This is what happens in the video
When you manage rentals in Business Central, you can close out a rental period by posting the sales order. Once the item has been returned, posting the order for the relevant period removes it and creates the final invoice automatically. If you post up to a date later than the actual return, the system only invoices the days the item was actually out on rent, not the full period you selected.
You can run this as a batch job across all your rental orders at once, so you don’t have to handle each order individually.
When the final period is posted, the sales order is deleted, and you can find the closing documents under your posted sales invoices and posted sales shipments.
Closing a rental period by posting the sales order
When the rental period is over and the item has come back, you post the sales order for that period. Posting it both finalises the document and deletes the sales order, because there is nothing left to rent out.
You don’t have to post exactly to the return date. You can post all the way to the end of the following month, and the system handles the rest. It automatically posts only the period that remains, so you never over-invoice the customer for days the item wasn’t out.
How the system calculates the invoiced quantity
In a concrete example, an item has a rental return date of November 16. The item was physically received back on November 15, but the system adds one day to be on the safe side, so the return date lands on the 16th.
This particular item had already been invoiced up to October 31. When the rental order was posted with the batch job, the posting date was set to November 30, which is 14 days later than the date the sales order itself ended.
Even though the posting date reaches to November 30, the invoiced quantity is only 16. That’s because there are only 16 days left in the rental period to invoice. The system looks at the remaining period, not the full span you select, and invoices accordingly.
Running the posting as a batch job for all orders
You don’t have to close rental orders one at a time. The batch job lets you post all your rental orders in one go. When you run it, it processes each order, posts the documents, and deletes the orders that are now finished.
In the example, the latest remaining sales order after posting is number 20, because the order that was just handled is finished and has been deleted.
Where to find the closing documents
After posting, the closing documents are available in the standard places in Business Central.
- In posted sales invoices, you find the final invoice. In the example, this is invoice number 49, covering the 16 days for the last rental period.
- In posted sales shipments, you find the matching shipment, here also showing the 16 days.
Once both are in place, everything for that rental is closed and the rental job is done.
Q&A
What happens when you post a rental sales order in Business Central?
Posting the rental sales order finalises the documents and deletes the sales order, since the item has been returned and there is nothing left to rent out.
What happens if you post a rental order to a date later than the actual return date?
The system only invoices the period that remains up to the return date. If you post to November 30 but the item came back on November 16, only the 16 remaining days are invoiced, not the full span to November 30.
Can you close multiple rental orders at once?
Yes. The batch job posts all your rental orders in one go, posting the documents and deleting the finished orders automatically.
Why does the rental return date differ from the day the item was physically received?
The system adds one day to the actual receipt date to be on the safe side. If the item came back on November 15, the rental return date is set to November 16.
Where do you find the documents after closing a rental period?
The final invoice appears under posted sales invoices, and the matching shipment appears under posted sales shipments.