Introduction
Two of the inspection steps capture numbers rather than judgements: what the odometer said, and how full the tank was. Both are recorded twice — once when the vehicle goes out, once when it comes back — and the difference between the two pairs is what the customer may be charged for.
They are also the two steps most likely to stop you in your tracks, because the odometer step refuses several readings that look perfectly reasonable at the counter. This page covers what to type, what gets rejected and why, and where the resulting charges are added.
Both steps only appear if an administrator has switched them on for that vehicle. If your wizard goes from the notes screen straight to damage or straight to the finish buttons, they are off — see Run the pickup inspection.
How to use
Configuration
Before you start: recording readings during an inspection needs any counter role — Employee, Employee (minimal) or Company admin. Turning the steps on needs Company admin.
The mileage and fuel steps are switched on per vehicle, under Settings → Asset Settings, using the Mileage and Fuel switches. Both start off. The full walkthrough is on Run the pickup inspection — this page assumes they are already on.
Two things are worth setting up before staff meet these screens:
The mileage allowance. Open a booking, click the Mileage tab, then Expected mileage, and enter the number of kilometres included. Click Save. Anything driven beyond the included distance is what gets charged.
A fuel price to charge at. The refuelling charge is entered by hand per booking rather than configured centrally, so agree internally what your base price per litre is before staff start using it.
Using the mileage and fuel steps
Both appear inside the inspection: open the booking, click the Inspection tab, then the Inspection tile, and work through to them.
The odometer step
The screen has two fields, Odometer and Date. The date is already set to now.
The odometer box is never blank. It arrives pre-filled, from one of two places:
- if the vehicle sends its own readings, the reading it reports;
- otherwise, the highest reading ever recorded for that vehicle.
So on a vehicle with no live feed, the number you see is where the vehicle was last left, not what is on the dashboard in front of you. Read the dashboard and correct it.
Click Save. Three things will stop you, each with its own message:
| Message | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Mileage should be positive | The box contains zero or a negative number | Type the real reading. Zero is never accepted, even on a brand-new vehicle |
| The mileage of the vehicle is lower than the last known value! You can correct the last known value under assets if needed. | You are at pickup and typed less than the highest reading on file for this vehicle | Check for a typo. If the old reading is the wrong one, correct it on the vehicle record |
| The mileage of the vehicle is lower than during pickup. Please fill in the correct mileage or change the mileage at pickup. | You are at return and typed less than the pickup reading | Check for a typo, or correct the pickup reading |
Readings only ever go up. There is no way to record a corrected-downwards reading from this screen — the fix always happens on the vehicle record or on the pickup reading.
The fuel step
The screen has Fuel level and Date. The level is a percentage, and it starts at 100. Set it to what the gauge actually shows — a tank showing seven-eighths is roughly 88, half is 50.
Because the fuel step is the last one in the wizard, its two buttons are the finalise buttons rather than a Next: Finalise Inspection completes the handover and emails the receipt, Finalise (no email) completes it and sends nothing.
Adding the refuelling charge
Recording how full the tank was does not charge anybody. If the customer brought the vehicle back short and you are recharging them for the fuel, add it separately: open the booking, click the Fuel tab, then New Booking fuel.
| Field | What to put in it |
|---|---|
| Fuel | Which fuel it was |
| Base price | Your price per unit |
| Quantity | How much you put in |
| Total price | Calculated for you — you cannot type in this box |
All three numbers must be greater than zero or Save refuses. Click Save, and the booking total is recalculated straight away.
A worked example
A Polo goes out on booking B-10432 with an included allowance of 500 km.
At pickup, the odometer box arrives pre-filled at 42 050 — the last reading on file. The dashboard actually reads 42 180, so you correct it and click Save. On the fuel screen you set the level to 88 and press Finalise Inspection.
Three days later it comes back. The odometer step arrives pre-filled again; the dashboard reads 42 810, so you type that. It is higher than the pickup reading, so it is accepted. The tank is down to a quarter, so you set the fuel level to 25.
The booking has covered 42 810 − 42 180 = 630 km. With 500 km included, 130 km is chargeable. You refuel it yourself with 38 litres at €1.89, so you open the Fuel tab, click New Booking fuel, and enter 1.89 as the base price and 38 as the quantity. The total, €71.82, is filled in for you.
Key details
Distance is the difference between two readings, never a single number. The system adds up the pickup readings and the drop-off readings for the booking and subtracts one from the other. If the result would be negative it is treated as zero, so a booking with only a pickup reading shows no distance at all rather than a wrong one.
Chargeable distance is what is left after the allowance. The included kilometres — from the mileage allowance and any mileage package on the booking — are subtracted first, and only the remainder is charged. If the customer stayed within the allowance, nothing is added.
Saving a reading updates the vehicle itself. Committing an odometer reading feeds the vehicle's own recorded mileage, which is why a mistyped high reading at pickup then blocks every later reading below it. Correcting it means fixing the reading on the vehicle record.
Re-running the pickup inspection clears both legs' readings. On the pickup leg the odometer rows for that booking are deleted and every fuel reading is detached from the booking — pickup and return alike. On the return leg only the drop-off ones go. If you redo a pickup on a booking that has already come back, expect to re-enter everything.
The fuel level and the fuel charge are separate records. One is a gauge reading taken during the inspection; the other is a priced line on the booking. Recording a low level never creates a charge, and adding a charge never changes a level.
"Who refuelled" is not something you can set. The booking's fuel charge carries a field for whether the company or the customer refuelled, but no screen in the app shows or sets it, and nothing reads it back. Do not rely on it to tell the two cases apart — put that in the booking notes instead.
What to do next: finish the inspection, then check the booking total picked up the mileage and fuel charges before you invoice. If the charged distance looks wrong, check the two odometer readings first — a mistyped pickup reading is the usual cause.
Q&A
The odometer box already has a number in it. Is that the current reading? Only if the vehicle reports its own mileage. Otherwise it is the highest reading ever recorded for that vehicle, which is where it was last left. Always read the dashboard.
I get "Mileage should be positive" but I typed the real reading. The box contains zero or a negative number — usually because it was cleared and not retyped, or because a digit was deleted. Zero is rejected in every case.
I get "lower than the last known value" and my reading is definitely right. Someone has previously saved a reading higher than the true one for this vehicle. The message tells you the fix: correct that earlier reading on the vehicle record, then come back and save.
Can I record that the odometer has been replaced and reset to zero? Not from this screen — every reading must be higher than the last, and zero is refused. That has to be sorted out on the vehicle record first.
What number do I put for fuel — litres or a percentage? A percentage, 0 to 100. The box starts at 100, so on a vehicle going out with a full tank you can leave it alone.
I set the fuel level low but the customer has not been charged. The level is a reading, not a charge. Add the charge on the booking's Fuel tab with New Booking fuel.
Save on the fuel charge screen does nothing. All three of base price, quantity and total must be above zero. A blank or zero base price or quantity blocks the save.
Why can't I type the total price? It is worked out from the base price and the quantity, and updates as you change either.
The customer stayed well under the allowance but there is still a mileage charge. Check the pickup reading on the booking. If it was entered too low, the calculated distance is too high. Check the drop-off reading for a typo too.
Where is the Next button on the fuel screen? There isn't one. The fuel step is the last step, so it carries Finalise Inspection and Finalise (no email) instead.