Check how reservation pricing is calculated before using the billing details. Spot reservations and the products reserved for a reservation site have separate calculations: equipment is priced using an hourly rate, and products using the reserved quantity and daily price.
Configure the pricing settings and check the calculations described here in the browser. You need viewing permissions for the relevant information and creation or editing permissions to change the settings. The calculations show only the information your permissions allow you to access, so your view may not cover all of your organisation's reservations.
Setting equipment reservation pricing
In the side menu, open Reservations → Reservation costs. Select Create new reservation cost at the top of the page or open an existing configuration using the pencil icon on its row.
Enter a Name and Description for the configuration. In the Cost targets section, open Spots that are linked to the reservation cost or Collections that are linked to the reservation cost and select the targets using the selection icon on each row. You can only select a collection that has no subcollections. Each Spot or collection can have one directly assigned cost configuration; the selection lists exclude targets that already have pricing assigned.
A collection's cost configuration takes precedence over the configuration of a Spot it contains. If the pricing being used seems incorrect, check the Spot's collection too.
How hourly, daily and monthly rates relate to each other
Enter a price in Hourly rate, Daily rate or Monthly rate. The form automatically converts the values in the other fields:
- From the hourly rate, the daily rate is the hourly rate × 8 and the monthly rate is the hourly rate × 240.
- From the daily rate, the hourly rate is the daily rate ÷ 8 and the monthly rate is the daily rate × 30.
- From the monthly rate, the hourly rate is the monthly rate ÷ 240 and the daily rate is the monthly rate ÷ 30.
During conversion, the hourly rate is rounded to three decimal places and the daily and monthly rates to two decimal places. The hourly rate is saved as the basis for calculation. The daily and monthly fields do not select a separate billing method or guarantee a fixed monthly charge. The permitted hourly rate is 0–999.99.
Daily hour limits
In the pricing form, set Minimum billable hours / day and Maximum billable hours / day to the desired whole numbers of hours between 0 and 24, or leave them blank.
- When both are blank, the price is based on the reservation's duration on each day, to the nearest half hour.
- The minimum increases the billable hours for a shorter day to the minimum amount.
- The maximum caps the billable hours for a longer day at the upper limit.
- If both are set to 8, for example, each reservation day included in the calculation costs the hourly rate × 8.
Set the minimum no higher than the maximum. The calculation checks the minimum condition first and checks the maximum condition only if the minimum condition is not met. Conflicting limits can therefore produce an unexpected charge.
In the same form, select Count only weekdays to exclude Saturdays and Sundays. This option is off by default. The weekday restriction means Monday to Friday; it does not separately exclude public holidays that fall on weekdays.
Save a new configuration using Create new reservation cost, or save changes to an existing configuration using the form's save button. After saving, check the prices and selected targets. A cost configuration linked to targets cannot be deleted until those links have been removed.
Billable reservations and the weekday rule
Open Reservations → Reservations and its Reservations list tab. Open a reservation using the pencil icon on its row. In the form, check Billable and Billing comments, the reservation site, and the start and end times. Billable is selected by default for a new reservation created in the browser. Comments provide information for further processing and do not change the calculation formula. Save your changes using Save.
To find the reservation site's setting, open Reservations → Reservation sites and open the site's details. Its Calculate Only Weekdays setting affects both equipment and product calculations: the calculation uses the site's setting as it was when that reservation row was created.
If the site's historical setting is enabled, weekends are excluded. If it is disabled, the calculation also checks the equipment's cost configuration or the product's own weekday setting. Clearing the site's setting therefore does not force weekends to be included or change the historical setting of an earlier row.
For instructions on changing a reservation's times and other details, see Changing a reservation.
Checking Spot billing
Open Reservations → Reservations → Spot billing. Choose the calculation period in Select a date range above the table. The default is the entire current month. The date range covers the beginning and end of the selected days, and changing the range retrieves a new calculation from the server.
The calculation includes Billable reservations that fall within the date range. Both Active and Completed reservations can be included; Completed status does not remove a reservation from the calculation. Spots linked to a single reservation appear as separate rows to be priced.
For each day included in the calculation, the portion of the reservation that falls on that day is used. Its start and end times are rounded separately to the nearest half hour. The daily hour limits are then applied, and the hours are multiplied by the hourly rate. The daily amount is rounded to two decimal places, and the price for the date range is calculated by adding the daily amounts together.
