December 2025 | Latner Software Documentation

Welcome to the December 2025 release of Latner Software, the last one for 2025! We hope you all enjoy a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and we look forward to supporting you in 2026.

This release delivers several highly requested enhancements across Bulk Stand Downs, Converting Equipment, Timesheets Input Type and Calendar Month Rate Type, along with a range of quality‑of‑life improvements and workflow refinements. Please see below for the full details of what has changed.

New Features

Bulk Stand Down for Rental Contracts

Bulk Stand Downs let you apply the same stand down to many rental contracts at once, so a public holiday or a week of rain can be credited across the whole fleet without opening a single contract.

Overview

When a site shuts, it usually shuts for everyone on it. Rather than adding a stand down to each rental contract by hand, the Bulk Stand Down screen lets you filter every on-hire line in your branch, tick the ones affected and apply one stand down to the lot.

Every line in a run gets the same From Date, To Date, Discount % and Stand Down Reason.
Latner groups the selected lines by rental contract and creates one Stand Down per contract, with a detail line for each of that contract's selected lines.
Runs happen in the background. The History tab tracks each one as Pending, Running, Completed or Failed, right down to the individual line.
Only Equipment, Sub Hire Equipment and Package lines can be stood down, and only on rental contracts that are Reserved or Active.
The discount is a billing reduction, not a flag. A stand down removes (stood down days x Discount %) from the days billed, so 100% takes the period off the invoice entirely and 50% halves it.

Before You Begin

You'll need the following before the screen will do anything useful.

Requirement	Where to Find It
Create Bulk Stand Downs permission	Security › Permission Groups › Rental › Options. It controls both the menu item and the run itself.
At least one Stand Down Reason	Rental › Configuration › Stand Down Reasons. Latner ships with Weather, Public Holiday, RDO and Breakdown.
Rental contracts that are Reserved or Active, with lines on hire	Rental › Rental Contracts

Stand Down Reasons are shared with single-contract stand downs, so most sites already have the four seeded reasons

Bulk Stand Downs only ever looks at Reserved and Active rental contracts. That restriction is built into the screen and isn't one of the filters, so a line on a Completed or Cancelled contract will never appear no matter how you search.

Creating a Bulk Stand Down

Step 1 - Open the Bulk Stand Down screen

Go to Rental › Bulk Stand Downs. The screen has two tabs: Bulk Stand Down, where you build and start a run, and History, where you review the runs that have already gone through. It opens with your own branch selected and the line Status set to On Rent.

The Bulk Stand Down tab lists every on-hire line in your branch, across all rental contracts

Step 2 - Narrow the list to the lines you need

The filters across the top rebuild the table as you change them. Nothing is committed at this stage, so filter freely.

Search - free text across the listed columns.
Branch - defaults to your own branch, and takes more than one.
Line Type - Equipment, Sub Hire Equipment or Package. Other line types (Transport, Fuel, Admin and so on) can't be stood down and aren't offered.
Charge Days Per Week - 5 Days, 6 Days, 7 Days, Saturday or Weekend. Handy when a shutdown only matters to contracts that charge on the days in question.
Status - the line's own status, defaulting to On Rent. You can add others, such as Pre-Allocated or Off Hire.
Customer and Customer Site - the usual pair for a site shutdown. Customer Site only offers sites belonging to the customers you've picked.
Equipment Class - narrow to a class where only some of the fleet is affected.

Filtering by customer brings back six lines spread over two rental contracts, which will become two stand downs

Step 3 - Select the lines

Tick the lines you want stood down, or use the checkbox in the table header to take every row on the page. The toolbar above the table keeps a count of what you have selected.

Six lines selected, including a sub hire generator and two attachment sub-lines

If your filter matches more lines than fit on one page, select every row on the page and a Select all N rows button appears. That option sends the filter itself to the run rather than a list of ticked rows, so every matching line is included, not just the page you can see.

With 50 matching lines and 25 on the page, Select all 50 rows extends the run to the full filter

Step 4 - Enter the stand down details

The four fields to the right of the filters describe the stand down itself. All of them are required.

From Date - the first day of the stand down. Defaults to today.
To Date - the last day, and it's inclusive. It can be the same day as From Date for a single-day shutdown, but it can't be earlier.
Discount % - how much of each stood-down day comes off the bill, from 0 to 100, to two decimal places.
Stand Down Reason - one of your configured reasons. It's carried onto every stand down the run creates and is what stand down reporting groups by.

