A construction company that owns its own equipment and uses that equipment on construction projects needs to be able to assign equipment cost and revenue to a project within its business management systems. Rental360 fulfills this need for construction companies in two different ways.
A Traditional Rental leverages day/week/month billing, includes long-term equipment usage, and relies on cycle billing.
Usage Billing bills out a construction Work Order with both equipment usage and operator usage plus charging additional items to the project.
For a Traditional Rental:
The Construction Preferences tab under Rental Preferences establishes defaults. The Default Project Work Order Type = EBILL, which acts as a proforma for traditional rental billing.
In the Construction workspace in Rental360, begin with Project Equipment Rates.
The Price Type includes a Base Rate, with no project specified, and a Project Rate which is rate specific to a project.
The Usage Code dictates how the equipment is being used. It can either be RENTAL, which is a regular, full-priced rental, or IDLETIME, which can be idle time, down time, or repair time – all of which could have different rates.
The Rental Unit of Measure is either Day, Week, 28-Day Month, or Calendar Month.
There are two types of Rates for a Traditional Rental: Billing Amount and Cost Amount.
For a Usage Rental the Rate operates usually on a daily cost basis on a construction Work Order and factors in both Usage Price and Usage Cost.
Under Rental and Sales, start a New Rental Order and change the Order Type to “CO” which is a Rental Type. Then select the Customer, pick the project, and select a “Deliver To” location. Those locations can be a Job Site, Pick-up at Warehouse, Customer Location, or a Project Address. If a project has multiple job sites, whether they are different floors or different lots with different addresses, that can be specified but is not required.
Select when the piece of equipment is supposed to come back off-rent for planning and forecasting purposes. Then add the piece of equipment and select the quantity. Note the Unit Price pulled from the Rate Table for a monthly rate.
Do a “Quick Rent” to avoid creating an “On Rent” Work Order and instead putting the piece of equipment “On Rent” immediately with one click.
You can look at the Order again to see that it went “On Rent.” You can see the item is currently “On Rent” and the On Rent Date. Upon its return, the Return Date populates and Meter readings can be added. You can also update the Job Site or physical location of the equipment while it is On Rent.
Next, you’ll create a Cycle Bill. Cycle Billing is typically done in bulk across all customers and/or projects or orders.
However, there are two ways to create a Cycle Bill directly from the order:
First select the Option, then Cycle Bill.
On the Rental Information Tab, select Cycle Nbr Edit, see Cycle Log, note the Cycle Start and End Date. Hit Process to create the equipment Work Order that will have the information and billing amount for the rental. This can be automated to go straight through to the project or you can review the Work Order.
The Work Order Type would be EBILL. This process will activate a Project Equipment Tab that includes
- Equipment Number
- Unit Price
- Unit Cost from the Rate Table (can be changed)
- Actual start date and time
- Notes that will flow over to the project transaction for informational purposes and billing
The goal of this action is to post to Projects and be able to hit both billing and a cost accounting group for this Task and Cost Code. It generates the Project Transaction with a Cost Code for both equipment billing and equipment cost. You can also see the revenue amount and cost amount, Work Order Number, and the Note that was attached.
In Work Order Types, you can select the type CWO = Construction Work Order and set some flags. For example, if you are setting an automation behavior for tracking Crew Time, ensure the following settings:
- Billable
- Post to Time Activity
- Post to EQ Analysis
- Post to Project
- Default Account Groups
- Do not need Equipment Usage Tab – this information is going under the Project Accounting Tab
- Add in Charges Tab
In order to move directly into Work Orders, without a Rental Order, to create a Construction Work Order (CWO), first select the Customer, select the Job Site if needed, and select the Project. On the Project Equipment Tab, instead of it being prepopulated based on the rental contract and the rental cycles, we can enter this in day-by-day, with multiple days in one row or one row per day.
We can also track the operator on the same construction work order and it will post to Time/Activity which will pick up both the cost and labor rate which can be changed, disabled, or hidden. This pushes both labor and equipment usage costs over to the project. We can also add Service Charges, Stock Items, or parts which could have been billed there.
Finally, approve to create the PM Transactions.