Introduction
A lease is a long rental that is billed a cycle at a time. Every cycle is 30 days, so the contract on a lease always covers the current 30 days while the customer keeps the vehicle for months. Each lease has its own screen headed Lease, opened with the Lease button on the booking. From top to bottom it has sections headed Core settings, Billing settings, Billing process, Invoice status, Calculated price per cycle of 30 days and Next invoice, with Save changes and Cancel at the bottom. This page covers starting a lease and getting its dates right.
You will use this when:
- a customer wants a van for three months and pays for it month by month
- a customer who booked for six weeks asks to switch to a monthly contract
- you want to check that a long booking really is set up as a lease
- a customer asks why their contract shows 30 days when they have the vehicle for a quarter
Words these screens use
| The screen says | It means |
|---|---|
| Shortlease | The app's word for a lease: at least 30 days, billed per cycle |
| Active cycle, Total cycles | Which 30-day billing period the lease is in, and how many it will have |
| Contract pickup date time, Contract drop off date time | The period the contract, and so the price, currently covers |
| Start date, End date | When the customer actually collects and returns the vehicle |
| is lease | The switch that makes a booking a lease |
Every way to start a lease
| Route | What you get | What it checks |
|---|---|---|
| New under Shortlease on the Bookings screen | A lease booking, or a quote, for a number of months | Refuses anything under 30 days |
| Shortlease? ticked on the New Booking search | The same, for dates you choose — see Search for an available vehicle | Refuses anything under 30 days |
| Lease on a booking or quote that is not a lease yet | The existing booking turned into a lease | That the vehicle is free |
| A booking sent in from outside that runs more than 29 days | A lease, set up for you — see Bookings from other sources | Nothing on your side |
Use the Shortlease screen for a new customer, and Lease when the booking already exists.
How to use
Configuration
Two settings decide how a new lease is billed. Both are copied onto the lease the moment it is created, so changing them later does not touch leases that already exist.
- From the main menu open Settings, then click Operational, then the Lease tab.
- Lease billing basis (starts at Arrears) and Lease billing day (starts at 1) are what every new lease is given. The other controls on the same tab govern invoicing, not setting a lease up.
- Click Save.
A customer with their own arrangement gets theirs instead: set Custom lease billing terms on the customer's Financial tab — see Set a customer's payment and invoicing terms. To change a lease that already exists, change Billing basis and Billing day on its own Lease screen.
Before you start: every staff role that can work on bookings can create a lease and change its dates. Opening Settings needs the Company admin role. The vehicle class you want must have a vehicle free for the whole period.
Using the Lease screens
To start a new lease for a number of months, open Bookings from the main menu — the screen with sections headed Bookings, Shortlease, Quotes, Transport and Fines — and click New in the Shortlease section. The screen is headed New shortlease subscription.
- Set Pickup first.
- Type the number of months in Months; it starts at 3. There is no return-date box: the return is worked out from these two. If you change Pickup afterwards, type Months again.
- Choose Checkout location, Checkin location and Category, then click Search.
- On the vehicle class you want, click Select to create the booking, or Quote to create a quote — see Send a quote and follow it up. Nothing exists until you click one of them; closing the screen before that leaves no trace.
To turn an existing booking into a lease:
-
Open the booking. In the row of buttons that runs Payments, Invoice, Overrides and so on, click Lease. The booking screen has no Save button — a switch such as Auto checkout is stored the moment you change it — so go straight to Lease without touching anything else on the way.
What you see next. The app shows New lease created. Rates have been recalculated. and opens the Lease screen. If the vehicle is not free it shows Asset not availability in selected period. and creates nothing.
-
Under Core settings, set End date back to the day the customer will really return the vehicle — converting has just moved it (see Key details). Total cycles further down is recalculated straight away as you change the date, but nothing is stored yet.
-
Click Save changes. This is what stores the dates and the lease.
To correct the contract period by hand, click Override contract dates at the top of the Lease screen. The popup warns that you should generally not do this, because the contract dates follow the lease's own dates automatically. Set Contract pickup date time and Contract drop off date time, then click Save, which checks the vehicle is free, or Update (ignore availability checks), which does not. Both ask Are you sure? and recalculate the price for the new period without emailing the customer.
To stop a booking being a lease, set is lease to No and click Save changes. Only the switch changes: the dates, the contract period and the prices stay exactly as they are, and the booking is no longer invoiced as a lease. Cancel just closes the screen; it does not put back a date you have changed, so change it back yourself before closing.
Key details
The thirty-day minimum
A lease must run at least 30 days, measured to the hour — 29 days and 23 hours is refused. The app checks it in two places:
| Where | What is measured | Message |
|---|---|---|
| Select or Quote on the shortlease search | Pickup to the worked-out return | Shortlease bookings need to be at least 30 days. |
| Save changes on the Lease screen | Start date to End date | Min period should be at least 30 days. |
Save changes also refuses an End date before the Start date with Pickup should be before dropoff.
How Months becomes dates and cycles
The return is the same date that many months later, less one day. The contract return is always 30 days after pickup, and the lease gets one cycle for every full 30 days, plus one.
A pickup on 1 October at 09:00 with Months 3 returns on 31 December at 09:00: 91 days. The contract runs to 31 October, and 91 days is three full thirties, so the lease has four cycles. One month is where the sum bites: from 1 January it returns on 31 January, exactly 30 days, and is accepted; from 1 April it returns on 30 April, 29 days, and is refused — and every one-month lease starting in February is refused. Use two months, or tick Shortlease? on the search and pick the dates yourself.
What converting a booking changes
Clicking Lease on a booking that is not yet a lease does four things before you see the screen:
| What | Becomes |
|---|---|
| The return date and the contract return | 30 days after pickup, whatever the booking was before |
| The price | Recalculated from scratch — any price changed by hand on the booking is lost |
| Billing day and Billing basis | Copied from the customer's own terms, or else from your company's |
| Active cycle and Total cycles | 0 and 24. Total cycles is not worked out from the booking's length until you change Start date or End date on the Lease screen, which recalculates it |
What to do next
Check the Billing settings section on the same Lease screen before the first cycle is billed, then confirm the booking — see Confirm a booking.
Q&A
Why did the return date jump to 30 days after pickup? Somebody clicked Lease on a booking that was not yet a lease. That moves the return date as well as the contract. Open Lease, set End date to the real return and click Save changes.
Why have the prices I changed by hand gone? Turning a booking into a lease recalculates every price from scratch. Put the changes back on the booking's Overrides screen. Do any hand pricing after converting, not before.
Why does the contract show 30 days when the customer has the vehicle for three months? That is how a lease works: the contract covers the cycle being billed. The customer's full period is Start date to End date on the Lease screen.
Why did the contract return I overrode go back to 30 days? While the lease is still in its first cycle — Active cycle 0 — every Save changes on the Lease screen puts the contract return back to 30 days after the contract pickup. Override the dates again, and close the Lease screen with Cancel rather than Save changes afterwards.
Why can't I change the Start date? Start date can only be changed while the booking is a draft, a quote, unconfirmed or confirmed, and only before the first cycle has started. Once the vehicle has gone out, or a cycle has been billed, it is locked. End date stays open until the vehicle has been taken back in.
Where is Change contract period on a lease booking? It is hidden on a lease; lease dates are changed on the Lease screen. See Change a booking's dates.
Why did clicking Lease on a quote change the quote's dates? A quote is converted the same way as a booking, return date and price included. Check the dates on the Lease screen before sending the quote.