For example, a weekday reservation from 9:10 to 11:40 is calculated as 9:00 to 11:30, or 2.5 hours. At €10/h with no hour limits, the day's cost is €25. If both the minimum and maximum are 8, the cost for the same day is €80.
The calculation uses the cost configuration currently applicable to the Spot, but reads its hourly rate from the history at the time the reservation was created. The daily hour limits and the configuration's Count only weekdays setting are read from the current settings. Changing these can therefore also change the calculation for an old reservation when it is reopened. If no historical hourly rate is available, zero is used in the calculation.
What the table values mean
- Counted reservation days shows the reservation days within the selected date range after the weekday restriction has been applied. It is not the number of billable hours.
- Hourly rate is the historical hourly rate used in the calculation.
- Price for day is the hourly rate × minimum billable hours if a minimum is set; otherwise, it is based on the maximum set. Without either limit, the value may be blank. It does not necessarily match the actual cost of an individual day.
- Reservation cost is the sum of the daily costs within the selected date range, even though the column name does not mention the date range.
- Total days for reservation, if the column is visible, means the days of the entire reservation after the weekday restriction has been applied.
Do not infer the price for the date range simply by multiplying the table's daily price by the number of days: short first and last days and hour limits can affect the actual total.
Product daily pricing and calculations
Open Manage warehouses → Products and the Basic info tab in the product details form. Enter the Reservation daily price, found alongside the price fields, in euros and cents. The product's Count only weekdays setting is next to it. The reservation price is separate from the product's purchase and sales prices and from the equipment cost configuration.
To open the calculation, go to Reservations → Reservations, select the main Product billing tab, and then the Product billing subtab within it. The default period runs from the beginning of the current month to today.
The initial calculation loaded from the server uses the product's current daily price. The row total is the days included in the calculation × daily price × the row's original reserved quantity. The overlap between the reservation period and the calculation period includes both the first and last days. Days are not split into portions based on the times. Calculation for an open row continues to the end of the period, and calculation for a returned row ends on its return date. Both open and returned rows can be included in the calculation.
Weekends are excluded from the initial calculation if either the reservation site's setting at the time the row was created or the product's current weekday setting is enabled. Changing the current daily price can also change the totals for earlier product reservations when they are reloaded. Missing euro and cent portions of the price are treated as zeros. In the initial calculation, the price is multiplied before the total is displayed as a monetary amount with two decimal places.
Limitations when changing the date range
Changing Select a date range in Product billing recalculates the totals in the browser using different rules from the initial server calculation. Take these differences into account before using the information:
- The reservation site's historical weekday rule is not used. Calculations for multiple days consider only the product's own weekday setting.
- The calculation branch for a single day also accepts a weekend day despite the weekday restriction.
- The fractional part of the reserved quantity is discarded. For example, a quantity of 1.5 is treated as 1.
- During recalculation, the daily price is rounded to two decimal places before multiplication.
For example, 1.5 products, a daily price of €10 and one day included in the calculation give an initial total of €15. After changing the date range, the browser uses a quantity of 1 and the total is €10. The displayed reserved quantity may still be 1.5.
You should therefore check Product billing calculations with a changed date range, and any Excel exports made from them, before using them as a basis for billing. Check the days and quantity separately and compare the total with the initial calculation rule described above.
Effect of a partial return
A partial return ends the original reservation row and creates a new open row for the remaining quantity. The new row starts at the same time the old row ends. Because the daily calculation includes both boundary dates, the remaining quantity may be charged for the return date on both rows.
For example, one of two products is returned on a weekday. The old row's quantity remains two, and the new row's quantity is one. With a daily price of €10, the return date may incur a total of €20 + €10 = €30. Check such pairs of rows separately. For instructions on recording a return, see Reserving and returning products.
Checking and exporting the results
Check that the calculation period, reservation or reservation site, Spots or products, reserved quantities, start and end times, prices, and weekday settings at both levels are correct. For equipment, also check whether the reservation is billable and check the hour limits; for products, check the continuation rows created by partial returns. Take into account the table's column filters, which may hide rows you need to check.
Export view to Excel at the top of the calculation table exports the table data for further processing. Check the rows and totals in the exported file too. Changing the date range and exporting to Excel do not record an invoice as sent or correct reservation or return details. Filling in the billing details helps with further processing, but invoice creation and sending must be ensured in accordance with your organisation's billing practices.