Check where a vehicle is and whether it is clean

Introduction

Every vehicle record carries two facts about its present state: where it stands, and whether it is clean. You see them on the vehicle record itself, as Current location and Asset condition, and the fleet list on the Assets screen shows the location in its Location column. A separate list, headed Dirty assets, collects every item waiting to be cleaned, with a Set to clean button above it.

You come here when:

• you want to see which cars still need a wash before tomorrow's pickups;
• the cleaner has finished a batch and the list needs clearing;
• a car was returned to another branch and you need to check where the app now thinks it is;
• a vehicle has vanished from the planning board or from the fleet list and you suspect its location.

Words this screen uses

Use this page to read or correct a vehicle's location and cleanliness. The return inspection is what normally changes both, and it has its own page: Take a vehicle back at the end of a rental.

How to use

Configuration

One company-wide setting decides whether returned vehicles land on the cleaning list by themselves. From the main menu, open Settings, then click the Operational tile. On the screen headed Operational settings, find Vehicles return dirty. It is a pair of Yes / No buttons, not a tick box, and it starts on No. Choose Yes, then click Save at the bottom of the screen.

Switching it to Yes is not retroactive: vehicles returned before you switched it stay as they are.

Before you start: changing a vehicle's Current location or Asset condition means saving the vehicle record, which needs the Employee or Company admin role; the Set to clean button needs the same. Operational settings is limited to a Company admin.

Using the location and condition fields

Where a vehicle is now. Open the fleet list, either straight from the main menu or by opening Assets and clicking the Assets tile. Its Vehicles tab lists your cars, and the Location column shows each one's location by its short code. To see or change it, double-click the vehicle's row to open its record:

1. Find Current location in the left-hand column of the top block, directly below Internal number (optional).
2. Pick the right location from the drop-down. It lists locations by their full name, not by the short code the fleet list shows, and it has a cross to clear it again.
3. Click Save, at the bottom. The record closes. Cancel throws your change away.

Two things move a vehicle without anyone editing the record:

• Finalising a return. The vehicle's location becomes the booking's drop-off location. If that booking has no drop-off location filled in, the vehicle is left with no location at all — see the warning under Key details. A pickup does not touch the field, so while a car is out it still shows the location it left from.
• Completing a transport that was planned to a location. The vehicle moves to the transport's destination. A transport planned to a plain street address instead of one of your locations leaves the field as it was.

Clean versus condition. On the same record, in the right-hand column directly below Ownership, Asset condition offers Clean or Dirty, and can also be cleared so that it is blank; a new vehicle starts as Clean. Behind that field the app keeps a second, hidden clean/dirty marker, and the two do not always agree:

Because the drop-down on the record never clears the hidden marker, the cleaning list — not the record — is where you mark a vehicle clean.

The dirty-vehicles list. Open Assets from the main menu and click the Dirty tile. The screen is headed Dirty assets and shows two columns, Internal number and Registration number, each sortable and with a search box underneath its heading, 20 rows to a page.

1. Tick the box at the start of each row you have cleaned. The tick box in the heading row ticks every row on the page you are looking at.
2. Click Set to clean, in the bar above the column headings.

The ticked vehicles leave the list straight away, with no confirmation question and no Save. Back, above the heading, returns you to the screen you came from.

The "is rented" flag. There is no "is rented" field anywhere you can look at or set — not on the vehicle record, not as a column on the fleet list, not on the Dirty assets list. The app does keep such a marker behind the scenes, meant to be switched when a booking moves to Picked up and back at drop-off, but nothing in the app displays it. To see whether a vehicle is out, open its booking and read the booking's status, or look at the vehicle's row on the Scheduler.

Key details

A vehicle is on the Dirty assets list when either marker says dirty. Only active items appear. That gives two ways onto the list and one way off:

A vehicle with no location can disappear from your screens. Staff on the Employee role only see vehicles that stand at one of the locations on their security profile, so a vehicle whose Current location is empty is invisible to them — in the fleet list, on the cleaning list, everywhere. It is also left off the Scheduler for everyone, filters or no filters. A Company admin can still see it and put the location back. Which locations you are down for is explained on Signing in; moving a vehicle to a branch you are not down for has the same effect.

