[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Enhancements to billing and handling of lost, long overdue and claims returned items

[Kathy Lussier]

Hi all,

MassLNC has been working on development requirements for enhancements to 
Evergreen billing and handling of lost, long overdue, and claims 
returned items. We are almost at the point where we are ready to seek 
quotes for the project, but I first wanted to share details on what we 
are proposing so that we can get feedback from the larger community. I 
also would like to hear if these projects overlap with other existing 
development projects.  We were happy to hear that PINES has contracted 
with ESI to support a long overdue process and scratched that item off 
our list. We are also aware of existing code that has been posted to 
Launchpad to help deal with some of the negative balances issues 
identified in our requirements. I'm hoping any development done for 
MassLNC can supplement and make use of  the work that's already been done.

In general, we are looking at the following enhancements:

* Support for no negative balances or conditional negative balances 
(i.e. a refund is only applied if a lost book is returned within x 
number of months that it was paid.)
* Support for a "Lost and Paid" status that the system automatically 
applies once the patron has paid for the lost or long overdue item.
* A permission that will allow renewals on lost, long overdue, and 
claims returned items.
* A new penalty for exceeding a count of long overdue items (similar to 
the penalty for lost items that was recently submitted for 
https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1154258).
* Enhancements to the cash reports that distinguishes among payments 
made for overdue fines, lost/long overdue items, and grocery bills.
* Enhancements to the billing interface.

Feel free to send along any comments you have on the proposed work.

Kathy

-- 
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
klussier at masslnc.org
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier