Overdue Returns

Equipment that is still out after its end date stops billing until someone acts. The Overdue Returns tile and list show you every order in that state, and Extend moves them on, so the equipment is charged for again.

How it fits in

A rental line bills up to its Rental End Date. If the customer keeps the equipment past that date and nobody changes the order, the equipment is out but no longer being charged. Overdue Returns finds those orders for you so you can decide, order by order, whether to extend the hire or chase the return.

There are three parts:

What counts as overdue

A line is overdue when, as at the work date, all of these are true:

Kit components and pooled units count too: each is a real item that is out and has to come back. An order counts once however many of its lines are overdue.

Opening the list

Choose the number on the Overdue Returns tile, in the Rentals group of the Role Centre tiles. You can also choose Overdue Returns on the action bar of the Rental Orders list, or search for Overdue Returns.

The list is worked out fresh each time it opens, so it is always current. It shows one row per overdue order and nothing on it can be edited.

Columns
Order No.
The rental order. Choose it, or select Show Order, to open the order.
Customer No. and Customer Name
The customer the order is for.
Rental End Date
The end date on the order header.
Earliest Overdue Date and Latest Overdue Date
The earliest and latest end dates among the order's overdue lines. They differ when lines on the same order end on different dates.
Days Overdue
How many days the oldest overdue line is past its end date.
Billing Cycle
How often the order is invoiced. Extending by one billing period uses this cycle.
Illustration. The real screen can differ in detail. Two overdue orders on a work date of 19 October 2026. On RO-1002 one line ended on 8 October and another on 12 October, so its earliest and latest overdue dates differ, and it is 11 days overdue counted from the older one.

Extending orders

Select one or more orders and choose Extend. The Extend Orders dialog asks how far:

Extend Orders
Extend By
One billing period moves each order to the end of the next period of its own billing cycle, so orders on different cycles each move by their own period. To a date moves every selected order to the same date.
New End Date
Used only with To a date: the new rental end date for every selected order. It must be later than each order's end date.
Illustration. The real screen can differ in detail. New End Date can only be filled in when Extend By is To a date. With One billing period it is left empty.

How far one billing period goes

The new end date is the end of the billing period that starts the day after the order's base date. The base date is the later of the order's Rental End Date and the end date of its latest overdue line. The period follows the order's billing cycle and its period basis, so a Calendar monthly cycle extends to the end of the next calendar month and an Anniversary cycle by a period counted from the start date, exactly as billing would. An order with no billing cycle uses the billing cycle of its latest overdue line.

What extending changes

Extending sets the order's Rental End Date, which carries the new date down to the lines:

The order is not reopened or released again; its status stays as it was.

The result

When the run finishes, a message says how many orders were extended. Each order is extended on its own, so one order that cannot be extended does not stop the others. It is left exactly as it was and listed with the reason, for example:

An order can also be refused for the same reasons a manual change of its end date would be, such as a reservation clash on one of its lines. The list then refreshes and shows what is still overdue.

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Changing the end date by hand works the same way. If you change the Rental End Date on a single rental order instead of using the list, the shipped lines that are still out move with it in the same way, keep their prices, and off-hired lines are left alone.

Off-Hire Date

Sometimes the customer has finished with the equipment and called the hire off, but it is still on site waiting for you to collect it. Billing should stop at the call-off date, and the line should not show as overdue while it waits for collection.

That is what Off-Hire records. On the order lines, select the lines and choose Off-Hire (under Ship and Return), then enter the Off-Hire Date, which starts as the work date. Off-hiring:

You are also offered the same off-hire when you return lines early or return open-ended lines.

Off-Hire works on shipped lines that are open-ended (no Rental End Date) or that you are ending early (the off-hire date is before their end date). A line already past its end date cannot be off-hired to a later date: if the customer called the hire off after the end date, extend the order first, then off-hire the line with the date they called.

The Off-Hire Date column is hidden on the order lines by default; show it by personalising the page. It cannot be typed into. It is cleared again if the line's end date is later moved forward or cleared.

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