The words the trade uses
Thirty terms an operator meets in a rental agreement, an insurance schedule or a report, defined in plain English.
A
- Availability
- Availability is which vehicles can genuinely be hired for a given period, after bookings, maintenance, off-road time and turnaround are taken out.
B
- Booking reference
- A booking reference is the short human-readable code identifying one rental, used on paperwork, invoices and at the counter.
- Branch
- A branch is a physical location with its own vehicles, staff and bookings, reported on separately from the rest of the business.
C
- Chargeback
- A chargeback is a payment reversed by the cardholder’s bank after a dispute, taking the money back from the merchant.
- Collision damage waiver
- A collision damage waiver is an agreement that the hire company will not pursue the hirer for the full cost of damage to the vehicle, above an agreed excess.
- Condition report
- A condition report is the record of a vehicle’s state at handover and at return, used to establish what damage occurred during the hire.
- Custom field
- A custom field is an extra piece of information added to a booking, vehicle or customer record by the business that uses it.
D
- Deposit hold
- A deposit hold is money taken at handover against damage or loss, kept apart from the hire charge and returned when the vehicle comes back.
- Document expiry
- Document expiry is the date an insurance certificate, registration or inspection stops being valid, after which the vehicle should not be hired.
- Double booking
- A double booking is two confirmed reservations against the same vehicle for overlapping dates, one of which cannot be honoured.
E
- Excess
- The excess is the amount a hirer remains liable for when a damage waiver applies, paid before any cover takes effect.
F
- Fleet mix
- Fleet mix is the make-up of a fleet by vehicle class, and how well that spread matches what customers actually ask for.
- Fleet utilisation
- Fleet utilisation is the share of available vehicle-days that were actually hired out, usually written as a percentage over a month.
G
- Grace period
- A grace period is the amount of lateness allowed on a return before another full day is charged.
H
- Handover
- The handover is the moment a vehicle passes to the hirer, when condition, fuel and mileage are recorded and the agreement is signed.
I
- Idle days
- Idle days are days a vehicle was available to hire and was not hired, which is the direct inverse of utilisation.
L
- Lead time
- Lead time is the minimum notice required between a booking being made and the vehicle being collected.
- Ledger
- A ledger is the running record of what has been charged against a booking and what has been paid, showing the balance outstanding.
- Loss damage waiver
- A loss damage waiver covers both damage to and theft of the vehicle, going further than a collision damage waiver, which covers damage alone.
M
- Mileage allowance
- A mileage allowance is the distance included in the hire price, beyond which a per-unit charge applies.
N
- No-show
- A no-show is a confirmed booking where the customer never arrives and never cancels, leaving the vehicle held and unhired.
O
- Off-road period
- An off-road period is a stretch of time a vehicle cannot be hired, recorded against the vehicle so it disappears from availability.
- One-way hire
- A one-way hire is a rental collected at one location and returned at another, usually carrying a fee to cover repositioning.
P
- Preventive maintenance
- Preventive maintenance is servicing carried out on a schedule of time or distance, before anything has failed.
R
- Rate plan
- A rate plan is a named set of prices attached to a class of vehicle rather than to a single car.
- Receivables
- Receivables are the amounts invoiced to customers and not yet paid, taken together as what the business is owed.
- Rental agreement
- A rental agreement is the contract signed at handover setting out who is hiring, which vehicle, for how long, and on what terms.
- Revenue per vehicle
- Revenue per vehicle is total hire income divided by the number of vehicles, over a period, showing what each unit earned on average.
T
- Turnaround time
- Turnaround time is the gap held between one hire ending and the next beginning, so a vehicle can be cleaned, checked and refuelled.
W
- Walk-in
- A walk-in is a customer who arrives without a reservation and hires whatever is free at that moment.
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