[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Lost and paid

[David Christensen]

Hi Jason - that makes things much clearer for me - thanks!

-David Christensen

On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 1:54 PM, Jason Etheridge <jason at esilibrary.com>wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 11:49 AM, <scrlheadlib at mts.net> wrote:
> > I’m looking for suggestions on how to handle “lost and paid” materials.
> >
> >  i.e.  Patron comes in and says they’ve lost the item and want to pay for
> > it.  We have in the past had a status that says “lost and paid” and that
> > status remains for 2 months, because, as we all know, occasionally, the
> item
> > is found.  After the 2 months if it is not found the item is deleted from
> > the catalogue.  I can’t find a “lost paid” status in Evergreen.  How do
> > others deal with this?  Thanks.
>
> Hi Mary,
>
> There are two pertinent concepts modeled in Evergreen: items and
> transactions.  Items are obvious.  Transactions can include
> circulations (but can also be standalone "grocery" bills).
>
> Outside of migrations, an item can only be marked Lost if it is
> involved in an active circulation transaction.  Someone will have to
> correct me if I'm wrong with the details, but I believe when you mark
> an item Lost, several things happen:
>
> 1) the item status changes to Lost
> 2) the circulation transaction gets a Stop Fines Reason of LOST, which
> prevents any new overdue fines from accruing on that transaction.  A
> corresponding Stop Fines Time is set.
> 3) existing overdue fines on the transaction are optionally voided
> based on a library setting
> 4) a billing is added to the transaction for the Price of the item, or
> if unset, for the Default Item Price based on a per library setting
> 5) an optional billing for a Lost Processing Fee is added to the
> transaction based on a per library setting
>
> A Lost item is still circulating to the patron, so it's going to show
> up in the bottom half of the patron's Item Out screen whether it has
> been paid or not.  If the item has been returned, but money is still
> owed on the transaction (bills, overdue fines, etc), then the
> transaction will remain open and show up in the Bills section, as well
> as the bottom half of the Items Out section (this latter condition is
> likely a confusing arrangement, but circulations currently stick in
> Items Out if any bills are owed on the transactions, even if the items
> are no longer "out").
>
> If the item has been returned and the bills have been paid, then the
> transaction can be found in the Bill History interface.
>
> In 1.2 and 1.4, staff are likely checking these lost items in, Forcing
> an override when prompted, and then retrieving the last patron who
> circulated each item.  Then they're finding the transaction (perhaps
> in Bill History) and adding and voiding bills as their policies
> dictate.
>
> In 1.6/trunk, more of this behavior has been automated.
>
> There's a per library setting for:
>
> 1) Restoring overdue fines on return of a Lost item
> 2) Voiding the lost item bill on return of a Lost item
> 3) Voiding the lost item processing fee on return of a Lost item
> 4) A time interval after which 1,2, and 3 are ignored when a Lost item
> is returned
> 5) Allowing Lost items to be handled (Lost status removed, bills
> auto-voided, etc.) at a "foreign" library rather than force a transit
> to the item's circ lib
>
> I hope this helps!
>
> --
> Jason Etheridge
>  | VP, Community Support and Advocacy
>  | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Evergreen Experts
>  | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
>  | email:  jason at esilibrary.com
>  | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com
>



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