The Long Term Invoicing form is displayed when the Long term invoicing option is selected from the main Vehicle Rental menu.
The long term invoicing facility enables the generation of regular batch invoices for those agreements originally opened with long term Tariff Type and which are still within their period of validity.
Tip: This is best illustrated with an example. Within an agreement an appropriate Tariff should be selected for Long Term Invoicing. To be a long term tariff the tariff selected within the agreement must have a Tariff Type code of L (to denote long term) within the Tariff Type table set up in Miscellaneous options. The tariff type table also allows the type of long term tariff to be defined (e.g. Daily, Weekly, Monthly, etc) by the selection of the appropriate Longterm Type code.
Warning: Tariffs should be selected carefully at the time of creating a booking/agreement and starting the rental as once the rental is started the tariff type cannot be changed.
Note: Any agreements that do not have a long term tariff type are not included in long term invoicing.
What do you want to do?
To generate Long Term Invoices:
From the Master Menu, select the Vehicle rentals option and Company required.
The VEHICLE RENTALS Menu is displayed.
Select the Long term invoicing option.
The Long Term Invoicing form is displayed.
Select the Type of invoicing that you want to do. This is normally Weekly or Monthly.
Fill in the appropriate fields, depending on selection of invoicing.
Select the OK command button to begin long term invoicing.
Upon entry to this option the system provides a form which is divided into four distinct columns:
After making the required selection within each of the columns the command buttons at the bottom of the form are used to proceed with or cancel the production of long term invoices.
The Type column is used to select the required type of Long Term Invoices to be produced for the current invoice run. This is done via a series of mutually exclusive option/radio buttons:
Daily: Daily Long Term Invoicing may be run on a daily basis or run at month end. It is called daily because even though it may be run at the end of the month it calculates the number of working days within the month and multiplies this by the daily (as opposed to monthly) tariff rate. All rental agreements allocated a Tariff Code set up with a Tariff Type code of L (to denote long term) and a Longterm Type code of D are included within this invoicing run.
Note: The Daily tariff now contains a number of parameters which ensure that when Long Term Invoicing is run it can now generate 28 day invoicing.
Weekly: Run for customers who wish to be invoiced on a weekly basis. All rental agreements allocated a Tariff Code set up with a Tariff Type code of L (to denote long term) and a Longterm Type code of W are included within this invoicing run.
Monthly: Run for customers who wish to be invoiced on a calender month basis. All rental agreements allocated a Tariff Code set up with a Tariff Type code of L (to denote long term) and a Longterm Type code of M are included within this invoicing run. The monthly tariff rate value is used irrespective of how many days there are in the month (e.g. 28, 30 or 31).
Periodic: Used for customers who wish to be invoiced for their own specifically defined invoicing periods. A Long Term Period Table is set-up within Miscellaneous Options defining the exact calendar days on which the customer is to be invoiced each month. This table is then allocated (in the Periodic Invoice Table field on the General Tab of the Marketing Company Record in the Rental Details form (drcom record)) in CRM and the Use Periodic Invoicing flag (also in the Periodic Invoice Table field on the General Tab of the Marketing Company Record in the Rental Details form (drcom record) ticked; the system then automatically knows that any agreements for this customer are to be invoiced using their own particular periodic timetable.
Contract Hire: Anniversary Invoicing. All rental agreements allocated a Tariff Code set up with a Tariff Type code of L (to denote long term) and a Longterm Type code of C are included within this invoicing run. Agreements on this tariff type are to be invoiced on the anniversary of the rental agreement start date. This is not frequently used.
All: Invoices all Daily, Weekly and Monthly rental agreements.
Tip: It must be ensured that a suitable LTI invoice format (and KPrint layout if applicable) is in place before using this option.
The Select column is used to select whether Consolidated Invoices or Non-Consolidated Invoices (or both) are to be included within the invoice run. This is done via mutually exclusive option/radio buttons. There are also some additional criteria fields to restrict inclusion within the invoice run:
Non-Summary: Invoices all customers who are defined as non-summary i.e. a separate invoice is produced for each rental agreement. The Produce Summary Invoice checkbox in the General Tab of the CRM Company Record in the Rental Details form (drcom record) should be blank. This is the default.
Summary: Invoices all customers who are defined as Summary i.e. single invoice (which could have a distinctly separate invoice format than for Non_Summary) is produced containing all of the current live long-term rental agreements relating to the input selection criteria. The Produce Summary Invoice checkbox in the General Tab of the Marketing Company Record in the Rental Details form (drcom record) should be ticked.
