Certificates

Certificates track the compliance documents a rental unit must hold, such as LOLER or PAT. Issue them by hand or automatically from completed maintenance, attach the scanned certificate, see when one is due to expire, and optionally stop a unit going out on hire once its certificate has lapsed.

What certificates are

A certificate is a per-unit compliance record: a thorough examination, a safety test, or any other document that a unit must hold to be fit for hire. Each certificate belongs to one rental unit and carries a type, an issue date, an expiry date, and a status. You can attach the scanned certificate document to the record using the Attachments factbox, keeping the paperwork alongside the data.

Certificates sit on the unit, not on the rental order. A unit either has a valid certificate or it does not; that status follows it regardless of what it is booked against.

Certificate types

Before issuing certificates you need at least one certificate type in the catalogue. Open Certificate Types from the Essential Rental menu and create one record per kind of certificate you track.

Certificate Type fields
Code / Description
The identifier and readable name, for example LOLER / Thorough Examination or PAT / Portable Appliance Test.
Source
Whether certificates of this type are normally issued by hand (Manual) or automatically by a passing maintenance order (Task-Driven). This is informational; the actual auto-issue is driven by the maintenance rule, not this field alone.
Default Validity
How long a new certificate of this type lasts, for example 1Y for one year or 6M for six months. Added to the issue date to calculate the expiry date when a certificate is created.
Gates Shipment
When ticked, an expired certificate of this type can block shipment of the unit (subject to the setup toggle described below).

Setup

Certificate behaviour is controlled from the Essential Rental Setup page.

Essential Rental Setup - Certificates
Certificate Series
The number series used to generate certificate numbers when a new certificate is issued.
Certificate Expiry Notice (Days)
How many days ahead of expiry a certificate is flagged as Expiring Soon. Certificates within this window surface on the role centre cue and trigger a notification when the unit is opened.
Block Shipment on Expired Certificate
When on, a unit with a lapsed gating certificate cannot be shipped; the shipment is blocked until a fresh certificate is issued. When off, shipping still proceeds but a warning is raised so the operator can decide.

Issuing a certificate by hand

Open the rental item card for the unit and choose Issue Certificate from the Maintenance ribbon group. Pick the certificate type and the issue date. Optionally enter the issuing body's own reference number. The expiry date is calculated automatically from the type's default validity.

Once the certificate record is created, attach the scanned document using the Attachments factbox on the certificate card. That keeps the physical evidence alongside the compliance record and makes it easy to produce on request.

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If the unit already holds an active certificate of the same type, issuing a new one automatically marks the previous one as Superseded. You do not need to revoke the old certificate first.

Issuing automatically from maintenance

A maintenance rule can name a Produces Certificate Type. When a maintenance order built from that rule is completed and posted, and its task group is fully signed off, the system creates a certificate of that type automatically. The certificate is dated the posting date and carries a link back to the posted maintenance order, giving you a clear audit trail from the certificate to the work that generated it.

This is how a LOLER thorough examination or a service certificate is raised as a by-product of doing the work: you post the maintenance order and the certificate appears on the unit without any separate manual step.

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The validity period for an auto-issued certificate can be set on the maintenance rule (Certificate Validity). If that field is left blank the system falls back to the certificate type's Default Validity.

Supersession

A unit holds at most one active certificate per type at any time. When you issue a new certificate of a type the unit already holds, the previous certificate is automatically marked Superseded and records which certificate replaced it. The latest certificate becomes the live record; only that one counts for compliance and shipment gating.

Superseded certificates are kept for history. They appear on the unit's certificate history but never count against the unit's compliance status.

Status and expiry

A certificate's status is derived from its dates and any manual action each time it is read, so it is always current without any batch update or overnight job. The possible statuses are:

Certificate Status
Valid
In date and not within the expiry notice window. The certificate is live and counts for compliance.
Expiring Soon
Within the expiry notice window set in Essential Rental Setup. Still valid, but renewal is due. The unit and role centre surface this as a warning.
Expired
Past its expiry date. If the certificate type gates shipment and the setup toggle is on, the unit cannot be shipped until a new certificate is issued.
Superseded
Replaced by a newer certificate of the same type. Kept for history; does not count against the unit's compliance status.
Revoked
Withdrawn by hand before its expiry date. Does not count as valid, does not block shipment, and does not surface on compliance views.

Revoking and reinstating

Use Revoke on the certificate card to withdraw a certificate before its natural expiry, for example if the unit failed a later inspection and the certificate is no longer considered valid. A revoked certificate no longer counts as live, drops off the unit's compliance view, and does not trigger the shipment gate.

Reinstate returns a revoked certificate to active status, provided the unit has no other active certificate of the same type at that point. If another active certificate of the same type already exists, you must revoke or supersede that one first.

The shipment gate

With Block Shipment on Expired Certificate turned on in setup, attempting to ship a unit that holds an expired gating certificate is blocked. The error names the certificate type and its expiry date so the operator knows exactly what needs renewing. Issue a fresh certificate of that type to clear the block.

With the toggle off, the shipment proceeds but a warning is raised so the operator can note the lapsed certificate and decide whether to continue.

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A unit that has never held a certificate of a gating type ships freely. The gate only fires on a certificate the unit actually holds and that has lapsed. Absence of a certificate is not treated as a lapsed one.

Seeing what needs attention

On the unit

A Certificates factbox on the rental item card lists the unit's live certificates with their current status, so you can see at a glance whether the unit is compliant without leaving the card. A notification also appears when you open a unit that has a certificate expired or expiring soon, prompting action before the unit goes out.

The Certificates and Issue Certificate actions sit in the Maintenance ribbon group on the rental item card.

Across the fleet

The role centre carries two cue tiles for certificate attention: Certificates Expiring and Certificates Expired. Each tile drills into the Certificates list filtered by that status, giving a quick fleet-wide picture of what needs renewing and what has already lapsed.