A single-day public holiday stand down at 100%, ready to run against the six selected lines

Step 5 - Start the run

Click Create. Latner summarises what's about to happen - how many rental contract lines were selected, the dates, the discount and the reason - and waits for you to confirm with Start Bulk Run. This is the last point at which you can back out, so read the line count and the dates before you commit.

The confirmation summarises the run; Cancel returns you to the form with your selection intact

Once you confirm, Latner reports Bulk Run Started and clears the form and the selection. The stand downs themselves are created in the background, so a large run may still be working after the screen comes back.

Step 6 - Check the results on the History tab

Switch to History. Each run is one row, showing its Run Status and a Total / Completed / Failed count alongside the dates, discount, reason and who started it. A run sits at Pending, moves to Running, then finishes as Completed, or as Failed if any line in it failed.

The History tab is the audit trail for every bulk run, including ones other users started

Expand a run with the arrow at the left to see the individual lines. The Stand Down # column links to the stand down each line ended up on, and lines from the same rental contract share a number. If a line shows a red Failed status, click the status to read the error.

Five lines from contract 16 landed on stand down 70, and the line from contract 26 on stand down 71

After the Run

One Stand Down is created per rental contract, in Completed status, carrying the run's dates, discount and reason.
Each stand down appears under Rental › Stand Downs and on its rental contract, with a detail line for every line the run selected.
Billing for the affected lines drops by the stood-down days multiplied by the discount, on the next invoice that covers the period.
Estimated Cost on each stand down line is filled in when the contract is invoiced for a period that covers the stand down, and feeds the stand down cost reporting.

A stand down created by a bulk run looks exactly like one raised from the contract, and can be emailed or cancelled the same way

A bulk run doesn't warn you when the dates fall in a period that has already been invoiced, and there's no bulk undo. If you get the dates wrong, each stand down has to be cancelled individually from its own record with Options › Cancel Stand Down. Check the dates on the confirmation before you start the run.

FAQs

A rental contract line I need isn't in the list. Why?

Three things keep a line off the screen. Its rental contract has to be Reserved or Active; its line type has to be Equipment, Sub Hire Equipment or Package; and it has to match the filters, which start out set to your own branch and a status of On Rent. Widen the Branch and Status filters first, since those are the two that are pre-filled for you.

Six lines only produced two stand downs. Is that right?

Yes. Latner groups the selected lines by rental contract and raises one stand down per contract, with a detail line for each selected line on it. That mirrors what you'd get by adding the stand down from each contract by hand.

The run finished as Failed. What went wrong?

Expand the run on the History tab and click the red Failed status on the line to read the message. The most common one is Stand Down dates cannot overlap with an existing Completed Stand Down, which means that line was already stood down over part of the same period. Because lines are processed a contract at a time, a failure fails every selected line on that contract, while the other contracts in the run still complete.

Can I reverse a bulk run?

Not as a run. Open each stand down it created (the Stand Down # links on the History tab take you straight there) and use Options › Cancel Stand Down. A cancelled stand down stops affecting billing. You can't cancel one whose rental contract has since been closed or completed.

Does the discount have to be 100%?

No. The discount is the share of each stood-down day that comes off the bill, so 100% removes those days entirely and 50% charges half. Use a part discount where the customer keeps the equipment on site at a reduced rate rather than stopping the hire.

The stand down didn't change the invoice. Why not?

Check the rate type first: lines on a Flat Monthly rate bill a whole month at a time, so stand downs have no effect on them. Otherwise, check that the stand down days are days the contract actually charges for - a Saturday on a 5 Days contract was never billed, so standing it down changes nothing - and that the invoice you're looking at covers the stand down period.

Can I email customers about a bulk stand down?

The run itself doesn't send anything. Emails go out per stand down, from the stand down record, with Options › Email Stand Down - so a run over ten contracts means ten emails, one per customer.

Watch the Demo

Prefer to watch it? Step through the same flow here.

Converting Equipment

Convert Equipment turns one or more items in your fleet into different equipment, carrying their written-down value across, so both your fleet list and your asset register stay accurate when a machine is rebuilt, split up or tracked a different way.

Overview

Equipment doesn't always stay the shape you bought it in. A pair of general-purpose buckets gets re-profiled, a machine is stripped and rebuilt as two smaller units, or a bulk item you've been counting by the dozen now needs to be tracked one by one. Convert Equipment handles all of those in a single step, rather than disposing of one record and creating another with no link between them.

