Calculating Charges For Vehicle Usage

Some clients need to charge fees for vehicle bookings. This could be a vehicle hire scenario, or internal charging from one cost center to another.

PoolCar has the ability to create your own custom charge out rules. To create a new rule, click Sysadmin Main Menu > Charge out Rates (right-hand side) > Add New

Once you create a new charge out rule, every booking that satisfies the rule parameters will calculate a cost for the vehicle usage.

Example 1

If your rule is:

0 to 2 hours duration, $20 with 10 kilometers included, excess kilometers charged at $0.35 per km.

To create this in PoolCar, enter:

Time duration field = "0" and "2"
Flag fall charge = "20"
KMs included = "10"
Excess distance rate = "0.35"
Click "Save"

Assuming the booking was 1 hour and 15 minutes (75 minutes) and the distance travelled as recorded with the Keymaster check-in/out was 27 kms, the charge would be: ($20 x 75/120) + ((27 - 10) * 0.35).

Notice the first bit, 75/120 meaning that the booking duration is calculated on a pro-rata basis for 75 minutes. What if you wanted to round up any booking to the upper bracket? i.e. not charge for 75 minutes usage but for the full 2 hours (120 mins)? Simply enter "2" for the field 'Actual Booking Duration Round Up To'. The number 2 being the upper boundary of the 0 to 2 hour bracket.

Example 2

If your rule was $30 per hour, no limit on kilometers travelled, just enter time bracket "0 to 9999" hours & leave everything blank except for hourly rate in which you enter "30".

Example 3

If you want the rate to entirely be based on kilometers travelled then you would set the hourly rate to $0, and the kilometers included to 0, then set the Excess distance rate to a $value per kilometer. Then the booking charge will be #kilometers x $rate.

Example 4 : Computation

Working day start time is set to 0600

Working day end time is set to 1800

Hour rate is $14.75

Maximum daily limit is $120

No weekend and overnight fee

Cost is based on the (# of hours * 14.75) OR (# of days * 120), whichever is lower

Booking # 1 Rego ABC 21/02/2022 1:58pm to 22/02/2022 6:19pm

based on max charge = $240 (2 days * $120)

While the amount of time within business hours that the booking was for is 16.13 hours (248 minutes on the 21st and 720 on the 22nd) 16.13 times 14.75 (the hourly rate of the vehicle) is $237.96.

Cost for this booking is $237.96 as this is lower than the daily charge

Booking # 2 Rego DEF 24/02/2022 7:33am to 1/3/2022 8am

the max daily charge is $480 for 4 weekdays

The amount of time within business hours was 38hours (ie nearly 12 hours on each of the business days, except for the 4th where it was only 1 hour). 38 times 14.75 is $560

Cost for this booking is limited down to $480 - lower

Advanced Filters

You can even setup different rules for different vehicles, in different locations. For instance you may have one set of rules for passenger vehicles and another for vans or buses. Just select the Body Type for your new rule set. Refer to the screen shot included with this article for the full set of fields available.

Odometer Readings Required

If your rules include a distance charge, then of course you will need to be diligent in capturing odo values for each trip. Refer to the Keymaster Check-in/out page for more information on capturing start and end odometer values for each trip.

If you are unable to find an answer to your question in here please log a support request via the Smartrak Service Desk