Rate Modifiers | Latner Software Documentation

Rate Modifiers are the optional rules you layer on top of a rental rate - a floor under the price, a minimum on the total, an hours allowance with an excess charge - and every one of them is safe to leave blank.

Overview

The pricing method and rate type between them describe the deal. The modifiers describe the guard rails: the least you are willing to charge, the least the hire can be worth, and what happens when a customer works a machine harder than the rate assumed. None of them are required, and a rate book with none of them set works perfectly well.

Floor Rate stops staff discounting below your commercial limit when they add the line.
Minimum Charge sets the least the line can invoice for the whole hire.
Max Daily Hours and Excess Hours Rate together charge for usage above an agreed daily allowance.
Excess Hours Floor Rate is the floor for the excess rate.
Recommended Deposit suggests a deposit for cash customers.
Stand Downs and the 24 hr grace period are not fields on the rate, but they change what the rate bills, so they are covered here too.

a Fixed daily rate with a $150.00 minimum charge, an 8 hour daily allowance and a $12.00 excess hours rate. Every field below the rate row is optional

Floor Rate

A Floor Rate sits beside each rental rate in the rate book and marks the lowest rate you are prepared to accept for that line. It travels with the rate onto quotes and contracts.

When someone enters a rental rate below the floor, Latner blocks the entry and shows Rental rate is lower than the floor rate. On a quote or contract the message adds that discounts can be requested from the Options menu.

A user with the Allow Rates Below Floor Rate permission is not blocked.
Anyone else can raise a request from Options › Request Discount Approval on the rental contract: choose an approver, explain why, and the request is tracked on the contract's Discount Requests tab.
Floor Rate is a customer-side field. It is not shown or submitted for a Sub Hire supplier rate.

a rental rate of $32.00 entered against a $40.00 floor. The rate field is outlined in red and the toast names the rule

Minimum Charge

A Minimum Charge is the least the line can be worth over the hire. Where the calculated charge comes in under it, Latner charges the minimum instead.

The important detail is when it applies. Latner only raises the charge to the minimum when the line is being billed out in full - that is, on the invoice that bills up to the actual off hire, or on an Advance or Pro Forma invoice. It is not applied to a progress invoice partway through a hire, because a mid-hire invoice is not the final word on what the hire is worth.

Minimum Charge is hidden and not applied for the Hourly and Minimum Hours Per Month rate types and for Operator Pricing, all of which have their own minimum mechanisms.

Floor Rate and Minimum Charge are easy to confuse. Floor Rate limits the price and is enforced when the line is created. Minimum Charge limits the total and is enforced when the hire is billed out. You can use both on the same line.

Max Daily Hours and Excess Hours Rate

These two fields let a rate assume a normal working day and charge separately for anything beyond it.

Max Daily Hours - the hours per day the rental rate covers, for example 8.
Excess Hours Rate - what each hour above the allowance costs. Editing it needs the Edit Excess Hours permission.
Excess Hours Floor Rate - the floor for the excess rate, enforced the same way as a rental rate floor. A rate-book-only field, not shown on sub hire supplier rates.

The excess is worked out at Return, not during the hire. When the equipment is returned with a meter reading, Latner takes the reading difference against the start reading, multiplies Max Daily Hours by the chargeable rental days to get the allowance, and if the usage is higher it creates an Excess Hours admin charge line on the contract for the difference at the excess rate. That line then invoices like any other admin charge.

All four conditions must be true for the charge to be created: a start meter reading, a return meter reading, an Excess Hours Rate and a Max Daily Hours. Leave any one of them blank and no excess is ever raised.

Worked example

An excavator with Max Daily Hours of 8 and an Excess Hours Rate of $12.00, on rent for 15 chargeable days.

Allowance: 8 x 15 = 120 hours
Meter readings at return: 1,340 out, 1,192 in - 148 hours used
Excess: 148 - 120 = 28 hours at $12.00 = $336.00, raised as an Excess Hours admin charge

Excess hours are calculated from the rental days, not from stand down adjusted days. A machine that was stood down still had its full daily allowance counted, so a long stand down can leave a customer with a larger allowance than they arguably earned. Check the excess line before invoicing on a contract with significant stand downs.

Stand Downs

A stand down is not a field on the rate, but it is the modifier customers ask about most. It reduces the chargeable days by a proportion, based on the stand down's percentage: five days stood down at 30% cost removes 3.5 chargeable days from the period.

Latner then recalculates the charge on the reduced day count, and all the normal pricing rules still apply. That is why a stand down sometimes appears to do nothing: if the hire has already crossed onto a weekly or tiered rate, the minimum for that rate still holds, and the reduction only shows up once the hire runs past the full period. The stand down is not lost, it is deferred to the next billing period.

Flat Monthly is the exception - it charges a whole month regardless, so stand downs do not reduce it.

The 24 Hour Grace Period

Only the 24 hour rate types use it. The 24 hr Rental Rate Grace Period (Minutes) setting in Security › Settings › Rental is how far past a 24 hour block a return can run before it counts as another day. On the invoice that follows the off hire, a machine back within the grace period is not charged the extra day; one back after it is. It is a global setting, not a per-rate field.

Recommended Deposit

A Recommended Deposit on the rate suggests how much to collect up front for that class of equipment. It only appears when the Allow Users to take a Rental Deposit against a Customer setting in Security › Settings › Financials is on, and is not used on sub hire supplier rates. It is a suggestion carried onto the first invoice of the line - it does not stop a hire going out without a deposit.

FAQs

My minimum charge didn't apply to this month's invoice. Why?

Because it was a progress invoice. The minimum charge is applied when the line is billed out in full - the invoice that bills up to the actual off hire - and on Advance and Pro Forma invoices. Mid-hire progress invoices bill the rate as calculated.

No excess hours charge was raised even though the machine was worked hard. Why?

All four of a start meter reading, a return meter reading, a Max Daily Hours and an Excess Hours Rate have to be present on the line. If any is missing, Latner skips the check entirely. Check the meter readings on the return first, then the two fields on the line.

Can I change the excess hours rate on a contract line?

Only with the Edit Excess Hours permission, which controls both Max Daily Hours and Excess Hours Rate on quote and contract lines. If the field is greyed out, that is why.

Someone entered a rate below the floor and it saved. How?

They have the Allow Rates Below Floor Rate permission, which exempts them from the check. Review who holds it in Security › Configuration › Permission Groups › Rental › Field, and use Options › Request Discount Approval so that discounts are recorded on the contract instead.

Why didn't my stand down reduce the charge?

Because the hire had already entered a weekly or tiered rate whose minimum period still has to be charged. The reduction applies in the next billing period once the hire has run past that full period. On a Flat Monthly rate it never applies - a flat month is a flat month.