Used in conjunction with Locations, regions are used to group specific locations together. A company with 4 locations, 2 in Eastern Timezone and 2 Pacific Timezone, might create an Eastern and Pacific region, then slot the relevant locations under each region.
To use the regions functionality it must first be enabled. Go to the Parameters option of the setup menu. Open Operational #174 - Enable Region Support. Set this to Yes and restart RentalPoint.
Once you have restarted RentalPoint, the option for adding regions will be enabled. When RentalPoint is run again you will notice a region scope option at the bottom as well as a new option under the setup menu that allows you to configure regions.
To configure the regions, select the Regions option from the setup menu. By default the system will create a region for you, you can change the name to make it more descriptive. Once a Region has been added to the system it can be renamed but not deleted.
After entering Regions, go into Setup Locations and assign each of your locations to a Region.
Please note, once a Region has been created, you can rename it but not delete it. Bookings and other information in the system will still be linked to the region for reporting information.
Scope and Searching
The secondary scope in RentalPoint can also be sorted by regions. If you select a region from the secondary scope, any bookings that are assigned to that region, or to the locations in that region, are displayed. The secondary scope applies to other areas of RentalPoint, including the Shortages List, Products, and Purchase Orders.
When creating a booking, you can select a region from the list. Only the locations associated with that region display in the location drop down list.
Equipment Availability
Searching for equipment based on a region is quick and easy. Enabling Operational Parameter #127 – Equipment Search Location Sensitive displays an extra search tab in the equipment grid of the booking. Select the region, then continue entering your equipment as normal. Availability is based on location but the tree view and the search are based on the quantities in the region.
Technicians
When entering a technician, the region in which they work can be specified. Then when a booking is created only those technicians that work in the region specified in the booking can be selected.
Custom Printing
When printing custom templates throughout the system, you can specify region specific templates. For example, your Eastern region may have different printouts then your Western region. Using the custom printing option, you can easily organize your templates, so the Eastern region does not accidentally use a Western region template.
Reports
Several reports in the system, such as the Booking Cross Section, Invoice Register and Revenue Report can be sorted by regions, making accounting duties much more simplified.