MBS ARC (Textbook) Manual Textbook Rentals Rentals provide flexibility in textbook pricing and textbook inventory that can increase profit while offering lower textbook prices for students. Several inventory options exist for rentals, such as serialized and non-serialized rentals, that also contain additional tracking options beyond regular new and used inventory and sales. The goal of this section is to review the types of rentals available and an overview of how rentals are used. This manual covers the following aspects of textbook rentals: Types of Rentals... 2 Serialized Rentals... 2 Non-Serialized Rentals... 3 Stockledger Tracking... 3 Textbook Term Cycle and Checklist... 8 Rental Term Cycle... 9 Basic Rental Term Checklist... 10
Types of Rentals The MBS Textbook Rental Application is designed for managing Serialized Rentals and Non-Serialized Rentals. Serialized Rentals This type of rental involves moving current New and Used Retail Inventory into a Rental Textbook class. This inventory class is separate from New or Used inventory. Instead, the Serialized Inventory class is accountable as a fixed asset. Serial numbers are printed for these titles, and the serialized barcode is stickered to the book. This allows the book to be tracked by serial number and student ID. Set up for a serialized title includes: Textbook Rental Period. Reclass Inventory to Serialized. Verify Rental Reserve and Rental Flag Options (allow rental, allow serialized on insite). MBS POS Store Options set to show valid rental term and rental due date. PLU is sent and term is active for sales. Additionally, the book can only be rented and cannot be purchased without reclassing inventory back to New/Used Retail Inventory. If New/Used Retail Inventory exists for the title, and additional rentals are needed, additional books must be reclassed to rental. MBS TEXTBOOK EXCHANGE, LLC PAGE 2 OF 13
Non-Serialized Rentals This type of rental uses current New and Used inventory. When a title is rented, the student has the option to purchase or rent. If the book is rented, it is removed from the New/Used Retail Inventory classes. If tracking rentals in the stock ledger, the book is added to the New/Used Rental Inventory classes. The rental is attached to the student ID by the book ISBN. Set up for a Non-Serialized item includes: Textbook Rental Term. Book is flagged to allow rental for store/term/pos/insite. PLU is sent and term is active for sales. No additional setup is needed. Since the title is New/Used Retail Inventory until the student chooses to rent the book, so reclassing is needed. Non-Serialized Rentals are often the preferred method of renting titles due to their flexibility and limited setup. Due to this preference, the majority of this chapter focuses on Non-Serizlied Rentals. Steps for working with Serialized Rentals are included at the end of this chapter. Stockledger Tracking Non-Serialized Rentals can be tracked in the stockledger to show inventory information, sales, and adjustments. Due to this, a Cost of Goods Sold can be determined for the rental textbooks. The processes for setup and renting a Non-Serialized Rental stay the same regardless of whether stockledger tracking is active. Differences do exist between stockledger and non-stockledger tracking when selling rental titles to a wholesaler. Steps for selling rentals to a wholesaler with and without stockledger tracking are outlined in the Rental Shipments section. Stockledger tracking is recommended given the detail and reporting this method provides. MBS TEXTBOOK EXCHANGE, LLC PAGE 3 OF 13
Contact your MBS Client Representative if you need to confirm whether or not you are tracking rentals in the stockledger, or if you need assistance activating rental tracking. The following example outlines how the stockledger tracking takes place. New Textbook Retail = $100.00 Rental Quote Price = $ 46.00 Rental Shelf Price = $ 54.00 1. A student chooses to rent the new textbook for $54 instead of purchasing it for $100. New Retail Textbook Class The book is removed as a purchase adjustment during sales posting from the New Retail Textbook Class. The full Retail, Quantity, and Cost (based on the cost complement) are subtracted out of the New Retail Textbook Class. New Rental Textbook Class MBS TEXTBOOK EXCHANGE, LLC PAGE 4 OF 13
The book is added as a purchase adjustment during sales posting to the New Rental Textbook Class. The full Retail, Quantity, and Cost (based on the New Textbook Class Cost Complement) are added to the New Rental Textbook Class. Additionally, the stockledger is updated with the Rental Sale. The Sales row shows the single rental sale of $54 and the one unit being sold. Since the total New Textbook Inventory Retail value came into the Rental Inventory class, an Ending Inventory value remains ($46) after subtracting the original New Textbook value of $100 by the Rental Sale value of $54. 2. The student decides they do not need the book, and they bring it back for a refund. The Rental Sale is reversed in the New Rental Textbook Class. A purchase adjustment removes the book from the New Rental Textbook Class and it is adjusted back into the New Textbook Class. 3. The student keeps the book throughout the term, and they bring it back at the end of the term per the rental agreement. New Rental Textbook Class The ending inventory quantity is updated by the rental return, but there is no change yet to the value. The $46 ending inventory value represents the money still outstanding for this title, and it will either be shipped to a wholesaler through a rental quote or kept in the store. 4. The book is sold to a wholesaler. MBS TEXTBOOK EXCHANGE, LLC PAGE 5 OF 13
The quantity that came in from the rental return is removed as a sale. The sale value ($46.00) is the amount that was quoted for the rental book. A sales file is generated to account for this shipment. If the shipment amount is more or less than what remained in ending inventory, the difference shows as a discount in the sales file. When the file is posted, a markup/down is created to show that difference. 5. The book is returned and kept in the store. The book is indicated as Keep at Store on the rental shipment in AR Billing and Shipments. When the shipment is posted, the Keep at Store quantities are adjusted out of the New/Used Rental Class as a Purchases other and into the Used Retail Inventory Class as a purchases other (as seen above - $46.00 and 1 quantity). The cost comes in based on the cost complement calculated from the value remaining in the rental class. MBS TEXTBOOK EXCHANGE, LLC PAGE 6 OF 13
