Record consumption and bill the actual quantity

Drinks, snacks and similar goods travel with you on spec — ten crates of water so you are certainly covered. What gets billed, though, is what was actually used. Until now that meant a paper slip during teardown and retyping it the next morning. In Univents your crew counts the actual quantities right inside the delivery, and you adopt them onto the invoice in one click.

There are four stations along the way: mark the position as an additional article → delivery note as usual → count on site → adopt onto the invoice. There is no approval step any more — the adoption into the invoice is the billing.

What “by consumption” means

Only additional articles are billed by consumption. These are the positions you provide free of charge: the crates of water for the crew, the coffee for the team. Sold services — everything that is meant to appear on the invoice — are always billed in full. A sale therefore cannot even be put on “by consumption”; it would drop out of billing.

A line becomes an additional article in two ways:

1. On the product as a default. Open the article in your Inventory and switch on Bill by consumption in the Price & Stock area. Every future delivery note line for this article then starts as an additional article. This also applies to delivery notes that already exist as a draft — so give your open drafts a quick look when you convert a heavily used article.
2. On the individual line. In the document editor of a delivery note you toggle the line via Additionally provided articles (Delivered but not charged). That gives you the single case without converting the product.

The setting exists for articles. Bundles, rental and service products are deliberately excluded: for a bundle it would be unclear what “consumed” even means, and rental goods come back by definition. A sold bundle article is therefore always billed in full.

Create the delivery note

Nothing changes for you here: you create it exactly as before. In the document editor, the additional articles are grouped into their own By consumption area. Below the heading it reads Additionally provided items only — sold line items are always billed in full. The area is rebuilt every time you open the document, which is why it cannot be renamed, reordered or deleted.

Every line shows taken along: … and, once counted, consumed: … — plus, if more was consumed than taken along, of which … beyond what was taken along — along with the time of the most recent recording as As of …. If nothing has been counted yet, the line shows the quantity taken along together with Actual quantity not recorded yet — never an empty line.

As long as the delivery note is a draft, you add another article to the area via Select an additional item and take one out again via Not by consumption. Once the delivery note is finalised or signed, the assignment can no longer be changed.

Whether the area also appears in the PDF depends on the document layout you use: current layouts print it including the “As of” time, older ones output the delivery note unchanged, as before. In the editor you always see the area. If you need it on the printed delivery note and it is missing there, get in touch via the help button in the app and we'll switch your layout over. Where it does print, two printouts made at different times may differ — and the “As of” line shows you when each was made.

Count on site (Employee Portal)

Counting happens in the same place as signing — inside the delivery note itself.

For the delivery to show up in the portal: the person who should count must be entered in the Delivery driver field of the delivery note — the delivery only appears under Deliveries for them. In the portal the driver can also sign a draft; in the back office the button to sign only appears after finalising. Today's and future tours are under Upcoming. Once the delivery day has passed and the delivery is not signed yet, it is under Not signed yet — that is where consumption gets counted after the event. Only signed deliveries appear under Done.

1. Your crew opens the Deliveries area in the Employee Portal and taps the delivery. This works with a portal account just as it does via the link without a login.
2. Below the line items sits the Record consumption area: per line the product name, a large quantity field labelled consumed (unit), and underneath it taken along: … for reference.
3. Enter the quantity and tap Send consumption at the bottom. The bar above keeps count of what is going out (“3 items · Σ …”).

A few things that make the evening easier:

• Two buttons for the common case. all consumed and all returned fill a line with a single tap — that covers most items.
• Count back instead of doing maths. If it is easier to count what is left, tap count back on the line. The field label visibly changes to returned (unit), the line shows the basis (“10 taken along · 3 already recorded · 7 left”) and the live result (“→ 2 consumed”). What gets saved is always the consumption. For items with no quantity taken along the toggle is disabled, with the note Not possible without a quantity taken along.
• Decimal quantities are fine. Enter 2.5 crates or 0.75 kilos directly — with a comma or a full stop.
• Count in packs or in single units. If the article has a packaging unit, switch the input unit right on the line — the conversion sits next to it (“1 crate = 6 bottles”). What is saved is always the unit of the delivery note line; while counting back, the line shows the approximate remainder in the chosen unit.
• More than was taken along is not an error. If something was restocked, enter the higher quantity. Univents saves it and only shows More than taken along — please check; nothing is blocked.
• No connection does not mean lost data. If the connection drops, entries stay put marked Not sent. Once there is signal again they go out automatically — the top briefly shows “Back online — sending again …”; Send again still works by hand as well. A delivery that has been opened on this device before even opens with no connection at all — the top then shows Offline with the timestamp of the data on display. Only a delivery that has never been opened needs a connection once.
• It is always all or nothing. If sending fails, Univents says “Sending failed — nothing was saved. Please send again.” There is never a half-saved state for someone to go looking for.
• Saved means visibly saved. After sending, the lines move under Already recorded and stay there permanently as Recorded · time — billed ones additionally carry Billed. They are locked and kept separate from the open inputs, so nothing gets counted twice. Several people may count the same item; the quantities add up. Once everything is counted it reads All consumption items have been recorded.
• Billed means final. Once a recording sits on an invoice it can no longer be changed. Anyone who tries anyway is told to check with the office. As long as nothing has been billed, every recording stays editable and deletable.
• The portal never shows prices. Recording shows quantities and units, no amounts.

