Remember the story I told you about Rental Orders a few steps ago? Let’s hear it again.
In RW Elephantland all Orders are born as Proposals.
You’ll add Event details including Who, When, and Where. Then you’ll add Items and send that Proposal off to your Client.
They’ll jump for joy and take out their wallets. When they are ready to reserve the Items on their Proposal, they’ll sign your Terms & Conditions and give you a deposit. Then, you’ll change that Rental Order from a Proposal to Confirmed.
Everyone lives happily every after.
If you send a Proposal to your Client and they decide not to book, the Rental Order should become Cancelled.
There are three other Order Types but for now, let’s remember that all of your Rental Orders will start as Proposals and then become either Confirmed or Cancelled.
So now you’re all dying to know, how do I Confirm my Rental Orders?
I’m so glad you asked.
Rentals Orders change from Proposals to Confirmed when two things happen:
- Your Client agrees to your Terms & Conditions
- Your Client gives you a Deposit
We think it is important that you always have both of these things before confirming an Order. And we happen to think your lawyers will agree with us.
So, you’ve sent out your Proposal. Your Client received it, they are now ready to confirm their Order and reserve their Items.
If they are standing right in front of you, they can sign the Terms & Conditions you’ve included on your Proposal, hand you some money, and call it a day.
If they aren’t in the same room, they may sign the Proposal and then fax or email it back to you. There is room on the Proposal PDF for them to include credit card information. Once you receive it, you can process the transaction.
Alternatively, they may sign the Terms & Conditions and mail it to you along with a check.
Another option is for your Client to use the Payment Link in the Email you sent to agree to your Terms & Conditions and pay their deposit via credit card all in one step.
We know every rental business is different but we’ve found this last option to be the most efficient and cost-effective for our RW Elephant Users. We’ll talk about our integrated credit card processing in the next step. But for now, let’s walk through the process of Confirming an Order.
Since Confirming a Rental Order always involves collecting a deposit let’s start there.
Navigate to the “Orders” icon in the upper left corner of your browser window.
In the column on the left, select the Order you’d like to confirm.
Click on the green “Edit Order” button.
Then select the “Payments” tab.
At the bottom of the browser window, click on the “New Payment” button.
In the New Payment Window that pops up, first enter the Payment Date. That will likely be today but you can change it if necessary.
From the “Type” menu, choose the type of payment you’re recording (Cash, Check, Credit Card, or Promotional Credit).
Next select the amount of the Payment (Full Balance, Required Deposit, or Other Amount). If you choose Other Amount, enter the amount.
You can include a short Reference note as well if you’d like. There is a 13 character limit on this field.
Click the “Enter Payment” button to record the Payment on the Order.
The Payment will appear in the table of the Payment Tab.
Now that your Payment is recorded, head on over to the “Event & Contact Details” tab.
From the “Invoice Status” menu, choose “Confirmed.”
We suggest that you only do this second step if you actually have received a signed copy of your Terms & Conditions.
You’ll notice that once you save the Order and click on the “Invoice PDF” button, the PDF will now say Confirmed and there will no longer be a signature line in your Terms & Conditions.
You can now save this PDF and send it over to your Client as a receipt of their Payment. Or you can use the “Create Email” button to generate an email with a link to the PDF. Keep in mind that you’ll likely want to change the text and references in this email since it was likely set up for your Proposals, not as a Confirmation of the Client’s Order.
We think that tracking down deposits and begging for signatures can be a pain so we’ve found a better way. Get ready, we’re about to let you in on the big secret: Integrated Credit Card Processing!