Introduction
Once a lease is set up, the app invoices it by itself. On the lease's billing day the nightly run moves the contract on by one 30-day cycle and invoices what that adds. This page covers stepping in by hand, from three screens. The booking's Lease screen has Manually trigger invoice at the top and the Billing process and Invoice status sections lower down. The list headed Bookings (lease) shows your leases. The list headed Pending invoice overview holds invoices waiting to be checked and issued.
You will use this when:
- a customer wants this month's invoice today, not on the billing day
- your company checks every lease invoice before it goes to the customer
- the customer still has the van after the agreed end date and you need to keep billing
- a lease moved on to the next cycle but no invoice came out
- you want a quick look at which leases are running and which are past their end date
Words these screens use
| The screen says | It means |
|---|---|
| Active cycle | Which 30-day period the lease is in. 0 means the first one has not been invoiced yet |
| Active month | The month number, 1 to 12, printed on the lease invoice |
| Total cycles | How many cycles the lease is expected to have |
| Auto invoice status | What the nightly run last did: N/A, Invoiced single or Invoiced combined, or Pending invoice single or Pending invoice combined — an invoice prepared but not yet issued |
| Overdue | A lease that is picked up while its End date has already passed |
Every way to invoice a lease
| Route | Who can use it | What it checks |
|---|---|---|
| The nightly run | Nobody; it runs by itself | Status, billing day, End date, not already invoiced today — see Set how a lease is billed |
| Manually trigger invoice on the Lease screen | Company admin | Only that the lease was not invoiced in the past hour |
| Process selected on Pending invoice overview | Company admin | Nothing; it issues the invoice the nightly run prepared |
Leave invoicing to the nightly run unless a customer needs something different.
How to use
Configuration
Two company settings decide how much of this page you need. From the main menu open Settings, click Operational, then the Lease tab:
- Lease invoice manual validation (starts at No). Set it to Yes if every lease invoice should be checked before it goes out: the nightly run then prepares the invoice and puts the booking on Pending invoice overview instead of sending anything.
- Continue lease invoicing (starts at Yes). Leave it at Yes to keep invoicing a vehicle that has not come back by its End date; No stops once the lease's contract has run past the End date.
- Click Save. Both take effect for every lease from the next nightly run.
The other settings on the tab are explained in Set how a lease is billed.
Before you start: opening Settings, Manually trigger invoice and Process selected all need the Company admin role. Extend all overdues needs Employee or Company admin; an Employee (minimal) account does not have it.
Using the lease screens
To trigger a lease invoice by hand, open the booking and click Lease in its row of buttons (see Set up a lease). At the top of the Lease screen:
- Click Manually trigger invoice, then Proceed when the app asks Are you sure - this cannot be undone? Cancel stops.
What happens next. The Lease screen closes without a message. The lease moves on one cycle and the invoice is emailed to the customer — or, with Lease invoice manual validation on, the booking goes onto Pending invoice overview instead. The button skips the billing day, the End date and the booking status. It is not a way to issue a pending invoice: every click starts a new cycle.
To check and issue pending invoices, from the main menu open Bookings and click Lease pending invoice in the Shortlease section, or click the Pending lease invoices tile on your daily overview. The screen is headed Pending invoice overview, with Please select the bookings to invoice. underneath.
- Read each row: Customer, Invoice pending from and Invoice pending to, Days, Invoice month and To be invoiced, the amount still unbilled on the booking in whole euros. Click a row to open the booking and check its prices.
- Tick the rows that are right. Process selected appears once at least one row is ticked.
- Click Process selected. There is no confirmation. Each ticked booking is invoiced for its pending period and emailed; a customer's Combined leases go on one invoice. The issued bookings leave the list after a few seconds.
A booking you leave unticked stays on the list, and the nightly run will not invoice that lease again until it has been issued.
To change the active cycle, click Change cycles in the Billing process section of the Lease screen. The popup warns: Warning: generally you should not make overrides. This will influence the automated invoice process. Type Active month, Active cycle and Total cycles as whole numbers and click Save, which stores them straight away; Cancel throws your changes away.
To keep invoicing a vehicle that has not come back, either leave Continue lease invoicing at Yes, or move the lease's End date on. For one lease, change End date on its Lease screen and click Save changes. For all of them at once, from the main menu open Bookings, click Lease overview in the Shortlease section and click Extend all overdues beside New Booking. There is no confirmation.
