I have an equipment hiring business.
So I hire to clients things like generators, compactors, power tools etc…
I need to be able to make a delivery note (which I will be naming as “Hire Contract”, to deliver equipment, machinery or tools to my clients, but it needs to have a “hire rate” and “per day” column, a column for “time out” and “time in” as well as a place at the bottom for a signature with the names, surname and ID number of the recipient, and a place to allocate the deposit amount collected, of which part will be allocated to the final payment when the hire has ended, and the balance refunded.
For example…
Generator which is $250/day is hired for a 2 day period. A deposit of $750 will be collected from the client upfront. If the 2 days is not exceeded and all is in order without any costs incurred due to damage or loss etc, $500 will be invoiced and $250 will be refunded.
Hi Mark.
Thanks for the reply.
I did not know much about custom fields, but now that you’ve told me I’ve figured out how to get the signature on.
More important to me is receiving the deposit amount so that it reflects as a payment either on “delivery note” or “sales order”.
As well as refunding the balance of the deposit upon completion of invoice
Make sure that when discussing things you use the same terminology as Manager - for example a Delivery Note is a document that records the movement or delivery of an inventory item that was sold to a customer. This is not what you are doing
Monies received from a customer will only show up on an Sales Invoice so this is probably the document that you need to use - you can rename it to whatever you like so the name on the document is not a problem.
Will all your customers be credit customers? presumably yes, as you will be sending out equipment to them.
In this case you can create a Sales Invoice to record the expected sale or rental/hire amount and note the customer deposit on it via a Receipt. What happens when the customer returns the equipment? Do you raise another invoice for the exact amount of the hire? Do you raise a supplementary invoice if there are further charges? Do you issue a Credit Note if the equipment is returned early?
The next question concerns the equipment itself - presumably these are fixed assets in you business - that is, they are not items you would habitually sell. Do you need to keep track of where they are and who you have hired them to?
@Louie, you are busy designing a form (which you mistakenly assume is some form of delivery note) when you should be thinking about the accounting functions that need to be accomplished. Delivery notes record the delivery of inventory items sold to customers. That isn’t what you are trying to do. Once the necessary accounting functions are determined, you can begin looking at which modules in Manager would support those functions.
But understand that Manager is an accounting program, not a time tracking program or point of sale system. It can help you run your business, but it might not furnish you the tools you need to interact with your customers. It is not a time clock. It is not a cash register. It is not a contract-generating tool. And it does not record damage to hired equipment. You might add a bunch of custom fields on some transaction form where such information can be entered, but that will just be information, not anything that is used by the program to achieve anything.
There are many business types that benefit from software customized for their markets. Equipment rental is one of those, in my opinion. Summaries from such a system can be entered into your business accounts with Manager.
I have figured out a way that will work for what I need to be done.
I created an invoice and “Custom Title” it “Hire Contract”.
Upon viewing I chose “new receipt” which then shows my client the total amount that they have paid to me.
When they return my equipment I then choose “new receipt” but I allocate it as a payment rather than a receipt.
Afterwards I edit the invoice, change the custom title back to invoice and update.
It then shows the total amount due for the hire period, the amount initially paid to me, the amount refunded to the customer, and a zero balance with a “PAID IN FULL” stamp.
Thanks to everyone for any assistance offered.
Thank you Mark.
Thank you Joe91.
Thank you Tut.
@Joe91 I figured all this out by doing a test business. Regarding fixed assets, yes it will be an asset to my business, and I will need to know who has it and where it is. I haven’t figured that part out as yet. I’ve added a machine as an asset item with a code, but can’t seem to use it on the invoice, or to allocate the income on the invoice to this asset code…
Manager has no capability for tracking location or status of fixed assets. You could use custom fields, but that would involve editing the fixed assets themselves every time you hire them out—not a good practice.
You should not be trying to do either. Posting a sales invoice to a fixed asset means you are selling the asset to the customer, and that is not what you are doing. Income generated by hiring the asset out should not be posted to the fixed asset, as that will increase its book value.
I’ve managed to add custom fields to my invoice. Also included signature using html found on the guide. Unfortunately it shows when editing, but after updating or saving to pdf, it does not show these fields on the printable pages.