One conversion can take several items in (Convert From) and produce several items out (Convert To).
Everything you convert from is disposed of. Bulk quantity moves from available to disposed, and a serialized machine's Rental Status and Service Status both become Converted.
Everything you convert to is either added as quantity onto an existing bulk equipment record, or created as a brand-new serialized equipment record.
You choose how the value carries across by giving each Convert To line a Value Proportion. Whatever is left of 100% is written off as scrapped.
The conversion is irreversible, so the lines are worth checking twice before you save.

Before You Begin

Convert Equipment needs no settings turned on, but it does need a permission and equipment in the right state.

Requirement	Where to Find It
Convert Equipment permission	Security › Configuration › Permission Groups › your group › Equipment › Option › Convert Equipment
Equipment in Available status	Equipment › Equipment - both Rental Status and Service Status must read Available
Available quantity at the branch you're converting at	Equipment › Equipment - the branch line must have quantity available
A bulk equipment record to convert into (if converting to bulk)	Equipment › Equipment
An equipment model to convert into (if converting to serialized)	Equipment › Configuration › Equipment Models

The Convert Equipment permission sits under Equipment › Option in a permission group

Convert Equipment runs from the Equipment list screen, not from an individual equipment record, and you pick the equipment inside the dialog rather than by selecting a row first.

Converting the Equipment

Step 1 - Open Convert Equipment

Go to Equipment › Equipment, then choose Options › Convert Equipment.

Convert Equipment sits at the bottom of the Equipment screen's Options menu

Step 2 - Set the branch and converted date

The dialog opens with a red banner reminding you that the conversion disposes of the From equipment and cannot be undone.

Branch - required, and defaults to your own branch. Both the Convert From search and the new equipment you create are tied to it. Changing it clears any lines you've already entered, so set it first.
Converted Date - required, and defaults to today. This is the date the equipment movements are recorded against, and the date the outgoing equipment's value is depreciated up to.

The Convert Equipment dialog, with the irreversible-action banner above the Branch and Converted Date fields

Step 3 - Choose what you're converting from

Under Convert From, search for the equipment you're taking out of the fleet and set the quantity. Use Add Equipment to add more lines if the conversion draws on several items.

Equipment - required. The search only returns equipment at the selected branch whose Rental Status and Service Status are both Available and which still has quantity available.
Quantity - required. It fills in as 1 as soon as you pick the equipment, and is locked at 1 for serialized equipment because there's only ever one of it.

Two general-purpose buckets selected as the equipment being converted from

Step 4 - Add the equipment you're converting to

Under Convert To, each line is one thing the conversion produces. Type starts as Bulk, which adds quantity to an equipment record you already have.

Type - required. Bulk or Serialized.
Equipment - required for a Bulk line. Only bulk equipment is listed, and it doesn't have to have stock at your branch already; the branch line is created for you if it doesn't exist.
Quantity - required. How many units this line adds.
Value Proportion - required. The share of the outgoing equipment's value that this line takes with it, as a percentage.

A Bulk line taking half the value across to an existing mud bucket record

Step 5 - Add a serialized result, if you need one

Click Add Equipment under Convert To and set Type to Serialized. The Equipment search is replaced by two fields, because the equipment doesn't exist yet and Latner creates it for you.

An equipment model search - required. The new record inherits its category, class, make and description from the model you pick.
Equipment Number - required, and must not already be in use by another item of equipment.

Set Quantity to 1 on a serialized line - it produces a single equipment record.

Choosing Serialized swaps the Equipment search for a model search and an Equipment Number box

Step 6 - Check the proportions and save

Add up the Value Proportion column before you click Save. Anything over 100% is rejected with Total Value cannot exceed 100%. Anything under 100% is accepted, and the shortfall is treated as scrapped - written off against the outgoing equipment's book value rather than carried into anything new. In the example below, 50% goes to the bulk line and 40% to the new serialized unit, so 10% of the value is scrapped.

Click Save. Latner confirms with Equipment Converted Successfully and refreshes the Equipment list.

The completed conversion: two buckets in, a bulk line and a new serialized unit out, 10% of the value scrapped

After the Conversion

Each Convert From line has its quantity moved from available to disposed, and picks up a Converted (From) movement dated the converted date.
A serialized machine you converted from has its Rental Status and Service Status set to Converted, drops off the Equipment tab and appears under Archived Equipment. It can no longer be rented, allocated, pre-allocated or put on a work order.
Bulk equipment you converted from keeps its status worked out from what's left, so it stays Available while there's still stock at any branch.
Each Bulk line under Convert To has its quantity added at the branch and picks up a Converted (To) movement, along with a new asset record holding its share of the value.
Each Serialized line under Convert To becomes a new equipment record in Available status at the branch, numbered as you typed and described from the equipment model.
Value carries across on the date you set: the outgoing assets are depreciated up to the converted date, each new record takes its Value Proportion of that written-down amount as its book value and tax book value, and its purchase price is the same share of what the originals originally cost. The new asset's purchase date is the earliest purchase date among the equipment you converted from, falling back to the converted date, and its depreciation restarts from the day before the conversion.
You can see both sides on the Movement History tab of each equipment record.

