Including Initial Fee in Pricing Calculation

In this installment, we’ll unveil how to seamlessly incorporate a vehicle’s Initial Fee into your pricing calculation. Let’s assume that your rate per kilometer is e.g. $2, but you would like to add a starting (or initial) fee to each order, e.g. $50.

We need only 1 rule to achieve the intended result.

I will apply the rule to the BMW vehicle, as shown in the screenshots below.

Adding ‘Rule #1’

Step 1. Go to the ‘Pricing Rules’ menu and add a new pricing rule (Add New), I call it ‘Rule #1’.

Step 2. Go to the ‘Conditions’ -> ‘Vehicles’ tab and select the vehicle from the list (in my case “BMW 5 Series Long”).

See screenshot

Step 3. Go to the ‘Prices’ tab and set the ‘Price Source Type’ option to ‘Set directly in the “Prices” tab’. Scroll down to ‘Prices’ table. Find ‘Initial’ row and set value ’50’. In addition set all other price types to ‘- Inherited -‘, so that this rule has no impact (does not reset) the prices in your configuration. See the screenshot below:

See screenshot

Step 4. Go to the ‘Options’ tab and set the ‘Next Rule Processing’ option to ‘Enable’. In addition set ‘Post order’ to for example ’99’. These two settings mean that, firstly, this pricing rule will have the highest priority, so it will always be executed first if you have more rules in your system. Moreover, enabling the processing of subsequent rules will allow you to execute subsequent rules with a lower priority if you have them in your configuration. See the screenshot below:

See screenshot

Step 5. Save the rule by clicking ‘Publish’. The rule should look like this:

See screenshot

Final Result

Hide Fees Option Set to ‘Show in Booking Summary and Exclude From Vehicle Price’

Here’s the pricing effect for renting BMW 5 Series Long vehicle with initial fee:

See screenshot

As you can see, by default the initial fee is displayed only after selecting a vehicle as a price component in the left sidebar. It is not visible directly next to the vehicle in the vehicle list (where only the calculated distance price is displayed). You can change this behavior and display the total value (distance price and initial fee) directly next to the vehicle in the vehicle list. To do this, go to the booking form settings by going to the ‘Booking Forms’ menu, on the ‘General’ -> ‘Prices’ tab, find the ‘Hide Fees’ option and set it to ‘Hide in booking summary and include in vehicle price’.

See screenshot

Hide Fees Option Set to ‘Hide in Booking Summary and Include in Vehicle Price’

Here’s the pricing effect for renting BMW 5 Series Long vehicle with initial fee and ‘Hide Fees’ option set to ‘Hide in booking summary and include in vehicle price’:

See screenshot

We trust this guide has empowered you to enhance your pricing strategy. Thank you for reading!