Proration in the rental industry is the practice of calculating rental charges based on the exact amount of time the equipment or item was used, instead of charging for a full billing period.
For example, instead of requiring customers to pay for a full week when they return the equipment after 8 days, the rental system can charge the weekly rate plus a proportional share of the next period. This ensures the customer pays only for the time they used beyond the standard period.
Example:
If a weekly rate is $675 and a customer rents for 8 days, prorated pricing can charge:
1 full week + 1/7 of the weekly rate, instead of 1 week + a full extra day.
This results in more accurate and fair pricing when rentals run longer than expected.
Where to Find and Configure Pricing
Prorated behavior depends entirely on how your pricing tiers are set up. To configure pricing for a product:
Example:
Go to Inventory
Select Products
Open the specific product
Navigate to the Pricing section
Click + Add Rental Price to add a new tier
When adding a price tier, use the Unit dropdown to select:
Per Hour
Per Day
Per Week
Per Month
How you choose these Units determines whether proration applies.
Unit Usage by Pricing Pattern
Pattern A (Block-Based / Minimal Proration)
Uses: Per Hour, Per Day, and “Per Day (7 days/28 days)”
Weekly/monthly “blocks” are created by entering 7 or 28 days
Leftover time is filled with the smaller tiers, not prorated
Pattern B (True Proration)
Uses: Per Hour, Per Day, Per Week, and optionally Per Month
Weekly/monthly periods are true weekly/monthly units
Leftover time is prorated inside the weekly/monthly tier
How to Enable Prorated Pricing
To enable proration:
Go to Settings
Select General Settings
Scroll to Options
Set Prorated Pricing to Yes
Turning this on allows proration, but the actual behavior depends on how your tiers are structured.
How Prorated Pricing Behaves With Different Tier Structures
Quipli always follows this pricing logic:
Apply the largest applicable pricing tier first
For leftover time:
Use a smaller tier, or
Prorate the larger tier
Which of these happens depends entirely on how your pricing tiers are designed.
Pattern A: Block-Based Tiers Using Day Units (Minimal Proration)
In this setup, the user creates “weekly” and “monthly” pricing by selecting Unit = Per Day and entering the number of days (e.g., 7 or 28). Because these tiers are defined as fixed day blocks, Quipli does not treat them as true weekly or monthly periods.
Example tier setup using Day units:
Per Hour
Per Day
Per Day (7 days) → used as a weekly block
Per Day (28 days) → used as a monthly block
With prorated pricing On, these still act as fixed blocks. Since smaller tiers exist (like Per Day), leftover time is filled using the smaller tier — not prorated within the larger tier.
Examples:
8 days → 7-day (weekly) rate + 1-day rate
29 days → 28-day (monthly) rate + 1-day rate
This method is ideal if you want predictable block-based pricing and prefer extra time to be billed at the daily rate.
Important:
If you instead select:
Unit = Per Week for the weekly tier, or
Unit = Per Month / Per 4 Weeks for the monthly tier,
then Quipli switches to treating these as true weekly/monthly periods — which triggers Pattern B (True Proration).
Pattern B: True Proration Using Week/Month Units
This setup uses actual weekly or monthly units so Quipli can prorate inside these periods.
Example tier setup using true time units:
Per Week
Per 4 Weeks (or Per Month if your business uses a monthly rate)
Here, you are not manually entering 7 or 28 days — you are selecting true weeks/months. This enables proration.
Examples:
8 days → 1 week + 1/7 of the weekly rate
29 days → 4 weeks + 1/28 of the 4-week rate
This creates clean, expected prorated pricing around weekly or monthly boundaries.
Pick Up & Drop Off Settings Can Affect Proration
Proration is based on the actual rental duration. Your Pick Up & Drop Off settings can affect how that duration is calculated and may influence whether proration applies or whether an extra tier is triggered.
To avoid unexpected tier application:
Go to Settings → General Settings → Pick Up & Drop Off
Review:
Pickup grace period
Drop-off grace period
Business hours
Day-specific rules (if configured)
Ensure these settings align with your intended billing behavior.
If these settings push the rental into the next day, beyond store hours, or outside a grace window, extra time may be added to the rental duration — which can change whether proration is used or whether a full additional day/week is charged.
Best Practices
Prorated Pricing = Yes enables proration but does not force it
If you want predictable block pricing:
Use Per Day units (7-day / 28-day blocks)
If you want true prorated weekly/monthly pricing:
Use Per Week or Per Month units
Ensure Pick Up & Drop Off settings are not unintentionally adding rental time