Worked example. Your company has Vehicles return dirty set to Yes. A customer returns the Golf with plate GH-123-K to your Rotterdam branch, and the booking's drop-off location is Rotterdam. You finalise the return: the Golf's Current location becomes Rotterdam, its Asset condition becomes Dirty, and it appears on Dirty assets. A colleague opens the Golf's record, changes Asset condition back to Clean and saves. The record now reads Clean, but the Golf is still on the list, because the hidden marker still says dirty. Tick the Golf on Dirty assets and click Set to clean, and it is gone from the list for good.

Dirty does not stop a booking. A vehicle on the cleaning list can still be found in a search, assigned to a booking and handed over. The list is a reminder for your staff, not a block.

Trailers and equipment work differently. For an item that is not a vehicle, the return has no final inspection step to finalise, so it neither moves the item's location nor puts it on the cleaning list. Update both on the item's record, under the Other tab of the Assets screen. An item you mark Dirty by hand does show up on Dirty assets alongside the cars.

What to do next: work the Dirty assets list before the day's first pickups, so a car that is still dirty does not go out by mistake. If a location looks wrong after a return, correct Current location on the record, then check the vehicle is back on the Scheduler.

Q&A

Why is a vehicle still on the Dirty assets list after I set its Asset condition to Clean? The drop-down on the record does not clear the hidden marker a return sets. Tick the vehicle on Dirty assets and click Set to clean.

Why did a car that came back dirty not appear on the list? Vehicles return dirty is set to No for your company, so returns do not mark anything dirty. Open the vehicle's record, set Asset condition to Dirty and click Save. To have every return marked dirty, ask your Company admin to switch the setting to Yes.

Why is every returned car marked dirty, even the spotless ones? Vehicles return dirty is company-wide and has no exceptions. Clear the clean ones with Set to clean on Dirty assets.

I clicked Set to clean on the wrong vehicle. How do I undo it? Open that vehicle's record, set Asset condition back to Dirty and click Save. It returns to the list.

Why are only 20 vehicles ticked when I use the tick box in the heading row? That box ticks the rows on the current page only, and Set to clean acts on that page's ticks alone. Click Set to clean, then move to the next page and repeat.

Why is a vehicle showing at the wrong branch after its return? The booking's drop-off location was not where the car actually came back. Correct Current location on the vehicle record; changing the booking afterwards does not move the vehicle. See Take a vehicle back for fixing the drop-off location before you finalise.

A vehicle has no location at all after its return. What happened? The booking it came back on had no drop-off location filled in, and finalising the return copied that emptiness onto the vehicle. Ask a Company admin to open the vehicle record and set Current location — on the Employee role you will not be able to find the vehicle yourself.

Why has a vehicle disappeared from the Scheduler after a return? Either the return left it with no location, which keeps it off the board altogether, or it moved to a location outside the filter you have set. Check Current location on the record, then your filters on the Scheduler.

Can I see which vehicles are dirty from the fleet list? No — the fleet list has no condition column. Use the Dirty assets list, or open the vehicle's record and read Asset condition.

Why is there no Dirty tile on my Assets screen? There are two versions of the Assets screen, and only one of them carries the Dirty tile. Ask a colleague whose screen has it, or your Company admin, how your company reaches the list. The Dirty tile is the only way to it inside RentVisie itself; the same dirty items are also shown in RentVisie Control.

Where can I see whether a vehicle is currently rented out? Not on the vehicle record and not on the fleet list. Open the vehicle's booking and check its status, or look at the vehicle's row on the Scheduler.

Related pages:

• Take a vehicle back at the end of a rental — the return inspection that moves a vehicle and can mark it dirty.
• Add a vehicle to your fleet — every field on the vehicle record, including Current location and Asset condition.
• Reschedule bookings on the Scheduler — the board that filters vehicles by location.
• Signing in — which locations your account is allowed to work in.