Using BookandManage
Bookings, calendar and quotes
Taking a booking, the calendar, availability, quotes, booking statuses, extensions and cancellations.
The Bookings area is where hires are taken, scheduled and tracked. Its overview shows today's pickups and returns, cars on hire now, overdue returns, the next seven days and quotes waiting for a reply, with New booking, New quote and Check availability buttons.
The booking calendar
Bookings, Calendar has one row per car, grouped by category, and a column per day. Switch between Week, 2 weeks and Month, move earlier or later, search for a customer, rego or booking, and filter by category or location.
- 1Week, 2 weeks or Month.
- 2Find a customer, rego or booking.
- 3Rent-to-own contracts run across the whole view.
- 4A booking: click it to open it.
- 5Hatched days are in the workshop.
Bars are coloured by status: reserved, ready for pickup, on hire, overdue, completed, held for a lead (dashed), rent-to-own and workshop. A red line marks now.
Click an empty day on a car's row to start a booking for that car on that date.
Availability
Bookings, Availability answers "what can I give this customer?". Enter the pickup location, pickup and return date and time, and optionally a category, model, number of seats, transmission or fuel type. Turn on Show unavailable cars to see the rest and why they're not free.
Only cars that are free for the whole hire are offered, including the turnaround time between hires set in Settings, Rental. Cars in the workshop or held for someone else aren't offered.
If a category is full, availability suggests similar or better cars from the upgrade categories you've set (see Categories).
From a lead, Assign holds a car for that customer for 72 hours. You can also assign a car to an upcoming booking, choosing to keep the booking's price or use that car's price.
Taking a booking
Start from New booking on the Bookings overview, the Create menu, the calendar, a lead, an application, a quote or a customer. Whatever you start from is filled in for you. The booking is built in five steps with a live Summary beside them. If you leave halfway, the draft is kept and you'll see "Picked up where you left off" when you come back.
- Customer. Search for an existing customer, or add a new one with name, mobile, email, date of birth, licence number, licence state and expiry, and address. You're warned if the email or phone already belongs to someone.
- Dates and vehicle. Choose Rental, or Long-term rental (a month or more, invoiced every 28 days). Set the pickup and return date and time, where the car is picked up and returned, and choose a car from the category list, which shows how many of each are free.
- Extras. Add any extras from your list, such as an additional driver, child seat or GPS. Some can be added more than once.
- Payment. Add a discount or notes (a flight number, say) and where the booking came from. Then take Pay in full, a deposit (your deposit percentage, 30% unless you change it), or Pay later, which issues the invoice due at pickup. Choose whether the rental agreement is signed now (the customer types their full name), emailed, or done later, and whether to email the booking confirmation.
- Review. Check each section, edit anything, and confirm.
Age checks
If the driver is under your minimum age for the dates, the booking stops with "This driver can't book these dates". Under your young driver age, you'll see a warning and the young driver fee is added per day. A category can have its own minimum age.
How the price is worked out
- Rental: the cheapest mix of your monthly (28-day), weekly (7-day) and daily rates. Leftover days never cost more than another week would.
- Extras: per day or per booking, with an optional cap for per-day extras.
- Location surcharges for the pickup and return locations, if they have one.
- Delivery and collection fees for the customer's address.
- Young driver fee per day.
- Discount.
Prices include tax unless you've set otherwise in Region and tax. The security bond is separate, isn't taxed, and is taken at check-out.
Pickup and return at the customer's address
If you've switched on "Customers can choose their own pickup and return address" in Settings, Rental, each end of the hire can be a Branch or the Customer's address. For an address, you enter the delivery address (or collection address), which branch the car comes from or goes back to, and an optional delivery fee or collection fee. Leave the fee empty to confirm it with the customer later; enter 0 to make it free. The return can be at a different branch from the pickup.
Booking statuses
A booking moves through these statuses. Most changes happen when you press the main button on the booking.
| Status | Means |
|---|---|
| Draft | Started but not confirmed |
| Pending, Payment pending, Application pending | Waiting for a confirmation, a deposit or an approved application |
| Reserved | Deposit paid, the car is booked |
| Ready for pickup | Marked ready |
| Active rental | Checked out, the car is on hire |
| Due for return | On hire, due back today |
| Overdue | Past its return time |
| Inspection | Checked in, waiting on a damage assessment or a held bond |
| Completed | Returned and settled |
| Cancelled | Cancelled before pickup |
The booking page
- 1The main button is always the next step: here, Record payment.
- 2More: agreement, downloads, change car, edit, email, cancel.
- 3Booked, Paid, Agreement signed, On hire, Returned, Completed.
- 4Ready for pickup? Car assigned, paid, agreement signed, licence checked.
The main button changes with the booking: Confirm booking, Record payment, Mark ready for pickup, Check out vehicle, Check in vehicle or Complete booking. Everything else is under More: record payment, email or view the agreement, download the booking record (PDF or CSV), assign or change the car, edit, email the customer and cancel.
The page also shows the vehicle, pickup and return, the hire, the car's condition (pickup and return inspections, and any damage), charges and payments, the customer, the rental agreement (Not sent, Sent, Viewed or Signed), notes, tasks and the emails sent about it.
Editing and extending
Edit booking changes the dates and times, discount and notes. You'll see the difference in price before you save, and the invoice is updated.
While the car is on hire, Extend sets a new return date and time and shows the extra cost. The extra is invoiced separately and emailed to the customer.
Cancelling
Cancel booking (needs the "Cancel bookings" permission) asks for a reason (customer changed plans, found another vehicle, couldn't provide documents, vehicle unavailable, duplicate booking, other) and how much to refund:
- Policy: a full refund if it's cancelled at least your free-cancellation time before pickup (48 hours unless you change it), half between that and 24 hours, and nothing inside 24 hours. What's kept becomes a cancellation fee.
- Full refund or No refund.
The hire invoice is voided and the customer is emailed.
Quotes
Bookings, Quotes lets you price a hire and send it before anything is booked.
- Choose who it's for: a lead, a customer or someone new.
- Fill in the hire: rental type, car model (and a specific car, or "Any available car"), dates and times, pickup and return, extras, any discount, a message to the customer, and how long it's valid (1 to 30 days, 7 by default).
- Save & send to email it, Save as draft, or Save & share link if your email isn't connected.
The customer gets a link to a page showing the car ("or similar"), pickup, return, kilometres, hire length and refundable bond. They can accept, or decline with an optional note on what you could do better.
On the quote you'll see its progress (Created, Sent, Viewed, Accepted or Declined, Booked), a PDF, the customer link with when it was opened, and Convert to booking once it's accepted. Under More: send a reminder, share the link instead, edit (prices are recalculated at today's rates), mark accepted or declined, duplicate, and preview it as the customer sees it.
Quote statuses are Draft, Sent, Viewed, Accepted, Expired, Rejected and Converted. A sent quote expires after its valid-until date.
Next
- Check-out and check-in: handing over the keys and taking them back.
- Invoices, payments and bonds
Something unclear or out of date? Tell us and we'll fix the page.