Introduction
Some vehicle costs come back every month, quarter or year: a lease instalment, a tracker subscription, road tax. You enter each one once as a planned cost, and the app adds the cost line for you each time it falls due. The list of planned costs is the screen headed Planned Cost, with Register your recurring costs below. underneath: a single table with a New button above it and, at the end of every row, a pencil icon (open) and a trash-can icon (remove). Opening a planned cost shows a full screen, also headed Planned Cost, with a Schedule column on the left, an Amount and category column on the right, and Split over vehicles (optional) below them.
The lines the app adds land on the Cost overview screen, where Cost Origin tells them apart from costs typed in by hand. Like every cost, a planned cost is entered excluding value-added tax (VAT).
You come here when:
- a new van arrives on a lease and the monthly instalment should be booked for three years;
- the yearly road tax should sit in your cost figures without anyone remembering it;
- one insurance bill each quarter covers five vans and each should carry its share;
- a subscription has ended and the app should stop adding it;
- the month's cost figures look short and the automatic lines may be missing.
Words these screens use
Skim this once:
| The app says | It means |
|---|---|
| Planned cost, Cost planner | A cost you have told the app to add by itself, once or on a schedule |
| Auto generate | Whether the app actually adds it. No pauses it without deleting it |
| Next execution date | The date of the next line the app will add |
| Asset, Vehicle, Object | The vehicle the cost belongs to. Object is the same thing on Cost overview |
| Cost Origin | Where a cost line came from: Manual, Planned, Maintenance, Depreciation or Integration |
Every way to reach this
| Route | What you get |
|---|---|
| Financials, then the Cost planner tile under Costs | The list of planned costs, where you set them up and pause them |
| Financials, then the Cost overview tile under Costs | The cost lines themselves, including every line the app added, and the Generation errors button |
| Financials, then the Asset financial overview tile under Costs | The purchase details behind the monthly write-downs; see Record a vehicle's purchase price and depreciation |
Use this page for costs the app adds by itself. For a one-off repair bill, see Record what a vehicle costs you.
How to use
Configuration
There is no switch to turn the automatic run on for your company; it is already running. Once a day, at 15:00 UTC (16:00 or 17:00 in the Netherlands, depending on summer time), the app adds the lines for every planned cost that has fallen due, and the write-downs that are due for your vehicles. Nobody presses a button for this. What you control is which planned costs exist and whether each one has Auto generate set to Yes; that is all on the Cost planner screen below.
If your company uses Exact Online, a planned cost with a Supplier is sent to Exact as a purchase entry each time a line is added, the same way as a cost you type in. See Record what a vehicle costs you.
Before you start: you need a company administrator account. The Financials screen, the Cost planner and Cost overview screens, and saving a planned cost are all limited to administrators. If Financials is not in your main menu, that is why; ask your administrator. The vehicle must already exist in the fleet, and the cost category must exist too (see Record what a vehicle costs you).
Using the cost planner
From the main menu open Financials, go down to the Costs heading and click Cost planner. The screen headed Planned Cost opens.
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Click New, above the list, or the pencil icon on an existing row. The planned cost opens as a full screen, with a Back link at the top.
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Fill in both columns. On the left, under Schedule:
Field Starts as What it accepts Description Empty Text copied onto every line, up to 200 characters Frequency Monthly One-time (one line, then it switches itself off), Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly Start date One month from today The date of the first line End date Three years from today Required, on or after Start date; no line is dated after it Next execution date One month from today The date of the next line; see below Auto generate Yes No keeps the planned cost but stops new lines On the right, under Amount and category: Amount excl. VAT (required, more than 0), VAT % (starts at your company's high VAT rate), Cost category (required), Cost sub category, Asset (the vehicle) and Supplier. VAT amount and Amount incl. VAT are worked out for you.
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To share the cost over several vehicles (optional), click Add vehicle under Split over vehicles (optional). In the window headed Vehicle share, pick the Vehicle, type its Amount excl. VAT, and optionally an Own cost category and a Description, then click Save. Repeat per vehicle. The shares must add up to Amount excl. VAT exactly; Asset above is then not used.
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Click Save. Cancel throws your changes away. Saving adds no line straight away; the first appears at the first daily run on or after Next execution date.
Until the first line has been added, Save sets Next execution date to Start date, so you only need to choose the start date. After that, changing Start date no longer moves Next execution date.
