The Standard Periods and Short Periods are used to establish the rental billing frequency blocks that are used to define the rental billing value. For both options, you need to define the base period type (Day, Week, Month or Year) and the number of those periods that make up a single frequency period.

For example, if the company wants to bill on a bi-weekly basis, they would set the base period Week and the number of units to 2. When the period under review does not fit within a Standard Period, the remainder is evaluated using the Short Period. If the period is being used for rental billing purposes, the system will determine the number of complete Standard Periods that are available, and the remainder will be evaluated using the Short Period.

Example 1           

The period under review runs August 6^th through August 19^th. The frequency that has been setup is defined with a Standard Period of 1 Week and a Standard Unit of 1. The billing rate is set to $200 for the Standard Period of a 1-week block. The system will calculate the number of 1-week blocks between the start date and the end date, which in this case is 2. Therefore, the rental invoice value will be 2 frequency periods, each $200, resulting in an invoice of $400.

Example 2

The period under review runs August 6^th through August 19^th. The frequency is setup with a Standard Period of 1 Week and a Standard Unit of 2. The billing rate is set to $200 for the Standard Period of a 2-week block. The system will now calculate the number of 2-week blocks between the start date and the end date, which in this case is 1. Therefore, the rental invoice value will be 1 frequency period of $200, resulting in a total of $200.

Example 3

The period under review runs August 6^th through August 22^nd, which is a period of 2 weeks and 3 days. The frequency is set to a Standard Period of 1 Week and a Standard Unit of 1. There is also a Short Period of Days, with a Short Unit of 1. The billing rate is set to $200 for the Standard Period of a 1-week block. The system will begin by calculating the number of complete Standard Periods that are available. In this case, there are 2 Standard Periods which takes the system up to August 19^th.

The remaining period, from August 20^th to 22^nd, is less than the Standard Period of 1 week. As a result, the system must evaluate the remaining period using the Short Period definition. In this example, there are 3 Short Periods in the remaining period.

When calculating the rental billing, the system will use the number of Standard Periods and multiply it by the rate charged. The system will then use the defined rate (in this case, $200) to calculate the pro-rated daily rate. The pro-rated value for this example will be $28.57 – the standard rate of $200/week divided by 7 days. The pro-rated value is then multiplied by the number of Short Periods to establish the rental billing value for the Short Period.

Example 4

The period under review runs August 1^st through September 7^th. This covers a period of 5 weeks and 3 days. The frequency setup is configured as follows:

• The Standard Period is based on a 1-week period, with a Standard Unit of 4. This means that the system will view the Standard Period in 4-week blocks.
• The Short Period is set to 1 week, with a Short Unit of 1. This means that the system will evaluate the Short Period in 1-week blocks.
• The billing rate is set to $600 for the Standard Period of 4 weeks.

The system will again begin by calculating the number of complete Standard Periods that are available in the review period. In this case, there is a single Standard Period. The system will then calculate the number of complete Short Periods, which in this case is 1. This leaves 3 days remaining. Since the Short Period has already been set to a 1-week block, a minimum of 1 week will be charged. The system will extend the period to complete the next full Short Period. This will now effectively move the end date from September 7^th to September 11^th.

When calculating the rental billing amount, the system will first apply the rate for the full periods, then calculate the pro-rated billing amount for the Short Period.

Note: The system will retain the fact that the billing was carried out until September 11^th. Should further billing be carried out, it will be evaluated from September 12^th onward. This ensures that the customer will not be double billed for a period.