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, you approve them in the office, and you adopt them onto the invoice in one click.

There are four stations along the way: mark the product → delivery note as usual → count on site → approve and bill.

Set a product to be billed by consumption

1. In your Inventory, open the article you want to bill by consumption.
2. In the Price & Stock area, switch on Bill by consumption.
3. Save the article.

From then on, every delivery note line for this article counts as a consumption item and shows up for recording. 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.

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.

If you only need the exception on a single document, handle it in the delivery note draft in the By consumption area: the Assign a line item here dropdown pulls another line in, and Not by consumption takes one back out. Once the delivery note is finalised or signed, the assignment can no longer be changed.

Create the delivery note

Nothing changes for you here: you create it exactly as before. In the document editor, consumption items are grouped into their own By consumption area. It carries the note Built automatically. — 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.

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.

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 — approved ones also carry Approved. 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.
• The portal never shows prices. Recording shows quantities and units, no amounts.

If the event has no consumption items at all, the area says so explicitly and points to the setting in your inventory.

Approve the consumption

Recorded quantities do not travel to an invoice on their own — they need your approval first.

1. Open the event and go to the Bookings area.
2. The Consumption card lists every open recording: the product, taken along …, consumed …, difference … and recorded by …. Anything unusual sits at the top, not the most recent.
3. Tick the lines — Select all takes them all at once — and click Approve {count}.

The Billable checkbox is ticked by default. Untick it when something was used but should not be charged — goodwill, breakage, own consumption. The recording is kept and stays traceable, it simply no longer appears in billing and is marked not billable afterwards.

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.

Corrections: once approved, the quantity is locked. To change it, click Withdraw approval — Univents asks first and names the consequence: the record becomes editable again and is no longer billable. If the consumption is already on an invoice this is refused, and Univents tells you to delete the line item or cancel the document first. Adopted records carry the marker adopted into an invoice.

Approving requires the Edit finances permission. Everyone else sees the card with a note that they are missing it — reading yes, approving no.

Approving works in three places: on the event's card (as described above), in bulk on the Staff page — the Approve consumption card appears there with the open records across all events whenever something is waiting — and on the go in the mobile admin area under More → Consumption, per event individually or via Approve all.

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 approved, billable counts, the unit as on the delivery note, the price as on the delivery note line. It then reports “{count} line items adopted”.

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

Worth knowing:

• Nothing is billed twice. A product billed by consumption cannot additionally be pulled onto the same invoice via the planned bookings.
• Line item adoption skips consumption automatically. Under “From other documents”, an invoice does not offer consumption items in the first place — they arrive through the recorded actual quantities. Adopt everything takes the remaining lines and tells you how many consumption items come in through actual recording (“2 line items billed by consumption come in through the recorded actual quantities and are not offered here”). On quotes and delivery notes, everything remains adoptable as before.
• Latecomers are no problem. If another recording is approved after you adopted, simply adopt again. A separate 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. If a consumption item has no recording at all, it appears with the note “Consumption missing — adopt the planned quantity?” and the Adopt planned quantity button. No billable line quietly disappears from an invoice.

Evaluate consumption (report)

Under Reports → Consumption you evaluate the approved recordings: per product the consumed against the taken quantity including the difference, expandable per event. At the top sit the tiles Total consumed, Of which not charged and Largest difference. The period filters by the date of recording; not charged covers whatever was marked not billable during approval.

What happens to your stock

Consumption affects two things: billing (above) and — once the event is completed — your stock level:

• Before completion, recording is stock-neutral: counting and approving change nothing about your stock.
• On completion, Univents books stock by the planned quantity, exactly as before.
• After completion, every approved recording automatically corrects the stock to the quantity actually consumed by way of a correction entry — even if the approval happens days later. Withdraw an approval and the correction is reversed as well.
• If there is not enough stock for the deduction, approving reports: “There is not enough stock for this deduction — correct the stock in your inventory first, then approve. Nothing was approved.” Everything stays as it was — correct the stock in your inventory and approve again. The same applies in reverse when withdrawing an approval.

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.” Approving and billing also require the Edit finances permission.