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Item Availability Delay
When rental items require cleaning/service upon return, the Availability Delay can be used to add the necessary cleaning/service time to the return date to prevent back-to-back bookings that do not allow enough time for cleaning/service. This is typically used for items that require simple cleanings, such as linens, dishes, paint sprayers, or hydroseeders.
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How to get there
Program Menu>File Maintenance>Item File>Options Tab
How does it work?
The Availability Delay can be used to add time to an item's return date to allow for cleaning and services, preventing back-to-back bookings. Availability Delay only applies to non-returned (open) items on a reservation and open contracts. Once an item has been returned, the Availability Delay is no longer in force.
Follow the steps below to create an Availability Delay.
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Open an item record.
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Click Modify on the top left
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Select the Options tab
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Enter the “availability delay” in hours
If an item needs to be put out of service when it's returned, in addition to the Availability Delay, you can create a maintenance frequency to take the item out of service, making it un-rentable for a specified period (refer to maintenance frequencies). For more information, see our article Item Maintenance Schedules.
Availability Delay Contracts
It may work better to create a contract for specific processes based on the Availability Delay duration when the item comes off rent. This will keep the item out of availability until the delayed contract line item closes.
To enable this, turn on "Create Availability Delay Contracts" in Security under Configurations.
When enabled, an Availability Delay contract will be created for any item with an availability delay set when the line item closes on the contract. These are issued as IRO reservation contracts to a customer named 'Repairs-Delay.' The customer is automatically created when the configuration is enabled to enable contracts. These contracts are filtered out of the IRO tab to avoid unnecessary clutter.
A job will run in the background to close the availability delay contract line items whose delays expire. The contracts themselves cannot be modified.
In Elite versions 2026.02 and above, if an availability delay contract was created in error, or the item becomes available before the preset time, the contract can be voided from the Tools menu within the contract. This will put the item back into availability, and the contract will then be caught in the cleanup at the end of the day.