Processing Rental Fees, Deposits, and Refunds

You run the container billing batch programs to create sales order lines for rental fees or deposits on containers that the company has delivered to customers and to create credits for refunds on containers that the customers have returned.

The container billing programs create sales order lines based on the scheduled invoice date that is calculated by the Container Management Extraction program. If the scheduled invoice date is on or before today's date, the container billing programs create sales order lines. You then process these sales order lines through the normal flow of invoicing and customer sales update.

Depending on how you set up the customer's preferences, the programs perform either transaction billing or summary billing.

With the transaction method, the programs create a rental fee, deposit, or refund detail line on the sales order for each container transaction that is recorded for the customer. If the customer has received containers in addition to those covered by the present deposit or rental fee, the system generates a new sales order detail line for the additional deposit or rental fee required. If the customer has returned containers, the system generates a credit order.

With the summary method, the programs summarize all transactions for a single combination of branch/plant, customer, and item that occurred over a specified period. The programs create a single sales order detail line to record this summary. During invoicing, the system issues an invoice or credit memo based on this summary of transactions.

When the transaction or summary quantity is greater than zero, the system records it as a deposit charge. Each time that you invoice the customer for a new deposit charge, the system creates a new deposit layer record in the F4118 table.

When the transaction or summary quantity is less than zero, the system records it as a deposit refund. Each time you issue a credit order for a refund, the system depletes the deposit layers based on the FIFO accounting method. The system depletes the oldest deposit layer first. The unit price of the refund equals the deposit rate from the layer that is currently being depleted.

For example, if the deposit rate for the first deposit layer is 20.00 USD, the deposit rate for the second deposit layer is 30.00 USD, and you have not fully depleted the first deposit layer, the refund rate on returned containers is 20.00 USD. When you deplete the first deposit layer, the refund rate is 30.00 USD. If an insufficient quantity is in the deposit layers to satisfy the entire refund quantity, the system prices the remaining refund quantity using the standard pricing methods.