A machine leaves the yard and nobody knows when it is back or what it will come to, and the second booking goes in a notebook so the same unit is promised twice. The hire is then worked out at the gate from memory, and the late time and the deposit are argued over the counter.
Every unit has its own record, and a booking takes it out of circulation for one window. The refusal lives in the database itself as an exclusion constraint, not in an agreement between screens: of two bookings made at the same instant for the same unit, one succeeds and the other is refused with a sentence the person at the counter can act on. The window carries the turnaround time after it, so the next hire cannot start before cleaning and checking.
Each item has its own table — hour, day, week — and the time is rounded up to a whole hour and then covered by the cheapest combination of whole blocks. Twenty-five hours is a day plus an hour whenever that is cheaper, not two days; and with no hourly price on your table it is two days, because two days is then the cheapest thing that covers it. Each item also names a minimum hire, and anything shorter is charged at it.
The extra hours were hours the thing was genuinely out, so the ordinary hire covers them at the ordinary tariff; the penalty is a separate line on top, for the booking you could not honour. They reach the invoice apart so the customer can see which is which. The grace decides whether the return is late at all, and once it is, it takes nothing off the hours.
A hired thing is still yours and is coming back, so taking it out moves no stock and relieves no cost, and bringing it back posts nothing. The hire is recognised when it is invoiced, like any other invoice. The one thing that reaches the books at the gate is the deposit: cash goes up and a liability of the same size goes up beside it, called customer deposits held, and the two come down together when it is given back — a deposit is never set against an invoice.
“Out” means a collection was recorded, “late” is measured between the promised instant and now, and every hour on the invoice is measured between two stored instants stamped by the server’s own clock. There is no status field for anyone to type, so no screen can say “returned” about a machine standing on a customer’s site.
A returned agreement becomes an ordinary sales invoice — the same numbering, the same ledger entry, the same tax as any other, not a second billing path. Two requests to invoice the same agreement at once end with one invoice, not two.
A unit that has been sold or taken out of service cannot be archived today, so it stays bookable.
A return is recorded once; an agreement that is back cannot be reopened to correct its time or recompute its charge.
On one set of data: what happens here reaches these apps without anyone retyping it.
No. The refusal is an exclusion constraint in the database rather than a check on a screen, so of two bookings made at the same instant for one unit, one succeeds and the other is refused. The window also includes the turnaround time after the due date.
The cheapest combination of whole blocks from the item’s table. With an hour and a day on the table it is a day plus an hour; with no hourly price it is two days, because two days is then the cheapest cover. A block is never prorated: a day costs a day whether all of it or one hour of it was used.
No. It is still yours and it is coming back, so nothing is deducted from stock, no cost is relieved and nothing is posted when it goes out or comes back. The hire reaches the books when it is invoiced, and only the deposit posts at the gate: cash against a liability, reversed when it is given back.
The extra hours are charged in the ordinary hire at the ordinary tariff, and the penalty is a separate line above it, so the customer can read which is which. The grace decides whether the return is late at all; once it is, it takes nothing off the hours.
Firms hiring machinery and tools to contractors and individuals — scaffolding, generators, mixers, lifts — by the day or the month, with a bond and servicing between hires.
Event organisers running projects with an immovable date, many suppliers, sponsors and a moving budget.
Contracting firms with long projects, milestone claims, subcontractors, and materials and labour on site.