This post explains the different features of estimates, reservations and shipments and how they interrelate.
Estimates
Estimates are used to provide a quote to your customer for material rental as well as unit prices (consumables and services). They are associated with a specific customer but not with a job site and do not affect your inventory balances. An estimated return date is required in order to calculate the anticipated costs to your customer.
An estimate can be converted into a reservation or directly into a shipment.
As you can see above, you can attach documents or photos just as you can with reservations and shipments.
You can also track the status of an estimate:
Here’s what a sample estimate looks like:
Reservations
An estimate can be converted into a reservation or you can create a new reservation from scratch. A reservation requires that you specify a job site and reserves materials so they are not available to be shipped to another job site. A rent stop date is not required.
Shipments
Estimates and reservations can both be converted into shipments. Reservations appear on the Shipping tab and are turned into shipments by clicking on the Send Selected Shipment button.
Alternatively, you can create a new shipment by clicking on the pallet of boxes to ship items to a location.
There are three types of shipments:
- Deliveries – moves equipment from your branch office or laydown yard to a job site
- Returns - moves equipment from a job site back to your branch office or laydown yard
- Transfers - moves equipment from job site to job site, or branch to branch
Once a shipment has been entered your inventory is automatically updated so you always know your available balances at each location.