To pause a planned cost, set Auto generate to No and click Save. To stop it for good, remove it with the trash-can icon at the end of its row; this happens at once. To find the lines it added, open Cost overview, filter Cost Origin on Planned and match the Description.
Key details
When a line is added. The daily run picks up a planned cost when Auto generate is Yes and Next execution date is today or earlier, and on or before End date. It adds one line dated on the Next execution date, then moves that date on by one month, three months or one year, and repeats until the next date is in the future, so missed months are caught up in one run. The same occurrence is never added twice. A One-time cost switches to No after its line, and any planned cost switches to No by itself once the next date passes End date.
Worked example. A tracker for van 12-VKL-3 costs €29.50 a month excluding VAT (€35.70 at 21%). Start date 1 November 2026, End date 31 October 2028: on 1 November a €29.50 Planned line dated 1 November appears, and Next execution date becomes 1 December. That is 24 lines, €708.00 excluding VAT, the last one dated 1 October 2028; then Auto generate turns to No. Pause it in November and switch it back on on 10 February 2027, and that afternoon's run adds the December, January and February lines at once, each dated on its own month. To skip paused months, move Next execution date forward before switching back on.
End-of-month dates drift. A monthly cost due on 31 January moves to 28 February and stays on the 28th from then on. Pick the 28th or earlier if the day matters.
What each line carries. The vehicle, amount, VAT %, Description, Cost category, Cost sub category and Supplier. With a split, each vehicle gets its own line with its share; a share with an Own cost category goes under that category, without a subcategory. Editing a planned cost changes only the lines still to come.
The write-downs run at the same time, shown as Depreciation: once a month per vehicle, catching up missed months, until the vehicle reaches its residual value or leaves the fleet. See Record a vehicle's purchase price and depreciation.
What to do next: the day after a Next execution date, filter Cost overview on Planned and check the line arrived with the right amount.
Q&A
The Next execution date has passed and no Planned line appeared on Cost overview. Check the three conditions in the table under Key details on the Cost planner row. The usual causes are Auto generate set to No, or an End date that has passed. Then click Generation errors on Cost overview: if the run failed for this planned cost, it is listed there (see below).
Where do I see why a planned cost or a write-down was not added? On Cost overview, click Generation errors. The screen headed Cost generation errors lists every planned cost and every write-down the daily run could not add, with Logged at, Generated cost type, Reference number and Error message. The Reference number is an internal number that no other screen shows, so find the planned cost or vehicle from the Error message and the date. A failure on one planned cost does not stop the others. When you have dealt with a row, remove it with the trash-can icon; the next run tries the planned cost again by itself.
Three identical Planned lines appeared on the same day. The planned cost was catching up months it had missed, because its Next execution date was in the past — usually after Auto generate was switched back on, or after a planned cost was entered with an old start date. Each line is dated on its own month. If the lines are not wanted, delete them on Cost overview with the trash-can icon at the end of each row, and check that Next execution date on Cost planner is now in the future. A line that has already been sent to Exact cannot be deleted; correct it in Exact.
Why does Save say "Enter an end date on or after the start date"? Every planned cost needs an End date, on or after Start date. A planned cost without one would never be added. Planned costs entered before this rule have to be given an end date the next time they are saved.
Why does Save say "The split over vehicles adds up to …"? The vehicle shares under Split over vehicles (optional) must add up to Amount excl. VAT to the cent. Correct a share with its pencil icon, or remove one with the trash-can icon.
A One-time cost was added and now shows Auto generate No. That is how a one-time cost works: it switches itself off after its single line. To add it again, set Auto generate back to Yes and set Next execution date to the date you want.
I deleted a planned cost. Are its lines gone too? No. Removing a planned cost with the trash-can icon on Cost planner only stops future lines. Every line already added stays on Cost overview, marked Planned, and has to be deleted there if it is wrong.
Why can't I delete a vehicle that had a planned cost? A vehicle or object with costs or planned costs cannot be deleted, so its cost history is kept. Take it out of the fleet instead; see Take vehicles out of the fleet.
Related pages. Record what a vehicle costs you for typing in one-off costs, cost categories and suppliers; Record a vehicle's purchase price and depreciation for the monthly write-down amounts; Send invoices to your accounting package for costs in Exact.