Fred Office Plus and Hire module

Hire is a new module in Fred Office Plus that allows a store to electronically hire and track a hire contract.

It contains two elements

  • Management, Configuration and Reporting via Fred Office Plus.
  • Hiring, paying and returning via Fred POS Plus.

It is ONLY available as part of the Fred POS Plus version of Fred Office Plus.

As part of the Fred Office Plus and Fred POS Plus install, the necessary components will be installed in both Fred POS Plus and Fred Office Plus.

Configure Hire

Hire consists of 3 components:

  • A Hire Group – A collection of like items for hire that share the same pricing plan
  • A pricing plan – the prices, deposit and rates that can be used by items in this hire group
  • Hire Items – the items that can be hired out in this hire group
  1. Navigate to the Hire module under the Assistants button.
  2. Click New to create a new group.
  3. Name the group something that is relevant to the items in the group to assist POS users in filtering the items at POS.

The pricing plan us used to allow the cashier to quickly price the hire items for the given length.

A Hire group can have multiple pricing plans, or tiers, if required. For example, General Plan and a staff plan.

  1. Click Add Plan and fill in the pricing plan details. Repeat this if multiple plans are required.

Items will add in with a status of Available, which can be manually changed if required.

  1. Click Add items to add items to this hire group.
  2. Locate the items to add and select OK to add them to the hire group.

    The same item can be added more than once. If there is only one item, that represents more the one hire item, repeat this process until the required amount have been added.

  3. Review the items.
  4. Update the Cost.

    This will be the cost used in the transaction for each Hire.

  5. The Barcode & description can be changed if required.
  6. Once complete, click save and close to create the Hire Group.

Create a new Hire at POS

The POS provides 3 functions, Create a new Hire, Extend a hire (make a payment) and return a Hire.

  1. Open the Hire menu from the Custom taskpad.

  2. Search for and select a product that is Available.

    This can be by Barcode, description or to filter the list by a Hire group.

    This will open the Hire contract screen.

  3. Locate and/or create a customer to assign this hire to.

    If a customer was already selected at the POS , they will be already selected here.

  4. Enter the Pricing plan and scheduled return date.

    This will automatically populate the amount and deposit values.

    All of these values can be overwritten if required.

  5. If the customer is paying their deposit by Credit card, check this box to remind the staff to return the deposit by Credit card when the hire is returned.
  6. Click OK to create the hire and proceed to POS screen.
  7. Complete the sale.

    This will place the Item status as Hired and record the details of the contract.

Extending or making a payment

A hire can be recalled to either be extended, or to make a payment against it.

There are 2 ways to navigate to the hire contract:

Option 1

  1. Search for the customer at the POS.
  2. Load the Hire taskpad.

    The customer current contracts will be at the top of the list of hire items.

Option 2

  1. Load the hire taskpad and locate (or search for) the item / customer from the list of hired items (they will be at the bottom of the list).

    The Hire contract screen is open.

  2. Enter a payment amount in the payment field, or alter the expected return date.
  3. Select Apply.

    If it was a payment, the transaction will need to be completed.

    If it was only an extension (with no payment), then select Apply to extend the contract. There is no need to complete the transaction to extend the hire date.

Returning a Hire item

There are 2 ways to navigate to the hire contract:

Option 1

  1. Search for the customer at the POS.
  2. Load the Hire taskpad.

    The customer current contracts will be at the top of the list of hire items.

Option 2

  1. Load the hire taskpad and locate (or search for) the item / customer from the list of hired items.

    They will be at the bottom of the list.

    The Hire contract screen is open.

  2. Enter a return date for the hire contract.

    This will automatically populate the payment amount based on the length of the contract and the pricing plan used.

  3. Press OK to return the POS transaction.

    By default, the Deposit will be marked for return and can be used as either a deduction off the final price, or returned to the customer.

    • If the customer wants to deduct the deposit off the sale….

      Complete the transaction, as the total price will include the discount.

    • If the customer wants to refund the deposit ….

      At the Tender screen enter the deposit amount, as a negative, in the appropriate tender.

      This will add the deposit price to the total amount owed.

  4. Complete the transaction using the tender they wish to pay the amount owing.

Hire Reports

There are three hire reports in Fred Office Plus.

These can be found under the Items section of reports:

Active Hire contracts

  • A list of contracts currently on hire and whether they are overdue.

Hire history

  • An audit report showing a complete hire history.

Hire Summary

  • The current summary of hire, total sales, item status, etc ...

Related resources

Email receipts (Fred POS Plus)