Recording Day Hire Work

Day hire - where a customer hires a vehicle and driver for the day rather than booking a specific journey - does not have its own job type in TransMaS yet. This article is the recommended way to record day hire with the tools already in the system, so that every hire is entered the same way, the driver knows exactly what to press, and the hire duration is captured for you automatically.

In short: create an Ex-Works order with the collection point set to where the hire starts, rate it at the agreed day rate, and tell the driver to press Arrive when the hire begins and Depart when it ends. The time between the two is recorded against the job as the hire duration.

Create the order

Create an order as normal (+ Create > Order, or press F8) - see Creating an order if you are new to this.

Customer - the customer hiring the vehicle.
Ex-Works Order - tick this checkbox in the Delivery Details card. This removes the delivery leg, so the job becomes a single stop.
Collection location - the place the hire starts, usually the customer's yard or site. This is where the driver will report at the beginning of the day.
Collection date & times - enter the hire window. The From time is when the driver should arrive to start the hire; the To time is when the hire is due to finish.
Collection notes - put the hire instructions here; they appear in the driver's app. For example: "Day hire for [customer]. Report to the site office and take instructions from [contact]. Press Arrive when you start and Depart only when the hire has finished."
Product - add a cargo line such as Day Hire - Vehicle & Driver with a quantity of 1.
Consignment rate - leave the rate type as Trip Rate and enter the agreed day rate. Because day hire is a fixed price for the day, the standard trip rate models it exactly - no special rate type is needed. See Using Order Rate Types.

Tip: create a dedicated DAY HIRE order type under Settings > Order Types and give it a distinctive colour. Hires will then stand out on the scheduler at a glance, and you can report on day hire work separately.

Allocate the work

Allocate the order to a driver in the scheduler exactly as you would any other job. Because the order is ex-works it appears as a single stop on the driver's day. For a full-day hire it will normally be the only job on that vehicle for the day.

Brief the driver

The driver's app shows the hire as one site visit. The two button presses are what record the hire, so brief the driver clearly:

Press Arrive when the hire starts - normally on reaching the customer's site at the beginning of the day.
Press Depart only when the hire has finished - at the end of the day, not when leaving the site during the hire.

The driver can move around freely during the day; the app does not need anything else pressed in between. They can still take photos and scan paperwork against the job at any time - a signed timesheet or hire sheet photographed at the end of the day makes ideal proof of the hours worked.

After the hire

When the driver presses Depart the job completes automatically - there is no delivery leg to finish. The recorded arrival and departure times give you the actual hire duration, which you can check (and correct if the driver mis-pressed) before confirming - see Schedule Confirmation.

The order then invoices at the day rate like any other job. Note that the invoice line shows *Collect Only* in place of a delivery site and date - this is normal for ex-works orders.

Common questions

The hire ran over the agreed hours - how do I charge for the extra time?
Add a charge to the consignment for the additional hours (for example Additional hire hours with the quantity set to the hours over and the unit cost set to your hourly rate). The recorded Arrive and Depart times tell you exactly how long the hire ran.

How do I record a hire lasting several days?
Create one order per day. Each day then schedules, completes and invoices on its own, and your reporting shows a day's hire as a day's work. Ticking Save as template on the first order makes the rest quick to raise - see Using Order Templates. For a customer who hires on a regular pattern (for example every weekday), a contract order can raise them automatically - see Working with contract orders.

What if the driver forgets to press Depart?
The job stays open until Depart is pressed. The office can correct the actual times during Schedule Confirmation before the job is invoiced, so a forgotten press never has to reach the customer's invoice.

Can I track the mileage covered during the hire?
Yes, if the vehicle has a linked telematics unit (for example Webfleet). The vehicle's odometer reading is recorded automatically when the driver confirms the start of their shift in the app, and again when they press Depart at the end of the hire - the difference between the two gives you the day's mileage. Bear in mind the shift-start reading is taken before the driver travels to the hire site, so it includes the journey there. Vehicles without a linked tracker do not record odometer readings.

Why does the invoice say *Collect Only*?
Because the order is ex-works there is no delivery leg, and the invoice prints *Collect Only* where the delivery site and date would normally appear. The customer still sees the order details, your description (for example Day Hire - Vehicle & Driver) and the day rate.