Introduction
This is the screen you use with a customer on the phone. You give it two dates, two locations and a category, and it answers with one row per vehicle class: how many are free, what the deposit is, and roughly what it costs. From that row you either take the booking or send a quote.
Across the top sit the search boxes: the Shortlease? switch, the dates and times, the locations and the category, with the Search button. Below them comes the results table, one row per vehicle class, each with its Select, Quote and Show booked in period buttons.
The number in the Availability column is the whole point of the screen, and it is not simply "vehicles we own". It is a calculation, and knowing what goes into it is the difference between confidently promising a van and promising one that is in the garage that week.
Why you would open it:
- a customer rings and asks whether you have a van free next weekend;
- you want to see how busy a class is before you agree to a one-way hire;
- a walk-in customer wants a car now, and you need to know what is on the yard;
- you are about to overbook and want to see which bookings are in the way.
Words this screen uses
| The screen says | It means |
|---|---|
| Asset group | A vehicle class — the thing a customer books, not one specific van |
| Availability | How many vehicles in that class are free for the dates you asked for |
| BasePrice (excl.) | The rental charge before value-added tax (VAT), extras and any customer discount |
| Shortlease? | Rent for a month or more, on a different contract |
This screen is the start of every desk booking and every quote. For the rest of the booking, see Create a booking.
How to use
Configuration
The search has no settings of its own, but it only finds what has been set up elsewhere. If a class never appears, one of these is usually missing:
| What must be set up | Where | Page |
|---|---|---|
| Your fleet model, which decides what a location means | Admin > Settings > Operational, General tab | Set up how your company runs day to day |
| The standard counter times, hire length and whether new bookings start as shortlease | Same screen, Default booking times tab and Default booking type | Set up how your company runs day to day |
| Each vehicle class, with its Category, Branch (or Location) and vehicles | Admin > Product design > Asset groups | Set up your vehicle classes |
| Your pickup and return locations, each under a branch | Admin > Product design > Locations | Set up your pickup and return locations |
| Rates for each class on the default price list | Pricing screens | Set rates and mileage prices for a vehicle class |
Before you start: any signed-in member of rental staff can search and book here; the set-up screens above need the Company admin role. You can only pick locations your profile covers, and the screen opens with the first of them already filled in — check it before you search, because a search at the wrong branch quietly returns the wrong fleet rather than an error.
Using the availability search
From the main menu, open Bookings, then New. The New Booking button on your daily overview lands on the same screen.
- Set the Pickup and Dropoff dates and times. The line underneath keeps a running count, reading Days: 3 | Calendar days: 4.
- Choose the collection and return locations from the two Pickup and Dropoff pickers beside the dates.
- Choose a Category — the family of vehicle classes to search within.
- Click Search.
- Read the Availability figure on each row against the BasePrice (excl.) beside it.
- To see what is already booked in a class, click Show booked in period.
- Click Select to start a booking on that class, or Quote to send a written offer instead.
Your search criteria are kept the moment you set them, not when you press Search — so leaving the screen and coming back does not reset the dates you typed, and there is nothing to undo them with. Retype them if they are stale.
The screen guesses, and its guesses are worth checking. It opens with both dates set to today, both locations set to the first one your profile covers, and the first category your company has. Where your company has set standard counter times, the dates move to those times and the return date jumps out by the standard hire length. Anything that lands in the past is pulled forward — the pickup to now, the return to four hours from now. Shortlease? starts off, unless your company is set up to do long hires by default, in which case it starts on and the return date is set ninety days out.
Four things must be filled in before the search runs at all: both dates, the category and both locations. A return date that is not after the pickup date stops the search with Please check the date fields.
