Rate Cards

Rate cards are the basis for calculation of charges and costs relating to jobs and the legs (movements) associated with jobs. There are three rate card types within the system, all with their own schemas. These types and their schema names are;

Price_Cards Calculating the prices of jobs, to be charged to customers.

Cost_Cards Calculating the cost of freight movements, costs being for either sub-contractors or company vehicles.

Revenue_Cards Calculating the revenue allocation for the legs of a job.

The functionality described in this section is identical for all three rate card types.

Rate Card Set Up

When setting up a rate card the administrator must determine whether the company is to rate from zones or regions for any of the 3 types. The system is delivered with a default setting of regions for each type.

If this is to be changed to zones the Company Flags must be set to reflect this and the effected rate card schema should be altered by changing the From and To sub types to Zone.

Rate Card Header

When setting up rate cards it is important that it is understood that there are two parts to the process of applying rate cards. The first involves searching for the appropriate rate card and this involves the rate card header details. The second stage involves using the rate card detail lines to calculate any appropriate values.

The Rate Card header is shown above. The system matches data from the job with that on the rate card in order to select the appropriate card. The matching process is shown in the matrix below.

Having found a rate card the system will then check the effective data and expiry date and compare with the job booking date to ensure it is valid. If it is not it will check the next rate card with the same selection pattern until a valid date is found. If no valid date is found no rate card is found and no rate will be returned to the job.

Rate Card Detail Lines

The rate card detail lines are accessed through the Charges fields on the rate card.

The charge details are entered into the following fields;

Break The system will inspect the job for each occurrence of a break to attempt to calculate a price. For example you would have a break for different products you would cart for a client.

Item Identifies the line item within a break.

Name The description that will be written to the pricing line on the job.

Filter Field  The field which will be inspected to ascertain whether this calculation will be used.

The filter fields will be managed through the Rate_Filters schema. The user is also able to input an expression in through this field in order to build up company specific filters.

Greater Than The value of the field being filtered must be greater than this value if this calculation is to be used.

Upto The value of the field being filtered must be less than this value if this calculation is to be used.

Run Rate The action is to run another rate card identified by this field.

Option The action is to calculate a value based upon the Option defined in this field.

Calc This field specifies the calculation to be used. The standard options are;

• Value An absolute value
• Rate A value calculated from the rate and relevant statistic.
• Acc_Value Accumulates the value through the tiers of the rate.
• Acc_Rate Calculates the values and accumulates through the rate tiers

Each The calculation will be for each occurrence of the relevant statistic as defined by this field. For example you could have a rate for every 10 pallets.

Unit The statistical unit on the job that is to be used.

Rate The rate that is to be used.

Basic Name  The description of the base amount to be placed into the pricing line where a basic amount features.

Basic Amount This field is used to store a base amount which will be added to the pricing lines on the job.

Cubic Conv Used to establish whether the line is the appropriate line to use. If filtering on weight once the appropriate line is found the cubic value against the job is then divided by this field to calculate a weight equivalent. This is then checked to establish that it is not greater than the Upto value on the line. If it is not greater then the line will be used. If it is greater the system will carry on the inspection using the weight equivalent. The default from the Rate Card header will be written here but this can be over ridden.

Method This field is used to determine revenue reporting aspects for this rate. 

GL Code Not used at this stage.

Analysis This is available to be used in order to group calculations for reporting purposes.

GST_Code This code will update the relevant pricing line on the job for subsequent use during the invoice processing function. The default from the company header will be applied but can be over ridden.

Fuel Default This code is used when calculating the FAF for the rate. The default set on the company header will be applied but can be over ridden.