Winter is an excellent time to raise prices to recover added cost of business due to seasonal changes. You will find your customers will accept the change in charges as an accepted business practice. Avoiding costs during seasons when not applied, rather than increasing prices.
It is a good idea to have your Terms and conditions list these potential price changes to avoid miss understandings. THese can be printed on back side of paper used for invoicing, in gray scale.
Winterization Rate Changes
The alternative ways to activating winterization fees are:
- Special rate code is activated on each unit then use bulk rate code change to populate the rates
- Add a new surcharge, either fixed amount per invoice or a percent of pre-tax amount
- Bulk assign a new unit (type of unit = WINT) to all sites and then use bulk rate code to populate the rates
Special Rate Code – Option 1
Setup Steps
Admin\Rental Unit Prompts click Edit and enter “WINT” as a replacement of one of the codes 6 through 10 and click save. This adds the codes to the reference file 15 for (Daily, Weekly and Monthly as a suffix.). You will need to locate these codes and edit the description to say what you would like to appear on the invoice. WINT, WINTW, WINTM AND WINTW
admin\Database utilities\change\Units tab.
Then select sites 1-99999 with unit count 1-9999 and search.
Then populate section on rate change for the rate code you added i.e., “WINTM” see example: Enter Type, hit search then bulk site change for each unit type (ALL changes all at once)
This video shows how you can set winterization fees in TAC.
Reverse: Removal
Admin\Database utilities\change\Units tab. Then select sites and populate rate change fields as above except set existing lower and upper with current (Ex:$5.00 according to example) and set new to 0.00 then hit bulk site change repeat for each unit type.
Option 2 - Add a new Sur-charge
Setup Steps
Admin\references\reference file 91 sur-charge codes. Add a new surcharge i.e., “WNTR” and populate percent or fixed amount.
Right click on added code and “Add codes to sites”. A search will come up to select sites to populate.
Winterization sur-charge will be applied the same as any sur-charge
Reverse
Admin\references\reference file 91 sur-charge codes. Right click on surcharge (WNTR) and select Remove from sites.
Option 3 -Bulk Assign a New Unit to each site
Setup Steps
Admin\Database utilities\change\Units tab. Then select sites and populate section on “Bulk Assign Units”, make sure dates are set correctly. Most efficient to use a pricebook.
No Pricebook option: Admin\Database utilities\change\Units tab. Then select sites and populate section on rate change for the rate code you added