Key details
What actually counts as available. The figure starts as every active vehicle in the class and comes down from there. A vehicle is taken off the count when, for the dates you asked for, any of these is true:
| Reason | What it looks like in real life |
|---|---|
| Maintenance overlapping your dates | It is booked into the garage that week |
| A transport overlapping your dates | It is being moved between branches |
| Booked in another class it also belongs to | The same van sits in two classes |
| Already booked in this class | Someone got there first |
That last line includes bookings that have no vehicle assigned yet, and it counts anything not yet finished — held, confirmed or already collected.
For example: a van class has six active vans. One is in the garage from Thursday to Monday, and two bookings overlap your Friday-to-Sunday dates — one with a van assigned, one without. The row shows Availability 3.
Location decides which fleet you are searching. Your company runs one of three fleet models, set on the Operational settings screen:
| Model | A class is offered when |
|---|---|
| By branch (the usual one) | Both your locations belong to the same branch as the class |
| Fixed fleet by class | The class itself is based at both your locations |
| Fixed fleet by vehicle | The class has a vehicle standing at both your locations |
A one-way hire is where this shows up: pick up in one place and return in another, and under every model both ends have to satisfy the rule, so a perfectly ordinary class can vanish from the results.
You are allowed to overbook. Nothing stops you selecting a class showing zero. You get a warning first — Warning, no availability for this booking. Feel free to overbook, but proceed with caution. — and then the booking is created anyway. It is a message, not a question: there is no confirmation to click and nothing is blocked. Use it when you know a vehicle is coming back early; do not use it to make a number look better.
Check what is in the way before you overbook. Show booked in period opens Bookings in period for that class and window, listing booking number, customer, status and both dates, with Open to jump into one. It deliberately shows more than the availability sum counted — returned and unconfirmed bookings appear here too — so a longer list than you expected is not a contradiction.
The price shown is only indicative. BasePrice (excl.) is the rate for your dates on the company's standard price list, before VAT, before extras and before anything specific to this customer. A three-day hire quoted here at €135,00 becomes €163,35 with 21% VAT, more again once insurance, a mileage package or a one-way fee go on. Quote it as a starting figure, never as the total.
What to do next: Select creates a draft booking that expires in ten minutes if nobody finishes it, so go straight on to add the customer — see Create a booking. Quote creates an offer valid for seven days instead — see Send a quote and follow it up. Either way the vehicle itself may be picked for you automatically, so check which one you have been given before you promise a colour.
Q&A
Why does the search say "No Asset Groups available in this branch." when I know we have vehicles? It means no class matched where you are searching, not that the fleet is full. Check the two locations first — the screen fills in the first location your profile covers. If the locations are right, the class may be missing its Category or Branch, or your fleet model may not allow a one-way hire between those two locations; see Set up your vehicle classes.
Why does the booking warn me about no availability when the row showed plenty free? The count on the row was worked out when you pressed Search. Somebody else can book in the meantime — the check runs again when you press Select, and that later answer is the true one.
Why did a class lose availability when nobody booked that class? A vehicle can belong to several classes, so the same van can appear free in two. Booking it in one removes it from the others.
Why did the results change after I typed in the Pickup box? Two different fields are both labelled Pickup: one is the date and time, the other is the location. They sit next to each other; check which one you are typing into.
Availability says 2, so which two vehicles are free? The count is per class, not per vehicle, and it never tells you which two. Use Show booked in period to see what is taken, and let the booking assign the vehicle.
Why is a shortlease refused with a message about thirty days? A shortlease booking has to run at least thirty days: Shortlease bookings need to be at least 30 days. Either lengthen it or switch off Shortlease? and book it as a normal hire.
Why did my return date jump after I switched on Shortlease? Switching it on when the period is under a month rewrites the return date to ninety days out at 08:00. Set your real return date after switching it on, not before.
Why did a colleague's half-finished booking disappear while I was searching? Every search first expires abandoned drafts across the whole company. A draft that had passed its ten minutes is cleared the moment anyone searches.
For the fleet model and the default times, see Set up how your company runs day to day; to finish the booking, see Create a booking.