Topic overview
System Five can help manage long term rentals. Need to bill a customer for a period, but carry forward their rental to the next period? The Renew Rental report lists work orders with due dates falling within a specified range and allows those invoices to be converted to accounts receivable after duplicating them for the new period. With stored credit card information, invoices and work orders can be automatically charged to credit cards.
Getting started
The Renew Rental report will only list invoices with a specific sub-type. This sub-type must be specified in the Setup Wizard, under Rental Settings> Rentals. The Rolling Rental sub-type text box holds the sub-type used for the Renew Rental report. The same sub-type must also be set in the invoice setup (from the Navigator menu, select Setup Tools> Printing Options> Invoice Setup).
In the Setup Wizard> Invoice Setup> Invoice Options 2, there are two options that need to be enabled to use the Renew Rentals feature. Both the Select a sub-type on Work Orders and Select a subtype on Invoices options must be checked. The invoice sub-type can now be assigned when creating or editing an invoice.
See Also: Rental Settings, Credit Card Processing Setup
Access
To access the Renew Rentals report, select the Rentals > Renew Rentals from the Navigator menu, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: The Navigator Menu
Note: Recurring Rentals will only process invoices for the current department.
Windows and dialog boxes
The following topics include detailed descriptions of windows and dialog boxes used for the Renew Rentals function:
Renew Rental Toolbar
The Toolbar located across the top of the window contains buttons that perform various functions and tasks. The Toolbar is shown in Figure 1:
Figure 1: The Toolbar
The Function and Purpose of each of the buttons is detailed in Table 1:
Button | Function or Purpose |
View | Click to generate the report using the options that you have selected in the Settings tab. |
Renew | Click to renew all selected invoices from the Report tab. The Summary tab will display the results. |
Click to print the contents of the Report or Summary tabs. | |
Close | Click the button to close the window. |
Help | Click the button to launch the help file for this module |
Table 1: The Toolbar buttons - Function and Purpose
Renew rental contacts Settings tab
Settings tab
The Settings tab provides the ability to set the type of Invoices being renewed, the Date Range for selecting the Invoices to be renewed, and specifying the new renew date. The basic settings options are shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: The Settings tab
Customer Filter
By default, the Report for all customers option is selected, but the field below can be used to specify a single customer.
Renew Date
The Start date and End date settings specify the date range for selecting Work Orders or Invoices due for renewal. All Work Orders or Invoices, based on the Renew Invoice Options setting, assigned the Renewal Sub-type as defined in the Setup Wizard, that will expire within the specified date range, and contain at least one rental item checked 'OUT', will be included in the report .
The Renew from date option specifies the new start date used when creating new Work Orders or Invoices.
The Renew from end of period option specifies that the end date on each Work Order or Invoice will be used when creating the next Work Order or Invoice.
Tick the Include rentals with no end dates checkbox to include open-ended rentals.
Renew Invoice Options
The Invoice Type setting is either renew Work Orders or Invoices. The functionality is much the same, except that invoices are created instead of work orders when the Invoice option is used. The option to renew invoices is only available if Rentals remain out on A type invoices has been selected. The Display details check box causes the report to list the items on each invoice. With the Append dash number option checked, newly created invoices and work orders will use original invoice number with an appended dash number. The default is to use the next available invoice number.
The extended settings options are shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: The Settings tab
Insufficient Stock Options
This option is only available when the Renew rental items only has not been selected and applies only when renewing work orders and invoices containing non-rental.
- Stop and ask when insufficient stock - means the renewal process will stop when an out of stock item is encountered, requiring human intervention.
- Over Sell when insufficient stock - means out of stock items will be automatically oversold during processing.
- Back Order when insufficient stock - means out of stock items will be automatically back ordered during processing.
- Sell Available when insufficient stock - means that only available stock will be added and quantities will be adjusted accordingly.
Charge Invoices
These options are only available when Integrated Credit Card Processing has been properly set up. This is best accomplished with the assistance of a trained System Five Software support technician.
- Don't charge Credit Cards - means just that.
- Add payments to old A invoice - means charge at the end of the rental term for that invoice before creating a new invoice for the next period.
- Add payments to the new Work Order - means charge at the beginning of the rental term on the new work order.
- Add payments to existing Work orders only - means include only work orders that have not been charged and charge them without creating new work orders. Use this option in conjunction with Add payments to the new Work Order to process work orders that were manually created in advance and work orders that previously failed to process. The date range for this option should be for the previous period for the invoices or work orders and not the actual rental period. For example, if the start date setting is 1st of February, and the end date setting is the 29th of February, then all work orders or invoices for March, with outstanding amounts, will be loaded into the report tab.