Key details
What one cycle moves
Take a lease on Active cycle 3 and Active month 10, whose contract ends on 4 November at 09:00. The next invoice — nightly or by hand — covers 4 November to 4 December, moves the contract return to 4 December and shows Active cycle 4 and Active month 11. After month 12 comes 1. The booking's price is worked out again for the longer contract, and the invoice charges only what it grew by: from €2,700.00 to €3,600.00 gives an invoice of €900.00. Total cycles does not stop the nightly run; only the End date and Continue lease invoicing do.
An Active cycle of 0 tells the app the first invoice is still to come, so it starts from the contract pickup instead of the contract return. Fix it when a lease billed outside the app keeps getting a first invoice.
When invoicing stops at the End date
The nightly run compares the contract return with the End date before it moves on. The cycle that starts on or before the End date is still invoiced in full. Take an End date of 31 December and a contract that returns on 20 December: that night's invoice runs to 19 January. On the next billing day the contract already passes 31 December, so with Continue lease invoicing at No the lease stops, and with Yes it carries on every month. Once the vehicle is taken back in and the booking reads Dropped off, invoicing stops either way.
What Extend all overdues does
It adds 30 days to the End date of every lease in your company that is Picked up and past its End date, once per click. A lease due back on 30 September becomes 30 October; one due back on 1 August becomes 31 August and is still overdue, so click again. The contract, the price and any issued invoice are not touched. Confirmed leases that never went out are left alone.
Invoices for nothing
Sometimes the lease moves on but no invoice reaches the customer:
| What you see | Why |
|---|---|
| No invoice at all | The booking's price did not grow with the new cycle, so there was nothing new to charge |
| An invoice with a number, never emailed | The booking's total and everything invoiced so far both round to 0 euro |
On Pending invoice overview both leave the booking on the list after Process selected, and the Lease screen's Reason says Booking is pending invoice. Please issue this invoice first.
What to do next
Open Pending invoice overview first if your company checks invoices — those customers are waiting to be billed. Then look at Lease overview for leases past their end date.
Q&A
Why did the customer get two invoices for the same month? Somebody clicked Manually trigger invoice more than an hour after the lease was last invoiced, or on a lease that was already waiting on Pending invoice overview. Every click moves the lease on a cycle and invoices it. Ask your administrator to credit the extra invoice, then put Active cycle and Active month back with Change cycles and the contract return back with Override contract dates (see Set up a lease).
Why does Clean selected on the Overdue list cancel a lease? The Overdue tile's list mixes vehicles still out with bookings nobody collected, and Clean selected cancels every ticked booking, whatever it is. Never tick a lease there. Use Extend all overdues on Lease overview instead.
Why did I click Manually trigger invoice and nothing came out? The screen always closes without a message. If the lease was invoiced less than an hour ago, nothing happens at all. If Lease invoice manual validation is on, the invoice is waiting on Pending invoice overview. Otherwise see Invoices for nothing above.
Why has a lease sat on Pending invoice overview for weeks? Nobody issued it, or Process selected found nothing to charge. The nightly run skips it the whole time. Tick it and click Process selected. If it stays, open the Lease screen, click Edit in the Invoice status section, set Auto invoice status to N/A and click Save; the nightly run picks the lease up again on its billing day.
Why did invoicing stop although the vehicle is still out? Continue lease invoicing is No and the contract has passed the End date. Move the End date on, or click Extend all overdues.
Why does the Invoice button on the booking say Booking qualifies for lease extension. Please process this first.? The booking has an invoice waiting. The app opens Pending invoice overview: issue it there. Once the vehicle reads Dropped off, the Invoice button works normally again.
Why is Process selected missing? Tick at least one row first. If it is still missing, your account does not have the Company admin role.
Why is the invoice a few cents different from To be invoiced? To be invoiced is rounded to whole euros; the invoice shows the cents.
Why is a lease still invoicing after its Total cycles? Total cycles is only a count. To end the lease, set its End date and keep Continue lease invoicing at No, or take the vehicle back in — see Take a vehicle back.
Where do I change the billing day or basis? On the same Lease screen, under Billing settings — see Set how a lease is billed.