Exploring a booking

Class versus vehicle

The customer buys a class. Which car they drive away is a yard decision, made as late as pickup. Torque keeps the two apart on purpose:

• The Class field in the Booking panel is what was sold and priced. It changes only through Change Class.
• The Vehicle field is a plan. Until check-out it shows Unassigned or a pencilled-in registration, and Torque may quietly move the plan to another car of the same class to make room for other bookings. At check-out the vehicle is pinned and stops moving.

You can pin a vehicle early with Assign vehicle in the Booking panel, for example when a customer has asked for an automatic or when a particular car must go out. The dialog lists free vehicles of the booked class. Add class lets you reach into another class for a shortage; a vehicle from another class is marked Out of class on the booking, and it counts against that other class’s capacity, not the one sold. The price stays as sold.

The booking calendar

Open Bookings, then Calendar. Each row is a vehicle, each column a day, and each bar a reservation showing reference, customer and dates. Maintenance and internal use appear in the same rows, because they occupy the vehicle just as a rental does. Use Previous window and Next window to move through time.

Drag a bar onto another vehicle’s row to move it. Nothing changes until you click Save. A confirmation lists each move with an Action you choose:

Action	Effect
Assign Vehicle	A plan on a vehicle of the same class. Torque may still move it
Lock Vehicle	Pinned to that vehicle, whatever its class. The class sold does not change
Change Class	The booking now sells the class of the vehicle it was dropped on. Prices stay as sold
Change Class and Reprice	As above, and the booking is priced again for the new class

The calendar shows ACTIVE and COMPLETED reservations too. They cannot be dragged.

Service products and how they are priced

A service product is what appears on the customer’s statement as a line: Daily Rental, Weekly Rental, Long-Term Hire, or an add-on such as a Child Seat. The product lists the pricing elements that make up its price, in the order they appear. Each element is one of three kinds:

Kind	Behaviour
Mandatory	Always charged. The daily rate, a one-way fee
Optional	Charged only if selected. An additional driver, a GPS
Disclosed	Optional, but always shown on the statement as Accepted or Declined. A reduced excess, so the customer sees that they turned it down

An element prices in a unit: per day, per month, per kilometre, or each. A per-day element is worked out for every day of the service period. A per-kilometre element is settled at check-in from the odometer. An each element is a flat amount or a quantity you type.

The rate an element charges comes from the pricing tables for the pickup date, branch, class, length of hire, channel and other conditions the administrator has set up. A peak date carries a peak rate. Rates are entered ex-GST and every amount on the booking shows its GST alongside. A total the customer pays always includes it.

In the Service products panel each element shows Description, Service from and Service to, Qty, Unit, Rate, Amount and Paid. In edit mode you can:

• Tick or untick an optional element.
• Change the Quantity of an each element, or the service dates of a per-day add-on that does not run the whole hire.
• Mark an element No Charge to waive it. The statement then shows it as Waived. Restore undoes this.
• Add a Reference Note, printed on the statement.
• Add another product with Add, or remove one.

The prices on a booking are frozen at the moment of sale. Changing the catalogue later does not change an existing booking. Only a reprice does (chapter 6). A manager may see a Floor Price warning when a change takes the booking below the class’s minimum; saving past it needs the pricing override.

Allowances

The Allowances panel sums up what the sold products grant the customer. It is read-only: the figures come from the elements and are settled elsewhere.

Allowance	What it means	Where it is used
MILEAGE	Kilometres included, per day, summed over the hire. Unlimited when nothing caps it	Excess kilometres at check-in
MAX_DRIVER	How many drivers the contract admits. A Young Driver or Additional Driver element adds seats	Every driver on the booking must have a seat, or Save refuses
EXCESS	The damage excess, the lowest of what the selected elements set	Shown to the customer, charged on damage
MIN_AGE	The youngest a driver may be. Every driver must meet it	Save refuses a driver who is too young

A row showing INVALID means two selected elements both claim the same allowance. Untick one of them.