Introduction
The damage step is where you write down what is wrong with the vehicle — before it goes out, and again when it comes back. It is the step that decides whether a customer pays for a scratch, so it is worth doing carefully in the two minutes it takes.
The screen shows the vehicle as six separate panels — its sides, its roof and its interior — and you mark each fault at the spot it actually is. RentVisie works out whether a fault is the customer's problem purely from when you recorded it: anything logged while the booking is on its way out is pickup damage and is not charged; anything logged when it comes back is drop-off damage and is.
You never choose that yourself. It follows from the booking's status, which is why recording a pickup fault late — after the vehicle has already gone out — files it on the wrong side of the line.
The step only appears if an administrator has switched Damage on for that vehicle; see Run the pickup inspection.
How to use
Configuration
Before you start: you need a counter role — Employee, Employee (minimal) or Company admin — to reach the damage step. Saving a damage needs Employee or Company admin: an Employee (minimal) account can open the damage form from the wizard but the Save button will not work for it. If your minimal-access staff take vehicles back, give them the fuller Employee role or the damage never gets recorded.
The damage step is switched on per vehicle under Settings → Asset Settings, with the Damage switch. It starts off. The walkthrough is on Run the pickup inspection.
Nothing else needs configuring before staff use the step. If you want the vehicle diagram to look like your actual vehicles, that comes from the damage template attached to the vehicle — worth checking once, because the diagram is what staff click on.
Using the damage step
Reach it inside the inspection: open the booking, click the Inspection tab, then the Inspection tile, and work through to Register damages.
The screen lists the vehicle as six separate panels — one each for the left side, the right side, the front, the back, the roof and the interior. Each panel shows the damage already known for that part of the vehicle and has its own button to add a new one.
To record a fault:
-
Find the panel for the part of the vehicle the fault is on.
-
Mark the spot. The position you pick is stored with the damage, so a later colleague can see where the scratch was, not just that there was one.
-
Fill in the damage form that opens:
Field What to put in it Description Short — "scratch, nearside rear door" Category What kind of fault: Dent, Scratch, Broken, Dirty, Missing, Defect, or Temporary Notes Anything longer that matters Amount Your estimate of the repair cost, if you have one Date Already set to now Status Starts on New. Leave it unless you are the person who processes damage Side Already set from the panel you clicked -
Click Damage Photo to attach a picture, then Save on the photo. Add as many as you need.
-
Click Save on the damage form.
The form also shows the booking's pickup and return dates and the customer's name, all read-only, so you can confirm you are on the right rental before saving. Show booking opens that booking. The bin icon deletes the damage outright.
Repeat for every fault, then press Next to move on to the rest of the wizard.
The Category you choose changes what survives. Picking Temporary marks the damage as belonging to this rental only — when the return inspection is finalised, every Temporary damage on the booking is deleted, along with its link to the booking. Use it for something that will not still be true next week, like a missing parcel shelf you expect back. Never use it for a fault you want on the vehicle's record.
A worked example
A Golf goes out on booking B-10432. On the walk-round you find a 4 cm scuff on the nearside rear bumper and a chip in the windscreen.
You open the inspection and work through to Register damages. On the left-side panel you mark the bumper, and on the form you type "scuff, nearside rear bumper", choose category Scratch, leave Status on New, take one photo, and Save. On the front panel you mark the windscreen, type "stone chip, driver's side", category Broken, photo, Save.
Both are stamped as pickup damage because the booking is still Confirmed. Three days later the customer returns the car with a new dent in the offside door. You run the inspection again — the booking is now Picked up, so anything you add is drop-off damage — and record the dent on the right-side panel. Your bodyshop quotes €280, so you type 280 in Amount. The scuff and the chip are already listed and you leave them alone.
The booking now carries two pickup faults the customer is not answerable for, and one drop-off fault they are. That €280 is recorded against the dent as your estimate. If your company also has an automatic damage fee — say a €75 handling charge — that is added once because there is drop-off damage at all, not because the dent was priced at 280.
Key details
Timing decides everything, and you cannot override it. A damage is filed as pickup or drop-off from the booking's status at the moment you save it, with no field to change it. If a walk-round fault gets recorded after the vehicle has already been checked out, it lands on the drop-off side and looks like the customer's doing. Record pickup faults before you finalise the pickup.
Damage stays on the vehicle, not just on the rental. Each fault is written to the vehicle's own record as well as being linked to this booking, so it is still there for the next rental and the next inspection lists it. That is why the pickup screen already shows faults you did not enter.
Archived damage disappears from these lists. Setting a damage's status to Archived removes it from every inspection panel. It is the way to retire a fault once it has been repaired — the record survives, it just stops cluttering the walk-round.
One drop-off fault is enough to trigger the charge. If your company has a damage fee set up, it is added to the booking when there is any drop-off damage at all. Recording five faults rather than one does not multiply it, and the Amount you type on a damage is recorded against that damage rather than being what this automatic fee charges.
There is no underside panel. The system knows about a vehicle underside, but the inspection screen offers only the six panels above. Damage underneath has to go on whichever one comes closest, described in words.
What to do next: finish the rest of the inspection and finalise it. To review what was recorded, open the booking's Damages tab — it separates this booking's pickup faults, this booking's drop-off faults, and everything ever recorded on the vehicle.
Q&A
The pickup screen already lists damage I did not record. Where did it come from? From earlier rentals. Faults live on the vehicle, so everything not yet archived shows up on every inspection. Leave them alone unless they have been repaired.
I recorded a scratch at pickup but it is showing as the customer's damage. It was almost certainly saved after the pickup was finalised, when the booking had already moved to Picked up. There is no way to move it back from the damage screen — the fix is on the booking's damage records, so ask whoever handles damage administration.
The Save button on the damage form does nothing. You are probably signed in with an Employee (minimal) account, which can open the form but not save it. Ask for the full Employee role.
A damage I recorded has vanished after the vehicle came back. Check what Category it was given. Temporary damages are deleted when the return inspection is finalised — that is what the category means.
How do I say the damage was already there and has been fixed? Set its Status to Archived. It stops appearing in inspections but the record remains.
Can I put a price on the damage? You can type an Amount on the damage itself, which records your estimate. If your company also has an automatic damage fee, that is a separate charge triggered by there being any drop-off damage, not by the amount you typed.
Where do photos go? On the damage, not on the booking. Open the damage, click Damage Photo, and Save. You can add several, and they stay with the damage on the vehicle's record.
The vehicle diagram does not look like this vehicle. The diagram comes from the damage template attached to that vehicle. If it is wrong, the template needs changing — the marks you place are still recorded correctly in the meantime.
Damage is on the underside. Which panel do I use? There is no underside panel. Pick the closest one and say so clearly in the Description and Notes.
Do I need to press Next after adding damage, or does Save do it? Both. Save stores one fault and returns you to the panels; Next leaves the damage step and continues the inspection.