Once a rental agreement is signed and open, vehReports walks you through the rest of the hire with a single, adaptive action that always names the next sensible step — out, then back, then closed. You never have to remember the order or hunt through menus: follow the one button on the agreement and the whole rental is documented in sequence, with each inspection tied back to the agreement. This article covers that guided flow end to end, including how to close, what happens to hires that do not run to plan, and how to skip the return inspection when it does not apply.
What the lifecycle is for
A rental has three documented moments: the vehicle goes out (the condition you handed it over in), the vehicle comes back (the condition it returned in, and any new damage, fuel shortfall or mileage over the allowance), and the hire is closed (the finished, settled record). vehReports treats these as a single guided journey so that, by the time you close, you have a complete before-and-after record sitting against the agreement — your evidence if there is ever a dispute over damage, fuel or excess mileage.
You do not have to use the guided flow for everything; the steps adapt to how the hire actually played out (see hires that do not run to plan). But for a standard out-and-back hire, following the adaptive action is the quickest, most complete way to do it.
Where this sits in the bigger picture
The lifecycle begins after the agreement is signed. If you have not got there yet, start with creating and completing a rental agreement and then signing the agreement and sending a signing link. Signing is the point where 1 credit is debited and the agreement becomes the signed copy — everything in this article happens once that is done.
Before you start: prerequisites and the three statuses
An agreement moves through three states, and the guided action behaves differently in each:
- Incomplete — still a draft. You are filling in the basics: hirer, licence, pricing and photos, and you can edit freely. The lifecycle action does not appear yet; your job here is to finish the agreement and sign it. Incomplete agreements show a warning badge in the navigation so they do not get forgotten.
- Open — signed and active. The hire is live. The agreement is now read-only (the signed copy is the permanent record and must not be silently changed after the fact), and the guided lifecycle action takes over to walk you through out, back and close.
- Closed — the hire is wrapped and settled. No further changes are expected, and no action is needed on the agreement.
So the prerequisite for this whole flow is simply: the agreement must be signed (open). If you cannot see the guided action, check the status — if it still says incomplete, you need to sign it first; if it says closed, the hire is already finished.
What it costs
Reassurance up front, because cost is a common worry: the only credit spent on the agreement itself was the 1 credit (about £1) used when the hirer signed it. After that, signing off each linked inspection report uses 1 credit per report, exactly as a standalone inspection would. Everything else here is free and unlimited — adding draft inspections, capturing photos, running driver licence checks, pulling DVLA and MOT data, and closing the agreement costs nothing. Closing is a free, administrative step. See understanding credits for the full picture of what is paid and what is free.
The adaptive action: one button, three jobs
Rather than asking you to find the right menu item at each stage, the open agreement shows one primary action that re-labels itself as the hire progresses. Press it and it does the right next thing:
- Capture outbound inspection — when no handover inspection has been completed yet.
- Add return inspection — once the handover is done and closed.
- Close agreement — once the condition record is complete.
When you have a half-finished inspection of the right type, the label changes to Continue outbound inspection or Continue return inspection and the button reopens your existing draft rather than starting a fresh one — so you can never accidentally end up with two outbound reports because you stepped away mid-walkaround. Each stage is described in detail below.
Out: the handover inspection
When the vehicle leaves you, press the action while it reads Capture outbound inspection. This creates a draft outbound inspection report already linked to the agreement, carrying the agreement's vehicle and customer, and drops you straight onto the report so you can do the walkaround.
This report is your baseline — the documented state of the vehicle as it went out. Capture it properly: damage markers on the diagram, walkaround photos at the suggested angles, tyre tread, fuel or charge level and current mileage. The full how-to lives in creating and completing an inspection report and marking damage on the diagram. When you are happy, sign the report off — that locks it as a permanent, read-only record and (because it is a report sign-off) uses 1 credit.
Once the outbound report is signed off and closed, return to the agreement. The guided action will have advanced to the next step.
Tip: if you are not producing a separate inspection report for a particular hire, the agreement itself has a handover-photos area you can use instead, and those photos print on the agreement as the condition record. That alternative — photos versus a linked inspection — is covered in creating and completing a rental agreement.
Back: the return inspection
When the vehicle comes back, press the action while it reads Add return inspection. This creates and opens a draft return (inbound) inspection, again linked to the agreement.
The return inspection is where the value lands. Because both reports sit against the same agreement, comparing the return against the handover is how you spot and evidence new damage, a fuel shortfall, or mileage over the agreed allowance. If your inspection template's verdict rules apply (for example, new damage over a set threshold, or a refuel required), the return report can carry a short verdict — pass, or concerns with a brief rationale — summarising how it came back. Verdicts are explained in inspection types explained.
As with the handover, complete the walkaround and sign the return report off to lock it (1 credit). Then go back to the agreement, where the action will now offer to close.
Closed: wrapping up the hire
When the vehicle is back and every linked inspection is done, press the action while it reads Close agreement. This is also where the hire is settled: the close step asks you to confirm the return odometer reading and the actual return time before wrapping up.
- The return reading is pre-filled from the return inspection's mileage where you captured one — leave it as is unless the reading needs correcting. If there was no return inspection, type it in.
- The return time defaults to when the return inspection was completed (or now). It's what any late-return charge is measured against.
