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.
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.
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 VAT, extras and any customer discount |
| Shortlease? | Rent for a month or more, on a different contract |
Steps
Before you start: any signed-in member of rental staff can search and book here. 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.
- Open Bookings in the main menu and choose 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.
- 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.
A search that finds nothing usually means the wrong branch, not a full fleet. 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. If everything is filled in and the answer is still nothing, you get No Asset Groups available in this branch. — which is about where you are searching, not how busy you are.
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.
Location decides which fleet you are searching. Your company runs one of three models, and it changes what a location means:
| 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. Quote creates an offer valid for seven days instead. Either way the vehicle itself may be picked for you automatically, so check which one you have been given before you promise a colour.
Tips and common issues
- Two different fields are both labelled Pickup. One is the date and time, the other is the location. They sit next to each other; read which one you are typing into before wondering why the results changed.
- Availability says 2 but you cannot find the vehicles. 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.
- A class shows plenty free, and the booking still warns you. 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.
- Shortlease is 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 untick Shortlease? and book it as a normal hire.
- Turning Shortlease on moved your return date. 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 ticking it, not before.
- Searching cleaned up somebody's half-finished booking. Every search first expires abandoned drafts across the whole company. That is why a colleague's ten-minute-old draft can disappear while you are searching — it had already run out.
- The same van appears free in two classes. It can belong to several. Booking it in one removes it from the others, which is why a class can lose availability without anybody booking that class.