Rental, Contract or Fleet Accounting Management
The purpose of this page is to discuss configuring iDempiere for rental, contract or fleet management. What you rent (property, cars, contract, etc...) does not impact the configuration. The same concept applies to all and more.
Resource
Add your rental properties, contracts, or automobiles in the Resource window. Note that creating a Resource record automatically creates a Product record of Product Type = "Resource". By using the Resource window, you automatically get iDempiere's existing Availability and Assignment functionality. If you need these features, great. If you do not, no worries.
Document Charge+Resource - Not the Product
Most new to iDempiere are tempted to use products on documents like invoices for expenses related to your property, automobile or contract; however, this practice does not work. If you were to perform maintenance on your resource, you are incurring an expense 'against' the resource and not actually 'buying or selling' the resource itself. These expenses are not always the same (oil change vs engine replacement); therefore, different expenses will hit different GL Accounts. Because of this situation, you need to use the document line's Charge field to specify the exact Charge/expense and indirectly specify the GL Account. The same concept exists on the sales side. You are not selling the resource itself. Instead, you are collection revenue against the resource.
View the Add Custom Element or Column to Accounting Schema Dimension to learn how to add the Resource field as a custom posting element. This concept is important because you can use the same GL Account for all your Resources and still be able to report on their financial performance separately.
Registering a new Resource
You do not have to own a resource to use it as a Resource. You can simply create a Resource record without any accounting consequences. Because a Resource creates a Product record, you can use that Product record to create a Purchase Order and Vendor Invoice if you purchase your Resources. You can update resource Product window => Accounting subtab => Product Expense to point directly to your "Fixed Asset" GL Account or you can reclass the expense to your "Fixed Asset" GL Accounting using a GL Journal. Be sure to use the newly created Resource field on the GL Journal Line (see above link about creating customer accounting elements).
If you use iDempiere's Fixed Assets, you will need to get creative to combine the concept of an Asset and a Resource. Note that you can also use an Asset instead of a Resource. The above concepts apply to Assets as well. The only negative consequence of using the Asset window is that you do not have access the Resource => Availability and Assignment features. Also note that creating an Asset record does not automatically create a Product. Instead, you perform that task manually.
Commissions
If you pay commissions based on Resource usage, you can use iDempiere's powerful commissions engine; however, be aware it does not know about the concept of a Resource. You will need to modify the existing commission process to limit results based on Resource. While this is not a complex task, it is not trivial either.
Recurring Invoices
If your organization generates periodic invoices, you can use the Recurring feature to produce these invoices on a scheduled basis.
Resource Pricing
If you rent Resources on an ad-hoc basis (like automobile rental), pricing can get quite complex. iDempiere does not have any features for pricing your resources on an order or invoice; however, you can create plugins to solve just about any pricing model regardless of how complex the scenario. The two iDempiere development tools you will use are (1) callout and (2) model event. A callout allows you to set the price in real time as users change fields. The model event allows you to change records when they are saved or processed.
Service Tickets
Ad-hoc and scheduled services need to be performed against resource. You can use the Request Architecture to accomplish both tasks.
More?
Please do not hesitate to ask questions about the above topics or any topic not covered related to the buying, servicing, selling of Resources.