If the delivery note has no additionally provided articles, the area says so explicitly.

No approval step any more

Recorded quantities no longer need to be approved. The adoption into the invoice is the billing. As long as nothing has been billed, every recording stays editable and deletable — even days later. Correcting something therefore just means counting again and sending, as long as the position is not on an invoice.

If more was consumed than taken along, the line carries the warning “{quantity} over the quantity taken”. That is a warning for you, not a block.

As soon as a recording sits on an invoice it is locked (marker Billed). If the position goes away again — you delete it or cancel the document — the recording is automatically free again and is taken into account on the next adoption.

Adopt it onto the invoice

1. Open the event's invoice draft.
2. If consumption is waiting, the Adopt consumption card sits at the top with the number of line items ready — one click on Adopt is enough. Alternatively, open the familiar dialog for additional line items and use the Consumption section there with Adopt {count} line items. Both routes do the same thing.
3. Univents creates one line per product: quantity = the sum of all recorded counts, the unit as on the delivery note, the price as on the delivery note line. It then reports “{count} line items adopted”.

Adopting requires the Edit finances permission.

Header discount, tax rates and totals then calculate exactly like on any other line.

Worth knowing:

• Nothing is billed twice. A position billed by consumption cannot additionally be pulled onto the same invoice via the planned bookings.
• Line item adoption skips additional articles automatically. Under “From other documents”, an invoice does not offer additional articles in the first place — they arrive through the recorded actual quantities, and items provided free of charge should stay free of charge. Adopt everything takes the remaining lines and tells you how many positions were not offered (“2 line items are not offered here — consumption comes in through the recorded actual quantities, items provided free of charge stay free of charge”). On quotes and delivery notes, everything remains adoptable as before.
• An additional article also stays free of charge via the quote. If you adopt a position from the Additionally provided articles section into a quote or an order confirmation, it appears there at €0 with the note “Billed according to consumption” — item and quantity stay visible. If you later create the invoice from it, it does not show up there as a billed position: on every adoption Univents checks the origin of the position all the way to its root. The same applies to automatically created documents — Document from bookings, the automatic invoice when you accept an inquiry and the automatic delivery note leave such positions out. Once the delivery note is deleted, the item is fully billable again. If you enter a price or discount on the €0 line in the quote, Univents rejects it: “This item is billed according to consumption; the price is maintained on the delivery note”. Setting the line to €0 or to 100 % discount is allowed: it stays free of charge — every other value is still rejected. Recalculate prices no longer resets the line to the catalogue price. When you accept the quote or complete the event and an additionally provided item was not carried over into the invoice, the note “additionally provided items were not carried over into the invoice — they are billed according to consumption” appears.
• Latecomers are no problem. If something is counted after the adoption, simply adopt again. An extra line is created for the new quantities only; existing lines stay unchanged.
• Deleting releases. If you delete the line again or cancel the document, the recordings become adoptable again automatically. There is nothing to reset.
• Forgotten counts are visible — but nothing is estimated. If there is an additional article nobody recorded anything for, it appears with the note “Consumption not recorded yet” and its planned quantity. There is deliberately no button to adopt it: an uncounted position gets counted, not guessed. Enter the actual quantity and adopt it then.

Evaluate consumption (report)

Under Reports → Consumption you evaluate the recordings: per product the consumed against the taken quantity including the difference, expandable per event. At the top sit the tiles Total consumed and Largest difference. The period filters by the date of recording. Every recording that still exists is counted — anything deleted drops out.

What happens to your stock

Consumption affects two things: billing (above) and your stock level:

• Before completion, recording is stock-neutral: counting changes nothing about your stock.
• On completion, Univents books stock by the planned quantity, exactly as before. Additionally provided articles have no planned booking — nothing leaves your stock here.
• After completion, Univents corrects the stock automatically: the planned quantity from completion plus every recorded count. For additionally provided articles that means they leave your stock only to the extent of the recorded consumption — if nothing was recorded, the full quantity comes back. This happens continuously; every new or corrected recording recalculates the stock, even days later.
• If there is not enough stock for the deduction, the recording is still saved — the quantity is not lost. The stock reconciliation is simply skipped; owners and admins receive a notification about it. Correct the stock in your inventory: the next reconciliation (the next recording or completion) picks up the consumption automatically.

What consumption does not do

Material and planning views still work with the planned quantities — the actual-quantity correction affects billing and stock.

When you duplicate an event, consumption recordings are deliberately not copied — they belong to the original event. The copy therefore shows the note that nothing has been counted yet.

Requirement: consumption tracking is available from the Core plan. Without a matching plan you see a note instead of the feature in the back office, and on the delivery the portal tells your crew “Consumption tracking is not included in your plan — please check with the office.” Adopting onto the invoice also requires the Edit finances permission.