A markup is made to show the retail is increased back to the used selling price. In this example, a markup of $29 is made to increase the value to the used selling price of $75. 6. Book is never returned by the student. If the title is never returned by the student, the book would be written-off as a non-returned rental. An Adjustment is made (in this example for $46) in the Rental Textbook Class to show the inventory will not come back. At this point, students would be charged for not bringing the book back using Secured Rentals or other methods per store policy. Secured Rental charges are reported as a sale to a non-merchandise code, and they would not affect textbook or rental inventory. MBS TEXTBOOK EXCHANGE, LLC PAGE 7 OF 13
Textbook Term Cycle and Checklist The majority of rental operations are conducted in the Textbook Rental Application Menu. Some options also can be reached from other areas of ARC, and these will be discussed throughout this manual. Furthermore, some operations related to Serialized Rentals and Secured Rentals require access to the MBS POS Server and ARC-Merchandise. These are discussed during the appropriate sections of this manual. The flow of this manual is based on a regular rental term cycle. Basic initial set ups and serialized rentals are also discussed in other sections. An example of the Rental Term Cycle and Basic Rental Term Checklist is shown on the following pages. MBS TEXTBOOK EXCHANGE, LLC PAGE 8 OF 13
Rental Term Cycle Secured Rental Charges and Writeoffs Create Rental Term Rental Quote Shipments Create Rental Quotes Rental Returns Verify Rental Flags are Active and PLU sent Maintain Rental Transactions Rent Textbooks MBS TEXTBOOK EXCHANGE, LLC PAGE 9 OF 13
Basic Rental Term Checklist This checklist provides an overview of menus and steps used throughout rentals. Each section of this checklist is explained in more detail throughout the Rental Manual. A. Rental Periods 1) Rental Period should be done prior to sending a quote but after creating a regular ARC sales term. 2) New Rental Period Enter the upcoming term, the start date for renting, the last day for renting, the return due date, and the date to remove completely. B. Rental Quotes 1) The store is notified once wholesalers start offering quoted value for books, and the rental quote should be sent at that time. 2) New Quote Create your rental quote and send it to a wholesaler (MBS). This quote will pull a list of titles from adopted textbooks with estimated sales. 3) Process Quote Response Loads the response from the wholesaler automatically into the system. Rental flags can also be flipped from the quote load. Quotes can be edited using Work with Books, and all responses can be viewed and maintained from Update Rental Info/Exclude Titles. MBS TEXTBOOK EXCHANGE, LLC PAGE 10 OF 13
C. Verify Rental Flags 1) Rental flags can verified: a. Manually: D. Rent Textbooks 1. Maintain Book Information The Update Book Information screen requires the Allow Rentals flag to be flipped to Yes. 2. Inventory The Book on Hand Inventory screen has a Tasks option for Reserve Rentals. The Allow Rentals flags for Term/POS/inSite must be flipped to Yes. b. Rental Quotes > Process Quote Response Processing a quote response allows the rental flags to be flipped for all books with quoted rebated value on the response. c. Rental Quotes > Update Rental Info/Exclude Titles Any book sent on a rental quote is displayed and flags can be modified by Select > Update Selected Items or flags can be modified for all titles with responses from Roll thru titles with responses. d. Rental Textbooks Books can be updated to go directly into Maintain Book Information for manually working with flags. 1) Both MBS POS and insite use the Rental Start Date to verify when rentals can start being sold. A PLU must be sent and the term must be set to Available for Sales Posting and Include for Price Lookup. E. Maintain Rental Transactions 1) Rental Sales are posted and assigned to a student account. a. Customers > Display Rented Books allows review and updates to rental transaction by customers. b. Rental Textbooks > Rental Transactions allows review and updates to rental tractions by textbook. 2) POS Rental Errors POS Sales Errors for rental transactions are corrected in this menu. These errors must be corrected for the transaction to post successfully. MBS TEXTBOOK EXCHANGE, LLC PAGE 11 OF 13
F. Rental Returns 1) Rentals are brought back to the store at the end of the rental term per the rental terms and agreements. Books are returned to inventory as: a. Stockledger Rental Tracking inventory returned to original rental class of the transaction (New or Used Rental Inventory Class). b. Without Stockledger Rental Tracking inventory is returned to the Used Textbook Inventory Class. 2) Rentals are returned through the following areas: G. Rental Shipments a. Register Return Book is processed as a Rental Return on the MBS POS Register. b. Rental Return at Buyback Book is displayed as a rental and brought in as a Rental Return during a buyback transaction. c. Back Office Rental Return The book is returned on the student s account from the Rental Textbooks or the Customers menus. 1) After the due date, books with quoted value are sent to the wholesaler(s) that provided a rebate price on a Rental Quote 2) Stockledger Tracking > AR Billing and Shipments Books are scanned or a batch is created to reflect rental returns being shipped to a wholesaler or kept in the store. 3) No Stockledger Tracking > Rental Quotes Books are scanned or created in a batch from Rental Quotes > Work with Return Shipments. 4) The batches are posted to remove the rentals from inventory. MBS TEXTBOOK EXCHANGE, LLC PAGE 12 OF 13
H. Secured Rental Charges and Writeoffs 1) Any rental book not returned will show as overdue on a customer s account. 2) Secured Rentals Batch Creates a charge amount and list of overdue rentals that are sent to the ARC-Merchandise and then sent to the MBS POS Register. This process also writes off the overdue rental. 3) No Secured Rentals The Secured Rentals Batch can still be created and a report will generate for outstanding rentals. The Overdue Rentals report can be ran and the rentals can be written off the customer account manually from Rental Textbooks. MBS TEXTBOOK EXCHANGE, LLC PAGE 13 OF 13