Note: Click [View] to generate the report using the options that you have selected in the Settings tab.
Renew rentals Report tab
Report tab
Clicking [View] generate the report using the options that you have selected in the Settings tab.
Clicking [Print] will print the contents of the report.
Click [Renew] to process each selected invoice. Work orders will converted to accounts receivable invoices. New work orders or invoices will be created based on the Renew Invoice Options setting.
The Report tab, with Display Details option selected, is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Report tab.
The columns that appear in the tab are detailed in Table 1.
Column | Contents | Modifiable |
Renew | The Renew column displays a red X or a green check mark to indicate whether to renew the specified work order or not. Click to toggle between an X or check mark. Click the column header itself to change the renew flag for all work orders. | Yes |
Invoice | Displays the work order or invoice number. Double click this column to open the invoice or work order for review. If changes are made to the work order click on view again to update the displayed information. | No |
Customer | Displays the customer's name. | No |
Start date | Displays the invoice or work order's Start time. | No |
End date | Displays the invoice or work order's End time. | No |
Total | Displays the invoice or work order's total. | No |
Balance | Displays the unpaid balance for the invoice or work order. | No |
Credit Card | Displays stored credit card information. | No |
Table 1: The Report columns
To use the renew rentals feature in System Five, all rental items on an invoice should have the same start and end times. When searching for invoices to renew, based on the settings specified in the Settings tab, the Renew Rental report uses the rental Start and End times as specified on the Rental Times tab of the Invoice Entry window, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Setting the Start and End times.
Renewing rentals
Invoice clerk
When renewing rentals, the Login Clerk will be used for the new work orders instead of the original clerk. The Do not recalculate price status will be carried over to new work orders and invoices to preserve special pricing.
Rental period
The duration of the new rental period is taken from the duration on the original invoice. For example, if the original invoice was for two weeks, the new invoice is created for a two week period starting on the renew date that you specified. The exception to this is when the original rental period starts on the first day of the month and ends on the last day of the month. In this case the new period will span the first of the month to the end of the month. If on the original invoice the rental period began on March 1st and ended on March 31st, for example, then the new rental period would begin on April 1st and end on April 30th (ie: a calendar month, rather than 31 days). This behavior overrides the renew date specified on the settings tab. For rental periods that span a calendar month, the first of the month will always be used as the start date.
Comments
Free-form comments and comment notes are copied to new invoices and work orders when renewing work orders or invoices.
Kits
Regardless of whether a rental item or not, child items of tag-along kits will always price while child items of type 150 kits will not.
Purchase Order Number
If the original invoice or work order being renewed has a purchase order assigned to it, then the same purchase order will be assigned to any new work order or invoice created.
Renewing Non-rental items
When the Insufficient Stock Options setting is set to Stop and ask when insufficient stock, any insufficient non-rental stock encountered while processing renewals will require manual rectification on an item-by-item basis, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Insufficient Stock
Renew rentals Summary tab
Summary tab
The Summary tab lists the rental invoices and work orders that have been renewed.
Click [Print Completed] to print out all of the selected accounts receivable invoices.
Click [Print New] to print the selected new invoices or work orders that were just created.
Clicking [Print] on the Toolbar to print the contents of the Summary tab.
The Summary tab for renewing rental invoices or work orders is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Summary tab
The columns that appear in the tab are detailed in Table 1.
Column | Contents | Modifiable |
The Print column displays a red X or a green check mark to indicate whether or not to print the specified invoice or work order. Click to toggle between an X or check mark. Click the column header itself to change the Print flag for all work orders. | Yes | |
Original Invoice | Displays the original work order or invoice number. Double click this column to open the invoice or work order for review. If changes are made to the work order click on view again to update the displayed information. | No |
Customer | Displays the customer's name. | No |
New Invoice | Displays the new work order or invoice number. Double click this column to open the invoice or work order for review. If changes are made to the work order click on view again to update the displayed information. | No |
New Start | Displays the new invoice or work order's Start time. | No |
New End | Displays the new invoice or work order's End time. | No |
Credit Card | Displays credit card information. | No |
Table 1: The Summary columns
When the Renew rental items only has not been selected, and insufficient stock was encounter while processing, the summary line will be highlighted in yellow regardless of the Insufficient Stock Options setting, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Insufficient Stock
The Summary tab with results for Add payments to existing work orders is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Adding payments
Note that the above process will not create any new work orders or invoices.
