All rental vehicles must belong to a hire group. Whenever a booking/agreement is created it is necessary to select the appropriate hire group for the type of vehicle required. Once a hire group is selected the vehicles subsequently displayed are those that have that hire group allocated to them against the Marketing/CRM vehicle record.
For the purposes of this file the hire group codes may consist of up to four characters; the code can be made up with any combination of letters or numbers e.g. SMCR for a small car group or 17TF for a 17T Fridge truck.
The hire groups will normally refer to the size or type of vehicle contained in that group.
The hire group file holds information about the type of group and number of vehicles held within the group, the types of charge normally raised when the group is selected, and up to ten tariff charges and nominal codes to be used for postings.
To access hire groups:
From the Master Menu, select the Vehicle rentals option and Company required.
The VEHICLE RENTALS menu is displayed.
Select Miscellaneous options.
The MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS menu is displayed.
Select the Hire groups option.
The Hire groups form is displayed.
The Hire Groups form is displayed when the Hire groups option is selected from the MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS menu.
The Hire Group form consists of three tabs:
New hire groups may be created, amended, displayed or deleted. A group record
should not be deleted unless you are satisfied that there are no vehicles belonging to that group
still on file. The ![[...]](Ellipsis.gif){kind=small}
may be used
to select the required Hire Group.
The Amend option is covered below during which the content of each of the fields held against the hire group record are explained.
The following are fields displayed on the General Tab on the Hire Groups form:
Main
Description: A 20-character description of the hire group being edited.
Vehicles in group: This field cannot be edited. It is fully maintained by the system. The value is calculated by counting the number of vehicles in the marketing vehicle file (MK.drveh) allocated against this group code and also have the rental availability flag set to Y.
Reserve Level: The number which triggers the Reservations form line to change colour from that which denotes there are sufficient vehicles for this group, down to that which indicates that the number of vehicles available for hire is reaching a critical level. This is a visual prompt only and may indicate that a further vehicle for this group may need to be crosshired in. It is not neccessary to populate this field.
If, for example, there are ten vehicles in a group, it may be neccessary to show a change of reserve level colour when the number of available vehicles reduces to two.
There do not have to be any vehicles in the marketing system with this group code when the group code is established. They can be created later if required. The system will recognize their existence automatically, and therefore update the number of vehicles in the group, after they have been created.
OLicence required: A check box which, if ticked, denotes that the currently selected hire group requires an Operator's Licence for commercial hire purposes. If this flag is ticked then, if Yes is selected at the Commercial or Private Hire? prompt within the booking/agreement the system performs the necessary checks against the customer (MK.drcom) to ensure that the appropriate O Licence details have been recorded against the customer. If not, then the system does not allow the rental agreement to proceed.
Purchase
Purchase analysis and Purchase GIS: Allows entry of nominal ledger cost centre and expense codes which are used for the purchase of external hire vehicles.
This expense code is used when vehicles are hired from a third party source and there are two codes, one for the purchase of services and the other which serves as a vehicle purchase goods in suspense account. Enter the code as appropriate; ask for assistance from your accountant unsure about which expense codes are to be utilised.
Note: The vehicle record is covered later in this manual.
The Charges tab allows up to ten standard charge codes to be stored against each record. These charges are defaulted onto every agreement created which uses this tariff type.
A charge can be amended by selecting and pressing the Edit command button or just double clicking the item. Once the data has been entered correctly the Apply command button is selected to commit it back to the grid.
No.: Up to ten default charges may be allocated against the hire group.
Code: The charge code should be entered followed by <TAB>. The
Note: The charge code must already exist in the Charges file.
Description: The full description for the charge code.
Type: This is the type of charge that is made. The type defaults from the charge code and cannot be edited on this form. It is typically either D for Daily, O for Once only or F for Factor.
Rate: This is the rate at which the charge is to be invoiced. Each charge type holds up to five different rates. The rates are initially defined against the Charge file. The required rate for the charge against this hire group is selected in the Rate field after selection of the required charge code.
This tab allows input of up to ten service schedule header group codes which link back to Service Scheduling within Vehicle Administration. The Service Schedule Template Headers form is accessed via Vehicle Administration / Service Schedules / Service Schedule Templates / Template Header Maintenance and is used to create, edit and delete service schedule template headers which provide the servicing information required when creating actual vehicle schedules. Service schedules can then be created and schedule planners generated via the Print Rental Planners for the daily rental fleet.
Service Group Code (1 - 10): The rental vehicle may be linked to up to ten Service Schedule Template Headers.
This tab is only enabled if the Operator Questions is ticked in the General 4 Tab of System Parameters.
If this checkbox is ticked, the Operator Questions functionality is brought in to use. The rental hire operator is to be prompted with specific defined questions at the time of making the booking in order to ensure all the correct details are recorded for the booking; only those vehicles which conform to the specification in the recorded selections are to be subsequently displayed for allocation to the booking.
One of the results of this functionality is that the system displays a the Questions Tab against the Hire Group set-up table. This allows the set-up of automatically prompted call centre type questions, at hire group level (typically relating to specification - tow bar required, etc), so that less experienced staff can handle calls for complicated vehicles.
Against each operator question a specific charge can be allocated. At the booking stage the rental hire operator is to be prompted with these questions and, if they are ticked, the associated charge is placed in the Prices Tab.
"Question (1 - 20): The call centre type question to be asked by the rental operator.
Charge (1 - 20): The charge code (for a specific specification item) associated with the operator question which, if ticked, is placed in the Prices Tab. Selection of the
COMMAND BUTTONS:
Exit: Returns to the MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS menu.
Help: Displays context-sensitive help using the default browser.
Cancel: Aborts any current edits.
