Vehicle Management System

The Vehicle Management System is made up of five menu items as shown in the following example:

Add/Modify/Delete Vehicle

The following sections address the functionality of each of the four windows within the Add or Modify Vehicle function. Additionally, the management reports available from each of these functions are noted.

Vehicle Description

Click 1 - Add/modify/delete vehicle on the Vehicle Management System window.

The following window appears:

Choose Add, and click OK.

The following window appears:

Fill in the fields of the Vehicle Description area as completely as necessary.

These fields allow for the physical and legal description of a specific vehicle.

Notes:

Two the fields, Transmission Type and Rent Classification, are supported by pop-up windows which appear when you click in these fields. The Report Utilization field indicates whether this vehicle should be excluded from utilization reports. (Set to N if this vehicle is not used primarily as a rental vehicle.)

The other fields do not require that data be entered into them. When adding a "new" vehicle to the fleet, this vehicle's mileage is entered into the Last Close Mileage field, and the "new" vehicle's present location should be entered into the Last Close Loc Code field. This ensures the vehicle status and matrix placements are current.

The "Vehicle Description and Status" section of this chapter describes the four reports available from the Vehicle Description Data.

Vehicle Sales Status

Click Next.

Page two, Vehicle Sales Status area, appears:

The Vehicle Sales Status area provides the means to establish a selling price, wholesale value, and markup percent for each vehicle in the fleet. This screen also allows the user to keep track of when a vehicle was put on sale, the number of sales inquiries made on the vehicle, and any comments the user might want to record.

The "Sales" section later in this chapter describes the three reports derived from the Vehicle Sales Status data.

Click Next on the Vehicle Sales Status area on the Add or modify vehicle window.The following window appears:

The Service Schedule area provides the means to establish service intervals for vehicles in the fleet and to maintain, on file, service mileages, and dates. The service parameters established in this screen (e.g. Service Mileage Interval and Service Interval-Days) provide the limits for the maintenance reports that are available in the next section. The last service mileage and last service dates shown in this screen are updated for entries made in the "Maintenance Entry" section of Rent-Ware Windows.

The "Maintenance" section later in this chapter describes the three reports that are derived from the Vehicle Service Schedule data.

Vehicle Financial Status

Click Next on the Service Schedule area on the Add or modify vehicle window.The Vehicle Financial Status screen appears as follows:

The Vehicle Financial Status area provides the means to establish financial parameters to calculate monthly expenses (e.g. depreciation, loan amortization and interest). The report is divided into two sub-areas:

Vehicle Depreciation

Vehicle Financing

The Vehicle Depreciation section consists of a vehicle's original cost and a depreciation factor. The original vehicle cost comes from the vehicle invoice, and the depreciation factor is equal to the amount of the vehicle's cost, in percentage terms (e.g. 2%), that is being written off each month.

Click in the Finance Type field to choose one of three codes signifying how a vehicle is financed. The following pop-up window appears.

If you choose "Not financed," the financial reports, available in the next section of the program, do not reflect any interest charges or loan reductions for the vehicle. If you select "Variable," you must enter, on this screen, the percentage amount your business pays beyond the bank's prime rate (e.g. 2% if the loan rate is 12% and the prime rate is 10%). When running the financial reports in the next section of the program, you must enter the bank prime rate when prompted. If you select "Fixed interest rate" (independent of the current value of the prime rate), enter the fixed interest rate in this field (e.g. 12% if the loan rate is 12% and fixed).

Double-click in the Lender Code field, choose a lender code, and click OK. The list of lenders on this menu is established in the "Utilities" section of the program. If the lenders are properly installed in the "Utilities" section, select a letter signifying the appropriate lender. The amount to be entered in the Monthly Reduction field should be a fixed dollar amount. This amount (e.g. $200.00) should be provided by your bank for a specific vehicle.

The Financing section later in this chapter describes the management report available from the financial status data.

Deleting Vehicle Descriptions

Use the following procedure to delete a vehicle from your fleet.

1. Click 1 on the Vehicle Management System window, or click 7 4 1 on the Main Menu.The following window appears:

2. Choose Delete, and click OK. A listing of all the vehicles in your fleet appears similar to the following window:

3. Choose the listing for the vehicle you want to delete, and click OK. The full entry appears as follows. Note: The entries are grayed out. You cannot make modifications at this window.

Clicking the Last Update button allows you to make changes to this entry and save it with a different Fleet Number.

4. Click Delete to delete the vehicle from the system.The file deletes, and you are returned to the Vehicle Management System window.