The new serialized record, created in Available status with its class, make and model taken from the equipment model

The Converted (From) movement on the source equipment, dated the conversion date

A conversion cannot be reversed. Latner can reverse a sale, but not a conversion, so putting the quantity back means a bulk equipment adjustment and tidying up the records the conversion created by hand. If you're unsure whether an item should leave the fleet at all, use Sell or Dispose Equipment instead - a sale can be reversed.

FAQs

Convert Equipment doesn't appear in the Options menu. Why?

Your permission group doesn't have the Convert Equipment permission. Someone with access to Security › Configuration › Permission Groups can switch it on under Equipment › Option.

The equipment I want to convert doesn't come up in the search. Why?

The Convert From search only returns equipment at the branch selected in the dialog, with both Rental Status and Service Status showing Available, and with quantity still available. Anything on rent, reserved, in transfer, off rent, non-operational or sitting on a work order won't be listed until it's back to Available. If the equipment is at another branch, change Branch at the top of the dialog first - note that doing so clears any lines you've already entered.

Can I undo a conversion?

No. Reversing a movement is only supported for sales, so a conversion has to be corrected manually: adjust the bulk quantity back where it came from, and deactivate or dispose of whatever the conversion created. It's much less work to check the lines before saving.

Do the Value Proportions have to add up to 100%?

They can't add up to more than 100%, but they can add up to less. The shortfall is recorded as the scrapped proportion and written off against the outgoing equipment's book value, which is exactly what you want when part of a machine goes in the skip.

Can I convert bulk equipment into individually tracked units?

Yes, and the reverse works too. Convert From takes bulk or serialized equipment, and each Convert To line is independently set to Bulk or Serialized, so bulk to serialized, serialized to bulk, one machine into several and several into one are all the same operation.

What happens to depreciation on the equipment I converted?

The outgoing assets are depreciated up to the converted date so the value being carried across is current at that date. Each new asset then starts from the day before the conversion with the book value and tax book value it inherited, so there's no gap and no double-counting.

Where do I see that a conversion happened?

On the Movement History tab of each equipment record involved: Converted (From) on what went out, Converted (To) on the bulk equipment that received quantity. A serialized machine that was converted from is on the Archived Equipment tab of the Equipment screen with a status of Converted.

Watch the Demo

Prefer to watch it? Step through the same flow here.

Timesheets Input Type

You can now choose how timesheets are entered either by specifying Start and End times or by entering total Hours and Minutes.

The current default is Start and End and should be used when you would like to capture the exact time period when work was completed. E.g. 12th December 2pm - 12th December 4pm

Hours and Minutes allows you to instead capture only the duration and date that work was completed. E.g. 4 hours on 12th December

Calendar Month Rate Type

We have added two new rate types Calendar Month and Calendar Month (Annualized).

To help with deciding which rate type is best suited for your needs we have detailed the differences below.

Comparing Monthly, Calendar Month & Calendar Month (Annualized)

The Monthly method treats every billing cycle as a fixed 30‑day month. All billable days - based on your selected charge days per week - are prorated against this 30‑day period.

The Calendar Month method spreads the monthly rate evenly across all billable days in that specific month. The system first determines the total number of billable days in the month (based on your Charge Days Per Week), then prorates the charge by comparing the billable days within the hire period to the total billable days for that month.

The Calendar Month (Annualized) method spreads the annual cost (your monthly rate multiplied by 12) across all billable days within the 365 days of the year. The system calculates how many billable days fall within the hire period and prorates them against the days in the year. The annual total is then applied to that proration, ensuring a consistent daily value across the entire year.

Example

Other Updates & Improvements

Allow Stand Downs to be cancelled after invoicing
Added a tab for Sales Orders to the Customer Screen
Supplier Invoices can now be linked to CRM Projects
Stand Downs are now supported for Minimum Hours Per Month Rate Types
Equipment on Rental Contract Details is now linked and clickable
Invoice/Payment syncs now function correctly for Inactive customers
Allowed Sales Order Details to be individually fulfilled and invoiced
Changed Customer Damage Waiver to be the upper limit when an Equipment Class Damage Waiver is set
Plus a range of smaller fixes and performance improvements