As you fill those in, the close step shows you the settlement before you commit: the miles used against the allowance, the excess mileage charge (miles over the allowance × your per-mile rate), and any late-return charge (a per-day fee if the vehicle came back after the due-back date). Confirm, and the agreement moves to closed with those figures recorded against it. Closing itself is free — it never uses a credit.
The excess rate, the allowance and the late-return fee all come from the agreement's Mileage section (pre-filled from your rental agreement template). If you leave the per-mile rate or late fee at zero, the matching charge simply comes out as zero.
Every linked inspection must be closed first
This is the one rule worth knowing: an agreement cannot close while any inspection linked to it is still a draft or open. The close button stays disabled and shows a tooltip — "Every linked inspection report must be closed before the agreement can be closed." — until you have signed off (and thereby closed) all of them. This is deliberate: it guarantees the condition record is complete before the hire is settled, so a closed agreement is never missing its handover or return evidence.
If the close action is greyed out, the cause is almost always an inspection you started but never signed off. Open the agreement's linked inspection reports, find the draft, finish it and sign it off, then come back and close.
After closing
A closed agreement stays on file permanently as the complete record of the hire — the terms, the pricing, the condition at handover and return, the return reading with any mileage-excess and late-return charges, the licence details and the signatures. It is read-only. You can still preview and download its PDF and re-share it, but you cannot edit it. If something genuinely needs to change after closing, the right move is a new agreement rather than reopening the old one. To find a closed agreement later, see finding agreements.
Hires that don't run to plan
Not every rental ends tidily, and the flow is built for that.
"Close agreement instead": never-returned, cut-short and write-offs
Sometimes a return inspection makes no sense for this particular hire — the vehicle was never returned, the customer pulled out, the rental was cut short, or the vehicle was written off. When the agreement is sitting at the return stage but is already eligible to close (its outbound inspection is done), a secondary Close agreement instead option appears alongside the return prompt. It lets you wrap the agreement up without being forced through a return walkaround that does not apply.
You will be asked to confirm, with a reminder of when to use it: "Use this if the vehicle never returned, the rental was cut short, or your workflow does not require a return walkaround for this particular agreement." If the vehicle did come back and you have a final odometer reading, you can still enter it here to settle the mileage excess and any late-return charge — leave it blank when there's nothing to settle. The same rule still holds — any inspection you did start must be closed first.
If you do not see this option, it is because the agreement is not yet eligible to close (you have an unfinished inspection to deal with first) or because your template is set not to require a return at all, in which case the main action already reads Close agreement and the extra option is unnecessary.
Skipping the return inspection entirely
For long-term leases, one-way hires or key handovers where a return inspection never makes sense, you do not want to be nudged for one on every single agreement. Set your rental agreement template so it does not require a return inspection. With that turned off, the guided action skips the return step entirely: once the outbound inspection is closed, the next thing it offers is Close agreement. Configure this in building rental agreement templates (look for the "require a return inspection" toggle). Choosing the right template at handover is, in turn, governed by how templates match by vehicle and inspection type.
Resuming an in-progress hire
If you start a step and do not finish it — you began the handover walkaround but got interrupted, say — the agreement holds your place. The guided action re-labels itself to Continue outbound inspection or Continue return inspection and reopens the exact draft you left, rather than creating a duplicate. Pick it back up whenever you are ready. This is also why you do not need to bookmark anything mid-hire: the agreement always knows the next step.
Adding extra inspections beyond out and back
The guided flow covers the standard out-and-back, but some hires need more — a mid-term check on a long lease, or a post-wash report. From the agreement you can add another inspection report at any point while the agreement is still open. vehReports picks a sensible next type for you, working through outbound, then return, then post-wash, then mid-term, skipping any type already attached, and falling back to a general inspection once those are used. Each extra report is linked to the agreement and, like the others, must be signed off and closed before the agreement can close. Once an agreement is closed, you can no longer add inspections to it.
Common pitfalls and "what if" answers
- The guided action has disappeared. Check the status. It only shows on open agreements. If the agreement is still incomplete, finish and sign it first; if it is closed, the hire is done and no action is needed.
- "Close agreement" is greyed out. A linked inspection is still a draft or open. Finish and sign off every linked report, then close. The button's tooltip tells you this is the reason.
- I pressed the action and got a brand-new blank inspection — but I had one half done. That only happens if the existing draft is a different type from the one the flow expects next. The flow resumes a draft of the type it is currently asking for; an unrelated draft of another type is left alone. Check the agreement's linked reports for your earlier draft.
- The vehicle came back but the action still says "Capture outbound". The outbound report has not been signed off and closed yet. The flow only advances to the return step once the handover inspection is a closed record.
- I closed too early / the wrong agreement. Closing is intended to be final and a closed agreement cannot be edited. If you genuinely need to correct course, raise it through support tickets and create a fresh agreement for the corrected hire.
- Do I get charged to close? No. Closing is free. The only credits in a rental are the one spent when the hirer signed, plus one per inspection report you sign off.
- The hirer never signed. Then there is nothing to close — an unsigned agreement stays incomplete and editable. Send them the signing link or sign it in person to start the lifecycle.
Keeping an eye on the whole process
Everything in the lifecycle is recorded. The signing, each report sign-off, and the close all appear as their own rows in the team activity log, so you can see who handed the vehicle out, who took it back, and when it was settled. Owners and managers (and the team member who created the agreement) are also emailed when an agreement is signed; if you run automations, the agreement.signed, agreement.closed and agreement.return_due events are available through webhooks. You control which of these emails you receive in choosing which notifications you get.