for one narrow case still competes with every other band the booking matches, so if it is the lowest it takes over. To keep a rate away from other bookings, narrow the band's hours rather than relying on another band being a better fit.
The counter and the website give different prices for the same dates. Why? The most common reason is a last-minute deal set to Online only — it is skipped entirely when a member of staff prices a booking in the office and applied when the customer books on the website. Online only starts switched on, so a deal somebody created without thinking about it behaves this way by default. Open Last minute deal, check Online only and Discount percentage, and see whether that discount matches the difference you are seeing.
I changed a rate but the booking still shows the old price. Prices are worked out and stored on the booking at the moment it is priced — when the vehicle class is set, when the customer is selected, or when a price is chosen. Changing a rate afterwards does not reach back into bookings that already exist. Re-select the vehicle class on the booking to force it to price again, or create the booking afresh.
A season is set up but the price has not moved. Three things must all be true: the season's dates must overlap the booking, its Minimum days must be no more than the rental's length, and there must be a Price value row for this particular vehicle class. A season with no row for the class counts as neutral and changes nothing, which looks identical to the season not applying at all.
Which of the four steps produced the number I am looking at? Work it backwards with the example above: start from the rate on Asset gr. pricing, take off any active discount, then apply the season factor, then the weekday factors. If your arithmetic lands on the figure the booking shows, the setup is behaving as designed and the number you disagree with is one of the settings, not a fault.
Related pages:
- Set rates and mileage prices for a vehicle class — where the starting rate is entered
- Set up pricing periods and duration bands — the two things a rate must be attached to
- Set up a price list — which list a booking uses in the first place