Run the loan and courtesy cars

Vehicles, then Loan Cars, is the register for the cars you lend out. It is free and open to every automotive account.

Adding a car

Record the rego, year, make, model and colour, the current kilometres and fuel level, and the commercial terms if you charge for it: a day rate, the kilometres included per day, and an excess kilometre rate. Add the insurance policy number and any notes the front counter needs, such as a known dent or that it is a manual.

Each car has a status: available, out, maintenance or retired.

Handing one out

Open the car and choose to hand it out. Record:

• the customer contact
• the job it relates to
• the kilometres and fuel level at handover
• the expected return date and time
• notes, which is where pre-existing damage and any special agreement goes

The expected return time is not decoration. It is what the late chase runs on.

Taking it back

Record the return kilometres, the fuel level and any notes about damage, missing items or a fuel discrepancy. The car goes back to available and the assignment closes.

What this does not capture

There is no damage photo capture and no customer signature on handover. If your handover process depends on either, keep doing it the way you do now, on paper or in your job photos, and use the notes field to say where that record lives.

Per-car history

Every loaner has a history page: every handover, who had it, kilometres driven, and the fuel difference between handover and return. This is where an argument about fuel or kilometres gets settled.

Utilisation

The utilisation page aggregates over 30, 90 and 365 days: how many times each car went out, total days out, and how many of those runs went overdue. The question it answers is whether a third courtesy car is earning its registration, insurance and depreciation, or whether two would do.

The late chase

When a customer is past their expected return time, we text them. Once every 24 hours until the car comes back.

• The contact needs a valid Australian mobile.
• Closing the assignment stops the texts, so take the car back in the system as soon as it is physically back.
• These messages appear in the reminder feed tagged Loaner late. See checking a reminder was sent.

If the page says a migration is missing

That means this deployment has not had the loaner tables created yet. It is not a subscription problem. Ask your operator to apply the outstanding migration.