What is a balance?
When you add your vehicle to the Karshare platform, we don't charge any upfront installation fees and we allow you - the vehicle owner - to gradually repay the initial installation fee.
We needed a tool to help you track these repayments, which is what the balance is. This clearly shows you any amount that you owe us and how it's been repaid over time.
What is a negative balance?
Simply put, a negative balance is the amount you owe us.
Let's say you put your vehicle on our platform and the initial installation cost is £195.00. This amount will appear on your app as Total balance: -£195.00.
What is a balance repayment?
A balance repayment is an amount that goes towards paying off your outstanding negative balance. Any time you have a rental on your vehicle, we deduct 20% of the car rental price from your earnings and allocate it towards repaying your balance. This will show as a 'balance repayment'.
Let's say your balance is -£195.00 and you have a rental on your vehicle, where the rental price is £100.00. We will deduct 20% of the rental price (£20.00) from your earnings and allocate that to your balance as a balance repayment. Your balance will then go down to -£175.00 and you will receive the remainder of your earnings into your bank account. Whilst you are paying of the negative balance your commission changes from 70% to 50%.
And all of this is now neatly presented in your app for each rental.
Individual rental view:

What is a balance addition?
A balance addition is the opposite of a balance repayment - it is when amounts are being added to your balance and the overall outstanding amount is increased. The possible reasons for a balance addition are:
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Installation cost - the cost for installing the KarshareGo box in your vehicle
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Replacement keys - in case we need to order spare keys for your vehicle
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Cancellation cost - in the event you cancel a rental booking too close to the rental start time (check our Cancellation policy)
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Additional fuel in a short rental - in case your earnings from the rental are less than the amount we will deduct for any additional fuel the renter left in your vehicle (please note that this is a very rare case, but we still want to let you know it's a possibility)
Let's say your balance is -£120.00 and you have cancelled a rental on your vehicle 36 hours before the rental starts. According to our Cancellation Policy we will "charge" you £25.00 for the cancellation, which means we will add the £25.00 cancellation fee to your balance and it will then be -£145.00.
What is a zero balance?
Your balance will show as £0.00 when you've repaid the whole outstanding amount on your balance. When your balance is £0.00, we won't deduct anything from you and you'll receive the full earnings amount into your bank account. 🎉
This is how it will look in the Karshare app:

How do referrals and balance work?
Every time you refer another vehicle owner to our platform, you receive £100.00 from us when their vehicle's ready for sharing (check our referral page for details). If your balance is negative, the referral amount will count as a balance repayment. If your balance is at zero, we'll pay the referral amount directly to your bank account.
How does balance work for multiple vehicles?
Regardless of the amount of vehicles you have on the Karshare platform - you have only one balance associated with your account. As a rule, if you have a negative balance, a balance repayment will be deducted from your rental earnings. Overall it doesn't matter where the negative balance is coming from or which vehicle is being rented.