ServiceCore allows you to prorate rates and services. We remove the guesswork by automatically calculating proration for you. Whatever cycle you use: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or anything in between, ServiceCore will handle these calculations to make sure you're not missing out on potential revenue.

For example, if you charge $200 a month rental rate for an inventory item, and your customer rents that item for a month and a half, the charge would be $300. You may want your customers to pay for service for the amount of time the inventory was used compared to the cost for the entire time.

In this article you'll learn about how to use proration in ServiceCore for rentals and non-rentals.

Before You Start

Here are some things to know before using proration:

• You will need Tech - Billing, Manager, Admin or Owner level permission to setup your ServiceCore account to use proration features
• Proration does not apply to Flat Rate services

Prerequisites

To take advantage of proration in Servicecore, please have the following items created and setup in your ServiceCore account beforehand:

1. Create the customer that will be renting your inventory
2. Add the job site where the rental inventory will be delivered, serviced, and pick-up from
3. Add inventory (bulk or serialized) that you will manage for this rental
4. If you will be renting itemized inventory, associate barcodes or QR codes to inventory items
5. Add rental services
6. Assign services to your inventory products to appear as rental rates

Once you've done all of the above, then you can get started with proration.

How to Create a Rental with Proration

The section below describes the steps you should take to setup your rental with proration.

1. Follow these steps to Create a Rental
2. Then, follow these steps to Add Rental Rates
3. If you want to use recurring billing for this rental, create a recurring invoice

If you follow these steps above in this order proration will be calculated automatically.

Add or Remove Prorated Services

If you need to deliver additional units, add more service jobs, or pick-up units before the rental is complete, follow these steps to add jobs to a rental.

If you are adding or removing units by scheduling a delivery or pickup job, then the recurring invoice will prorate the quantity of the rental rate to reflect the changes.

What Proration Looks Like on Invoices

As you create the recurring invoice from this rental, you will see the recurring interval in your invoice line item descriptions.

You will also see proration appear as non-whole numbers in the Qty of your invoice line items.

In addition, if you use recurring invoices for your rentals, as you add or remove units from the jobsite, the proration will happen automatically, no calculator required!

How to Create a Recurring Invoice with Proration for Non-Rental Jobs

The section below describes the steps you should take to setup your non-rental job with proration. It's important that you follow these steps in the order below to make sure proration is calculated correctly.

1. Add Services via your settings
2. Create a recurring invoice that includes the prorated services you added in the previous step

If you need to add or remove prorated services for your recurring invoice at a later time:

1. Go to Accounting
2. Click on the Recurring tab
3. Click on Filter by
4. Click on the Scheduling Type dropdown
5. From the list, choose Non-Rental
   
   
6. Click Close
7. Type the Customer name into the Search box to narrow your results
8. Locate the recurring invoice template you want to edit
9. Click the down arrow next to Create Invoice
10. From the list of options that appear, click Edit Recurring Template
11. Add or remove prorated services for your non-rental job to this invoice
12. Once you're finished, click View Invoice

If you follow these steps above in this order, the proration will be calculated automatically.

Additional Resources

For additional information and further reading about the topics above, please check out these help articles:

1. About Proration
2. Create a Rental Invoice with Recurring Billing
3. Use Batch Billing for Recurring Invoices
4. Add Rental Rates
5. Assign a Service to an Inventory Product to Show as a Rental Rate Option

Proration FAQs

How does proration work during batch billing?

When you use batch billing to create invoices, or when you create the next invoice from a recurring invoice manually, all jobs that were scheduled, completed or cancelled during the previous billing cycle, and the next upcoming billing cycle, will be automatically added to the invoice.

In the example below you can see the delivery job and it's one-time delivery fee associated with that job have been added to the invoice:

Delivery jobs

Rental rates for the inventory associated to the rental will be prorated for the additional time the additional units were on the job site. Plus, any additional service line items added to mid-billing cycle delivery jobs will be added as a one-time service line items to the invoice.

For example:

• If you already created an invoice on Jan 1 for the billing period Jan 1-28 from a recurring invoice billing in Advance every 28 days
• If there is an extra delivery job on Jan 15 to delivery additional units to the job site
• When you create the Feb 1 invoice...
  • The rental rates will be prorated automatically to include the 14 days those additional units were on site (so you don't have to remember to add these extra two weeks of rental rates yourself)
  • The Jan 15 delivery job and the one-time delivery fee associated to the mid-cycle delivery job will be added one-time to the Feb 1 invoice (and it will drop off the Mar 1, Apr 1, and future invoices)

In the screenshot below you can see how the line items will appear (invoice date is March 10, billing 28 days in Advance)...

1. This line shows the prorated amount from the 3/1 delivery through the invoice date (Quantity is 1 additional unit for 9 days out of a 28 day billing period, or 1 x 9/28 = 0.321)
2. This line shows the advanced billing amount for all units on site from 3/10 to 4/6 (28 days)
3. This line shows the one-time delivery charge associated with the 3/1 delivery job

Pick-Up Jobs

Rental rates for inventory removed from a rental will not be prorated for early pick-up jobs. If you prorate for early pick-ups, you will need to manually create these invoices from the recurring invoice. We are currently in the research and planning phases of a feature to automatically prorate for early pickups. Any additional service line items added to mid-billing cycle pick-up jobs will be added as a one-time service line items to the invoice.

For example:

• If you already created an invoice on Jan 1 for the billing period Jan 1-28 from a recurring invoice billing in Advance every 28 days
• If there is an early pick-up of units on Jan 15 to remove units from the job site
• When you create the Feb 1 invoice...
  • The rental rates will not be adjusted or pro-rated to provide a credit back on the Feb 1 invoice (the invoice bills for the items on-site as of the invoice date)
  • The early Jan 15 pick-up job and the one-time fee associated to the mid-cycle pick-up job will be added one-time to the Feb 1 invoice (and it will drop off the Mar 1, Apr 1, and future invoices)

In the example below, the line items on the invoice details page show...

1. There were 8 units on-site at the time of the invoice (billing period is 3/10-4/6)
2. There was an early pickup job on 3/15 (and the rental rates did not get pro-rated or reduced due to this early remove of items from the site)

Service Jobs

If there are extra service jobs performed for a rental during an already-billed cycle, these jobs will be automatically added to the next invoice (including any lines items associated to these mid-cycle service jobs).

For example:

• If you already created an invoice on Jan 1 for the billing period Jan 1-28 from a recurring invoice billing in Advance every 28 days
• If there is an extra service job on Jan 15 to clean the units on-site
• When you create the Feb 1 invoice...
  • The Jan 15 service job and the extra cleaning fee associated to the mid-cycle service job will be added one-time to the Feb 1 invoice (and it will drop off the Mar 1, Apr 1, and future invoices)

In the example below, you can see the extra cleaning was automatically pulled in during batch billing, even when the cleaning happened in the previous billing cycle (and when it hadn't been invoiced yet):

Does proration work if I need to add or remove units from a jobsite?

Yes. If you add or remove units by scheduling a delivery or a pickup job, then the recurring invoice will prorate the quantity of the rental rate to reflect the changes. Here's how to add jobs to a rental.

If the delivery, service or pick-up jobs are not marked as done, will my invoices still prorate?

Yes. Job completion status has no effect on proration.