Both: Both Summary and Non-Summary invoices are produced in the same run.
Note: The facility to separate out Summary from Non-Summary invoices is provided in order to give the opportunity for pre-printed stationery (which may be different for each invoice type) to be changed. The Both option may be run if the pre-printed stationery is the same for both invoice types or K-Print is being used to print out the stationery formats at run-time.
Out Location: Selection of the drop-down-arrow button enables agreements to be selected for invoicing for a specific out location only.
Account: Allows input of a single Sales Ledger Account code so that long term invoicing may be run for one (important/large) individual customer only e.g. C1000. Alternatively, the series of ? characters denote wild cards so that if, for example, C1??? is entered then the invoicing run includes all Sales Ledger accounts that begin with the code C1.
Group: Allows input of a single Hire Group code so that long term invoicing may be run for one group of vehicles e.g. A1 - Fridges. Alternatively, the series of ? characters denote wild cards so that if, for example, A? is entered then the invoicing run includes all Hire Groups that begin with the code A.
Tariff: Allows input of a single Tariff code so that long term invoicing may be run for a single tariff type e.g. Daily. This is somewhat obsolete as the Tariff Type is largely defined by selecting the appropriate option button in the Type box.
The Invoice column is used to define the invoicing period.
Invoice To: This field is used in conjunction with a number of the Type selections. If Daily, Weekly or Contract Hire types are selected then the system enables entry of a cut-off date up to which the invoicing period is to be carried out. The
button may be used to edit the date or it may simply be manually keyed.
The Invoice To date is used as a focal point by the system when it searches for agreements to be included in the long term invoice run. The system validates this date against the date of the last long term invoice date held on the agreement record.
The system also checks the Minimum days to invoice for this Tariff type. If the production of invoices is required every 28 days then it must be ensured that the minimum invoice period is set to 28. If, for example, the date input is 31/08/2005 the system includes any agreements which have outstanding rentals to be invoiced up to and including the last day of August 2005 (providing the number of days is greater or equal to the minimum number of days showing on the tariff type record).
Note: Any un-invoiced charges before the month in question are also included e.g. if an agreement has three days to be charged earlier in August then these days are included in a run which is set for the end of August.
The system locates any agreements which have outstanding rental charges within or before the end of the selected month and generates the necessary invoices.
Note 2: This field defaults to the last day of the previous month.
Month: This field is disabled for all but selection of the Monthly type. If long term Monthly invoicing is to be carried out then this field is enabled. The system defaults-in the current month e.g. 2 (denoting February) but this can be moved forwards or backwards provided a user has the correct priorities.
Year: This field is disabled for all but selection of the Monthly type. If long term Monthly invoicing is to be carried out then this field is enabled. The system defaults-in the current year e.g. 2005 but this can be moved forwards or backwards provided a user has the correct priorities.
Also contained within the Invoice Group Box are the following mutually exclusive option buttons:
Report Only: Following input of the required selection criteria, it is imperative that this option is run in to produce a report of all agreements to be invoiced with their corresponding values prior to producing the invoices and posting to accounts. No postings are made to accounts.
Tip: The LTI Report is user-defined and can include the fields required by the rental company to verify their invoicing before it is run. The current LTI Invoice format is defined in the Long Term Report field in the Supplier/Misc Tab within System Parameters.
Post Invoice: Results in the generation of an invoice run with postings to accounts being made once the OK command button is selected.
Invoices are produced on the currently selected printer although, with a run which may include many invoices, it may be considered preferable to send the invoices to a spooler and physically print them afterwards. Regular rental tariffs are invoiced along with any charges which are set to be invoiced on a daily basis. Once Only and Factored Charges are only invoiced upon completion of the rental agreement.
Invoice Notes: Allows entry of user-defined text to be printed on all of the invoices within the LTI run. This is typically the Merry Christmas . . . type message.
The Companies column is used to select which companies are to be included within the current invoice run; this may be the current company, a number of companies or all companies.
The Companies box displays (if applicable) all of the current Vehicle Rental companies/branches within a multi-site environment e.g. Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, etc. Provided the user has the correct priority level then the mouse may be used to select one, several or all companies to be included within the long term invoicing run.
COMMAND BUTTONS
OK: Generates the Long Term Invoicing run according to the selection criteria that has been entered.
Cancel: Returns to the Vehicle Rentals menu.
Help: Provides online access to context sensitive help for the current application using the default browser.
