Rental

PRONTO Xi Rental is a comprehensive module which enables you to efficiently track your rental contracts. It is a fully integrated, flexible tool which offers full product and contract traceability and the capability to streamline your processes.

The foundation of PRONTO Xi Rental is the agreement between you and your customer. The rental contract defines the units rented and the conditions of the rental. You can record a rental unit as both a serialised item and a fixed asset. This can appear on the contract as units, additions or options. Identifying the equipment in PRONTO Xi Fixed Assets allows you to account for asset depreciation. The asset record for the unit is linked to its serial number by an asset identification number. PRONTO Xi stores all the rental details of the item, such as its current contract, rental rate and serial number. The item group can be used to determine the general ledger postings of rental income.

Hire contracts allow you to manage rented inventory items which are not fixed assets and do not have a serial number. Hire contracts are a simple and effective alternative to rent standard inventory. Consignment orders can be created to separate rental items from available stock in PRONTO Xi Inventory.

PRONTO Xi Rental functionalities include:

• Contract authorisation;
• Flexible billing cycles;
• Multiple sites management;
• Handling of unearned income;
• Rental rebates;
• Serialised and non-serialised rental units;
• Gatehouse movement tracking;
• Pro rata catch-up invoices;
• Full rental history by unit;
• Depreciation and returns for kits and items;
• Automatic creation of assets and full integration with the PRONTO Xi General Ledger.

When a contract is created, a percentage value can be added for stamp duty and damage waiver. You can create reminder notices when invoices are not paid in the set period of time and archive all customer correspondence within the contract notes.

Rental offers the flexibility of multiple billing cycles including the ability to enter extra units outside of the standard billing cycle. You can opt to charge a deposit, invoice immediately or at a later date, and control the billing of items in a contract. Depending on your agreement with your customer you can increase rental rates by CPI or use periodic increases. Rental is fully integrated with all PRONTO Xi modules. You can attach and post all the revenue of a rental contract to a project and schedule the preventative maintenance of your equipment. Rental is fully auditable and allows you to define the functions accessible by each staff member.

Additions

An addition is an item that can be rented in conjunction with a rental unit. For example, a house may be the rental unit, and its furniture classified as additions. Every addition included on a rental contract is linked to a particular unit. If the unit is removed from the contract, all additions are automatically removed. Additions can also be removed without terminating the parent unit. An addition can be stored as both fixed asset and serialised item. Additions have their own rental rate and appear on rental invoices separately from their parent units.

Options

An option is an extra charge associated with the rental of a unit. An option can be a physical item rented with the unit, a service such as transport or installation, or simply a cost incurred. Like additions, each option is linked to a particular unit on the contract, and is terminated from the contract at the same time as the unit. Options are not fixed assets or serialised items. They are represented by an item code entered in the inventory master file. If an option represents a physical item supplied on the rental contract, it is effectively ‘expensed‘ when the contract is created. If an option represents a service, it can be defined as a special (non-stocked) inventory item. Options can be invoiced periodically, or by a lump sum charge on the first invoice.

Contract Life Cycle

A rental contract goes through the following stages:

Entered – The details of the contract are entered, including the items to be rented. The status of the contract is set to ‘Entered’. PRONTO Xi sets the status of each unit and addition on the contract to ‘Allocated’;

Approve the Contract – You can raise invoices against the contract once it is approved. The contract status is set to ‘Active’. However, the status of the units and additions is not changed;

Ship the Rental Items – The various units, additions and options on the contract are shipped to the client’s site. As each item is shipped, its status changes to ‘On hire’;

Terminate the Contract – When the contract is terminated, you can no longer raise an invoice against it. The contract status becomes ‘Finished’. The status of the items on the contract changes to ‘Off hire’;

Receive the Rental Items – The rented items are returned to your warehouse from the client’s site. When an item is received, its status changes to ‘Received not inspected’;

Inspect the Items – The received items are inspected to ensure that they are in good condition. Once an item is inspected, its status changes back to ‘Available’, and it is removed from the contract.

Fixed Asset Units

PRONTO Xi Rental links into PRONTO Xi Fixed Assets. This assigns the serial number as the link from the rental unit to the fixed asset. It allows accounting for the depreciation costs of the unit.

Items that are available for rental are treated as assets and are therefore subject to normal asset depreciation.

Contract Invoicing

Rental manages the invoicing to the customer for the contract rental.

The invoice value of a contract is the sum of the rental rate of each ‘On hire’ or ‘Allocated’ unit, addition and option.Invoices are not posted directly to accounts receivable and the general ledger. Instead, PRONTO Xi creates a sales order with the status ‘Ready to print invoice’. After the invoice is printed and the order updated, the transaction is automatically posted to the relevant accounts. When invoices are raised, depending on your accounting requirements, a general ledger journal may also be raised, recognising the value of the unearned income as a liability, which is reduced as the income is earned.

One-Off Invoices

In addition to recurrent invoices against the contracts, ‘one-off‘ invoices can be raised when the contract is approved, an item is terminated from the contract or the contract itself is terminated. This method allows adjustments to the initial and final rental invoices using the normal sales order functionality.

Billing Cycle

Part of the definition of the contract is the ‘billing cycle’. The frequency of the contract invoicing is flexible. It can be set to the appropriate value for the contract (weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, etc).

PRONTO Xi can also cater for rental cycles excluding specific days. An example is when weather conditions make it impossible to use the hired equipment, or when public holidays are not to be invoiced. This also means that invoicing can be done for a seven-day week, a five-day week, or any required combination. When an invoice is raised, PRONTO Xi calculates the amount due for each unit by multiplying the number of invoiced billing cycles by each unit’s rental rate.

A current date of invoice is held for each item on the contract, as well as for the contract itself. This means that units can be added or removed from the contract, and appropriate adjustments can be included in the next invoice.

By selecting the contract number and the customer code, recurrent invoices can be produced in bulk for a set of contracts. Each invoice is posted directly to the general ledger and to the customer’s account.

Payment Reminders

There is a facility to produce reminder notices when invoices are not paid in the designated period of time. The contract is automatically updated with notes regarding the reminders.

Reports

PRONTO Xi offers report writing tools and an extensive range of standard reports. These reports have additional selection criteria to deliver the most appropriate information for your organisation.

Some of the reports available in PRONTO Xi Rental include:

• Master Contracts List;
• Due to Expire;
• Projected Rental Income;
• Rental Trial Balance;
• Invoiced Up-to-Date;
• Master Unit List;
• Unit Availability;
• Monthly Unit Sales;
• Rental Unit Sale.

Tracking

The PRONTO Xi Rental module allows full serial tracking of items. You may produce rental invoices and trial balances.