How to Postpone a Rental Contract | Latner Software Documentation

Postponing a rental contract moves the delivery, start and expected off hire dates on a booking that has not gone out yet, so you can push a job back - or pull it forward - without unpicking an invoice you have already raised.

Overview

Plans slip. The site is not ready, the weather closes in, or the customer calls to say next fortnight suits them better. If you have already invoiced the hire in advance, editing the dates by hand is blocked, because those fields drive billing. Postponing is the sanctioned way to move the booking anyway.

Postpone moves three dates at once - Delivery Date, Start and Expected Off Hire - on the lines you choose.
It works on contracts that have already been invoiced. Latner normally refuses to change billing fields after invoicing; Postpone is the exception.
Billing already raised travels with the booking, so the period you have charged for is not charged again.
It works in both directions. Enter earlier dates and the contract comes forward.
Only lines that have not gone out on rent yet can be moved.

Before You Begin

You need one permission and a contract in the right state.

Requirement	Where to Find It
Postpone Rental Contract permission	Security › Configuration › Permission Groups, then the group, then Rental › Option
A rental contract with a status of Reserved or Active	Rental › Rental Contracts
At least one equipment line that has not gone out on rent	The Details tab of the contract

The Postpone Rental Contract permission sits under Rental › Option, not under a screen permission

There is no system setting to switch on - the permission is the only gate. Postpone Rental Contract disappears from the Options menu entirely once a contract is Completed, Cancelled or Lost.

Postponing a Rental Contract

Step 1 - Open the rental contract

Go to Rental › Rental Contracts and open the contract you need to move. Check the Start Date, Delivery Date and Expected Off Hire Date in General Details so you know what you are changing from.

A Reserved contract booked for 7 to 18 September and already invoiced in advance for $2,005.40

Step 2 - Choose Postpone Rental Contract

Select Options › Postpone Rental Contract. If the item is greyed out, the contract has no lines that can be moved - see the FAQs below.

Postpone Rental Contract sits near the bottom of the Options menu, below Cancel Rental Contract

Step 3 - Check the current dates

The top row of the dialog is read only and shows where the contract stands today:

Current Delivery Date - when the equipment was due to leave the yard.
Current Start Date - when charging was due to begin.
Current Expected Off Hire - when the hire was due to end.

Underneath, the table lists every line that can be postponed, with its own dates and quantity so you can see which lines share the same window.

The dialog opens with the new date fields pre-filled from the contract and no lines selected

Step 4 - Enter the new dates and select the lines

Fill in the second row of dates. All three are required:

New Delivery Date - when the equipment now leaves the yard.
New Start Date - when charging now begins.
New Expected Off Hire - when the hire now ends. This must be later than the New Start Date.

Then tick the lines to move. Use the checkbox in the table header to select them all, or tick only the lines that are running late. You have to select at least one line, or Latner returns Select a detail line to postpone.

Every line you tick is given the same three dates. If the lines on the contract currently run to different windows, postpone them in separate passes rather than selecting them all at once.

The hire moved out by a fortnight, with all three equipment lines ticked

Step 5 - Save

Select Save. Latner confirms with Rental Contract Postponed and the contract reloads on the new dates. Note that the invoiced total does not change.

After Postponing

Each line you selected carries the new Delivery Date, Start and Expected Off Hire.
The contract's own dates move too whenever the new start date becomes the earliest start date on the contract - in practice, whenever you postpone every line. Move only some of the lines and the header keeps the earlier date.
The booking moves on Rental Allocation, so the original window frees up and the equipment can be booked to someone else.
Any open inspection on a postponed line is moved to the weekday before the new delivery date. Latner will not move an inspection into the past, so if the new delivery date has already been and gone, the inspection lands on today.
Billing that has already been raised follows the line: the date it is billed up to shifts by the same number of charge days as the start date moved, so the period you have charged for is not charged twice.
The change is written to the contract's Audit History - the magnifier icon at the top right - with the old and new value of every date.

Audit History records the postponement line by line, which is also where you find the original dates if you need to reverse it

There is no undo. To reverse a postponement, run Postpone Rental Contract again and enter the original dates, which the Audit History has kept for you.

Transport dockets are not moved with the contract. If a delivery or collection has already been booked, open the Transport tab and update or cancel the docket separately.

FAQs

Postpone Rental Contract is greyed out. Why?

Hover over it and you will see No details to Postpone. The contract has no equipment lines left in a status that can be moved - everything is either already on rent, off hire, returned or cancelled. If the option is missing from the menu altogether, the contract is Completed, Cancelled or Lost.

The line I want to move is not in the list. Where is it?

Only equipment, sub hire equipment and package lines appear, and only while they are still Reserved, Pending Delivery or Pending Collection. Once a line is On Rent, Off Hire or Returned it can no longer be postponed. Charge lines - transport, stock, admin, fuel, damage, labour and sanitation - are never listed, because they are not dated the way a hire is.

If the machine is already out and the customer wants to pause the hire, use a stand down instead.

Can I postpone a contract that has already been invoiced?

Yes, and that is the main reason the function exists. Editing a line by hand after invoicing is refused, with a message about fields that affect billing not being editable after invoicing. Postponing is exempt from that rule, and it moves the billed-to date along with the line.

Will the customer be billed again for the new dates?

Not if the new window is the same length as the old one. The billed-to date shifts by the same number of charge days as the start date, so the hire you have already charged for simply sits on the new dates.

If the new window works out to a different number of charge days - a five day charge week that now runs across a weekend, for example - the difference turns up on the next invoice as an extra charge or as a credit.

Can I use this to bring a hire forward instead?

Yes. Enter dates earlier than the current ones and the booking moves back down the calendar. The only date rule is that the New Expected Off Hire has to be later than the New Start Date.

I get "Please select valid datetime" on New Expected Off Hire.

The new off hire date has to fall after the new start date. If you are typing the dates in by hand the message can appear part way through - while the day is entered but the month is not - and then stay on screen. Re-pick the date using the calendar icon and it clears.

Do I have to move every line on the contract?

No. Tick only the lines that are moving. Bear in mind that the contract's own dates only follow when the new start date becomes the earliest start date on the contract, so a partial postponement leaves the header showing the earlier window.