The Incidents resource is the record of every piece of new damage, theft or other loss raised against a booking — one row per incident, from the moment it's found through to being priced, charged, written off or closed.
Before you start
Nothing to set up. Incidents start opening themselves the moment there's damage to record.
Where incidents come from
You never create an incident by hand — there is no Add button. Every row is opened automatically by one of three things:
- A return inspection finds new damage on the Take a vehicle back at return step.
- A customer declares damage themselves, on their own portal.
- A damage charge is linked to the booking's payments.
If none of those has happened, there is nothing to see here yet — that's expected, not a sign something is broken.
What's on a row
- Type and vehicle area. Collision, single-vehicle, tyre, windscreen, underbody, interior, theft, vandalism, key loss, misuse, or other — and, where it applies, which part of the vehicle. Theft and key loss have no single area, so that field is left blank for them.
- Discovered via, and when. Return inspection, customer declaration, during the hire, a partner inspection, a third party, or a return taken without a drop-off — whichever actually raised it, stamped with the time.
- Cost. An estimate while it still needs pricing, the actual repair cost once it's known, an admin fee, what the renter is liable for after their excess, and what the business is absorbing. Leave the estimate blank while it's waiting on an assessor — that's a real, trackable state (reflected in the loss ratio report as an unassessed reserve), not a gap to fill in with a guess.
- Cover at the time. Whichever protection plan was on the booking when the incident happened, and its excess, so the numbers here always match what the customer actually had at the time — not whatever plan the booking carries now.
- Status. See below. It's shown, never edited directly on the form.
The status column, and the three things you can do
Status only ever moves through an action button, never a free dropdown, because each move writes a timeline event against the booking — the same reasoning the maintenance jobs list already follows for its own status.
- Mark assessed — the figure is in; nothing further is owed to price it.
- Write off — absorb the cost rather than charge it. Asks for a short reason, which goes on the record.
- Close — the incident is done: paid, written off, or otherwise settled.
A row shows Open, Charged or Written off for the whole of Phase 1 of this feature — Assessed, Disputed, Paid and Recovered exist on the same lifecycle for a later phase, so you may see one of those appear without a corresponding action here yet.
Closing downtime is separate from closing the incident. If the incident opened a block on the vehicle's availability, Close downtime ends that block — the vehicle can go back on the road before the claim itself is assessed, charged or closed.
Recording money recovered
If a third party or an insurer pays towards the cost, log it on the incident's Recoveries tab: the source, the amount, when it arrived, and an optional reference. Recovered money is tracked next to what the incident cost — it is never netted off the incurred figure, so you can always see both sides.
Evidence photos
The Photos tab on an incident is read-only here — it's the evidence trail, not something to add to from the admin. Some rows are pointer-copies of a photo already taken at pickup or return, for before/after context; others were captured against the incident itself, on the operator app or from a customer declaration.
Who can see and act on this
Owner, Admin and Staff. A contractor has no access to the claims ledger at all. Marking an incident assessed, writing it off or closing it needs the same capability as handling a booking's handover, checked against that specific booking — not a flat role check — so a partner inspector who can only touch their own inspections never sees these buttons on someone else's booking.
Things worth knowing
- There is no create button, and that's deliberate. An incident is a record of something that already happened in the ledger, not a form you fill in speculatively.
- The excess and plan shown are frozen at the time of the incident. Changing a booking's protection plan afterwards does not rewrite history on an incident already raised against it.
- Leaving the cost estimate blank is a real answer. It's what tells the owners-only loss ratio report to treat the row as still reserved rather than settled at zero.
If it did not work
- I can't find the incident I'm looking for. It's filed against the booking it came from — open the booking's own Incidents tab, or search the Incidents list by registration or booking reference.
- The action buttons are missing on a row I should be able to work. You need the capability on that booking's handover, not just general access to the Incidents list — check you're a member of the right workspace, and that your role is Owner, Admin or Staff.