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Maliru Help Center

Recurring costs and tank size

Hire, insurance and tax posted automatically each period, and the tank size that sharpens fuel checks.

Some costs are a standing amount rather than an event: monthly hire, insurance, road tax, a maintenance contract. A schedule posts them into the vehicle's running costs period by period, so monthly totals and cost per mile stay honest without anyone typing the same figure twelve times.

Adding a recurring cost

Add recurring cost: category, period, net amount per period, VAT, description and dates

Open the vehicle, go to its Overview tab and find Running costs. Under Recurring schedules, choose Add schedule. Add recurring cost asks for:

  • Category: every category except Fuel. Fuel is an event, never a standing amount.
  • Every: Month, Quarter or Year.
  • Net amount per period and VAT.
  • Description: "e.g. Van hire — Northgate, Fleet insurance".
  • From, and either No end date or Until.

The note at the bottom is the important part: "A backdated start bills the missed periods on the next scheduled run." Start a hire schedule from the day the van arrived, not today, and the earlier months fill in by themselves.

Adding a schedule isn't included on the Free plan; the button shows a lock there. Schedules you already have keep posting on any plan, and can still be deleted.

How the entries appear

Maliru's background run goes every few minutes. Each schedule that's due gets one confirmed entry per period, dated on the period boundary; a schedule starting on the 31st posts on the last day of shorter months. The audit trail records it as posted by Escalation engine.

  • A backdated start catches up at most 24 periods in one go.
  • A schedule stops posting when its end date passes, or when the vehicle's status is in the Retired phase.
  • The schedule reads like "Insurance · Fleet policy · £68.00/month · next 1 Oct 2026", with Delete schedule (the ×) beside it. Deleting stops future periods and leaves the entries already posted.

Hired vehicles

A vehicle whose Ownership is Hired, with no schedule in the Hire category, shows a notice in its running costs: Hire cost schedule missing — "Monthly costs may be understated." — with its own Add schedule button. The Costs tab lists the fleet-wide count. It's the most common reason a fleet's monthly figure looks too good.

Tank size

Edit vehicle, with Tank capacity (L) in the Specifications section

Tank capacity (L) is in the Specifications section of the vehicle dialog: "Used to check fuel fill quantities." With it set, a fuel fill is flagged Fill exceeds a plausible tank size when the litres pass the tank size plus 10%, which leaves room for brimming and a jerry can. Without it, the ceiling is 150 litres.

The tank size drives the flag the office sees in Review. The warning a driver sees on the phone while typing a fill stays at 150 litres.

Alerting on costs

These triggers in Alert rules cover running costs:

  • A vehicle running cost is recorded: conditions on Net amount, Gross amount, Category, Status, Source, Registration, Plausibility flag and Vehicle net spend this month. A rule on the monthly spend fires once per vehicle per month, not once per entry. Vehicle net spend this month is greater than 1500, sent to your fleet managers, is the classic.
  • A vehicle running cost is reviewed: when a fill is confirmed or rejected.
  • An invoice or import is allocated to vehicles: fired by fuel-card statement imports.
  • An odometer reading is recorded.

Costs that come from bills don't fire these triggers. Bills have their own. Recipients can include Fleet managers (everyone with Manage vehicles), smart groups, specific people or outside addresses. See Admin alert rules.

Tip: one insurance schedule per vehicle beats one workspace-wide figure. Cost per mile is worked out per vehicle, and a premium spread across the fleet is what makes the tipper look cheaper than it is.