How do I create a long term booking?
Contents
Summary
This article explains how to create a long term booking in the Booking and Hire module.
More Information
A long term booking is a booking made for an extended period of time that is invoiced periodically throughout its duration.
The booking does not need to have a fixed ending making it suitable for business hire, e.g. Equipment hire, as opposed to retail customer rentals.
Creating a Long Term Booking
Go to " Booking and Hire Add or Edit Customer Bookings".
- Press <Alt+F6> or the [Add Long] button.
In "Booking details":
- At "Customer:", enter the code of the customer the long term booking is for.
- At "Reference:", enter a customer facing booking reference to be used on invoices.
 | Invoices produced will have a reference made up of the reference you enter here plus the sequence number of the invoice, e.g. 'Reference 0002' for the second invoice produced. |
- At "From:", enter the date and time that the long term booking starts.
- At "To:", enter the date and time that the long term booking ends.
 | If you do not know when the booking will end, you can leave "To:" blank to make the long term booking open ended. |
| It is recommended that you leave "Type:" at its default setting. |
In "Period details":
- At "Active:", choose 'Yes'.
- At "Interactive:", choose how much interaction you wish the user to have when the invoice is produced:
- 'Booking' - review the booking prior to the invoice being produced.
- 'Invoice' - review the invoice to be produced.
- 'Both' - review both the booking screen and invoice before printing the invoice.
- 'Neither' - produce the invoice without allowing the user to review the booking or invoice.
 | If a user reviews the booking and/or invoice they will be able to amend the details such as pricing and text where necessary. If you have to add an order number or hours to each invoice, then you would choose 'Invoice' here. |
- At "Period type:" and "Period interval:", enter when and how often the long term booking should be invoiced.
| The fields below will be updated to allow you to view how many invoices have been produced for the booking, when the last invoice was produced and when the next invoice is due. |
In "Booking items": Press [Add] to add an item to the long term booking.
- In the "Item" column, enter the hire item to use for the long term booking.
| You can press <Ctrl+F1> from here to search for and choose a hire item by entering a search term. |
| You can press <Alt+F1> from here to search for and choose a hire item by viewing hire item availability. |
There are two ways to set a price for the booking:
- In the "Nett price" or "Gross price" column, enter the price to hire the item for each invoice period.
- Alternatively in the "Price plan" column, enter or search for the price plan to apply to the hire item.
| If the hire item has an associated "Price Plan" then that plan will be entered automatically. |
Repeat this process to add further items to the long term booking.
Press [Done] and [Accept] the changes to save the long term booking.
Producing Invoices
Go to " Booking and Hire Invoice Long Term Bookings".
Viewing Due Invoices
On entry, you will be shown a list of the invoices due to be created as of today's date. You can limit what is shown by:
- At "Customer:", enter the customer whose due invoices you want to view.
- At "To date:", enter a date; invoices that are due on or before this date will be shown.
- Press the [Search] button to update the list.
Choosing Invoices To Produce
By default, all due invoices on the list are tagged to be produced, however you can choose which invoices you want to produce by using the [Tag/Untag], [Tag all] and [Untag all] buttons.
Consolidating Invoices
You can choose to consolidate invoices by choosing 'Yes' at "Consolidate?". If consolidated, each customer will get a single document covering all their due invoices.
| This option is only available on up to date systems; if this option is unavailable to you, you might need to contact support. Contact your Platinum dealer or our support team on 0116 230 1500 or by using our website support contact page. |
Producing Invoices
Once you have tagged the due invoices you want to produce:
- Press the [Produce] button.
- If you have set your long term bookings to be interactive, you will have the chance to review the customer booking and/or the invoice before they are created.
- Once all the due invoices have been created, you will have the chance to tag and produce the other due invoices from the list.
Taking Payments
When an invoice is produced, a customer booking record is created to cover the invoiced period. Payments for the long term booking should be taken on those created customer booking records in the usual way or via Sales Ledger Receipts.
Once paid in full the booking record will clear from the open bookings screen.
See also
BH06
