TABLE OF CONTENTS
In farmerswife, "bookable" Objects (like equipment, rooms, workstations, even staff) can be configured with hourly and daily rates only.
On certain workflows, especially for production houses or rentals, there is a need to use rates by the week and/or by the month.
Many of our customers are happy to start charging by the day when implementing farmerswife in their facilities.
But if you still wish to charge also by week or month, you can try the following workflow, where we make use of Activities in a creative way, combined with some other options like "invoice fixed amount" and "string operators" on Reports.
Let's go step by step.
1. Set up Activities in the Object Manager
In the following examples we are using Activities to add different rates to equipment that is charged by days, by weeks and also by months, depending on how long it is hired.
- We have created 3 Activities: Day, Week and Month. These are now the new "unit names" for the equipment.
- On each of these Activities, we have added the rate for that whole period (either Day, Week or Month), and we have chosen Day on the unit name (further down you will see how we will "teach" farmerswife to ignore this standard unit name, and use the Activity name instead).
Here, we have added these 3 rates to the object class ARRI ALEXA, using Activities.
NOTE: See how to easily create and update these DAY RATE Activities via the Import/Export Objects functionality.
2. Book using Activities
When booking, choose the corresponding Activity according to the rate to be applied.
In the following example, the ARRI ALEXA is to be hired for 3 months. When booking it, choose the corresponding Activity.
NOTE: Make sure to have this setting enabled: "Ask For Class And Activity When Booking" (in Toolbox > Settings > Class/Objects), so that the "Set Object Class And Activity" window pops up for those objects that have a class and/or activity configured.
3. Adjust Quantity in Project Window
Once all the required equipment is added to the Booking, open the Project and find this Booking.
In this example, the Booking lists the equipment followed by the Activity "/ Month" and next, 90 Days. We now need to change this to actually be 3 months, otherwise the rate will be calculated based on 90.
On the first Object of the Booking, click on the drop-down menu next to the quantity, e.g. "90 Days", and select the number of months from the option "Invoice Fixed Amount". Here, we chose "3 Days".
Yes, it still shows "Days", but we will ignore that standard unit name and keep having in mind that our new unit name is the Activity.
What is important is to make sure that each line has the correct Activity (in this example "Month"), and the correct amount (in this case "3"), so that the total is correctly calculated.
NOTE: If your Booking contains more than 1 Object, as you change the "Invoice Fixed Amount" on the first Object, you will be prompted if you also want to change this on the rest of the day-based Objects. Choose "All Objects" so that the change applies to all the lines in this Booking. Any new Object added to this Booking will already apply this selection.
4. Configure String Operators in our Print Out Templates
We have one more step left: we will use some magic string operators in the Print Designer so the unit names show correctly in the print out for the client, and also on the internal reporting.
In this example the Booking is used as the quote (as is the case of most rental houses working with farmerswife). And we are using Financial Reports (grouping by Project, Date and Source) to print out that quote.
To show the quantity that was modified via the "Invoice Fixed Amount", we selected element "Quantity (To Invoice/Used/Booked)", otherwise farmerswife would return the total amount of days booked (in this example, 90 days).
Next, we copied element "Unit Name (To Invoice/Used/Booked)" and renamed it as "Unit Name (modified)".
Finally, on this new element, we added 3 string compare operators, one per Activity.
The operations go like this:
If the Object has an Activity called "Month", show that as unit name, else keep standard unit name.
And we replicated the same for Week and for Day.
Furthermore, farmerswife will respect the standard unit name of those Objects not represented by any of these 3 operations. In other words, Objects like Services, Resources or Staff on which we did not configure these Activities for weekly and monthly rates, will show their own unit name in the report.
NOTE: We have attached this report template, in case you would like to import it into your farmerswife.
Read how to import report template here.
Implications for Utilization Reports:
- If you book the Object for e.g. 4 weeks (booked/used 20/28 days) the Utilization Report will show 20/28 days booked/used however with higher Total (20/28 x 50.000). The To Invoice numbers will correctly be showing Quantity 4 and the Total 200.000.
5. Quoting using the Budgeting Module
Same idea applies if you use the Budget module to generate your quotes.
When adding Objects to the quote, select the corresponding Activity.
And when printing out the quote, as you apply the magic string operators as explained further up, it will look like this:
NOTE: We have attached this report template, in case you would like to import it into your farmerswife.
Read how to import report template here.
Using Weekly Day Rates
Another way is to simply divide the weekly rate into the week days e.g. 5-6-7... and set this as Day Rate on the Activities.
- On the Objects / Classes that can be booked on a weekly Rate add an Activity that is called e.g "Editing - Week Rate" with the lower weekly Day Rate (set the Unit to Day).
- Budget: The Object / Class needs still to be calculated in "Days", e.g. 2 weeks = 10 Days.
- In the FRD / Print Designer add a String Operator that says "If Activity contains the word Week > display Input" and add it to the Quantity, Unit Name and Sell Rate.
- Copy the [Sell Total] and divide by [Quantity] to create this value for the Rate.
- Copy these values and create the opposite criteria: If Week, then don't display.
- Overlay these two values on top of each other in the report.
- Now, to the first strings you made you add an additional math operation to the Quantity and the Sell Rate to always divide the number by 5 (the rule has to be 5 days = 1 week).
- Also add a String compare to the Unit name to say "If Quantity Equals 1 display Week Else display Weeks".
Change Days to Invoice Fixed Amount
- Manually change the To Invoice Fixed Amount to the days to be invoiced.
- Works if e.g. booking 7 days but only charging for 4 days.
