Changing a Group

A group represents a location or set of locations for which you want a single report generated. (The locations available for a group are those locations defined on your Horizon system.)

When you change a group, you can specify the collection parameters for that library or consortia, including these things:

General parameters that Debt Collect uses in gathering the information for a report (for example, the minimum fine amount, minimum borrower age, any grace period, and so forth).
Collection agency email address to which Debt Collect sends reports for a library.
Processing fees associated with particular fine amounts.
Borrower type to exclude from being sent to collection.
Locations to include in the collection process.
Location Kind for which location’s blocks to use for sending a borrower to collection.

Before You Begin

If you have more than one location for which you are responsible for setting up Debt Collect, you may want to view the parameters that you can set up for a group before you complete them. These parameters must apply to all locations that you assign to a group.

When you create a group of locations or assign a library location to a group, you choose the group’s “Location Kind.” The Location Kind determines which location’s blocks Debt Collect uses to send borrowers to collection. These are the two types of Location Kinds:

Transacting Location. This is the location from which borrowers have checked out items or received other billable services that are now overdue.
If you choose Transaction Location, Debt Collect associates blocks (and their related fines) with the locations that performed the transaction.
Owning Location. This is the location that actually owns the library material or has it in their catalog.

Note: If you choose Owning Location, Debt Collect associates blocks (and their related fines) with the locations that actually own the library material or have the material in their catalog. (If the block entry is not for an item, and therefore has no owning location, Debt Collect uses the transacting location.)

If you want to collect fines for non-library-owned material or services (such as copying), you can use Transacting or Owning locations.

All locations within a group must have the same Location Kind (Transacting or Owning). In addition, all groups should be assigned the same Location Kind. (For example, if you create three groups, all three groups should be Transacting locations, or Owning locations.) Otherwise, borrowers may be included on more than one report and could be contacted and billed processing fees for each report they appear on. If you would like to use Transacting and Owning Location Kinds in your Debt Collect groups, contact Customer Support.

A transacting location is a location that performs checkout and other transactions; an owning location is a location that actually owns the library material or has it in their catalog. If library locations want to collect fines for non-library-owned material or services (such as copying), then you may want to choose the Transacting location kind.

Once you turn on the Debt Collect Day End processes and Debt Collect generates a report, you should not change the group parameters; this may cause undefined results. However, you can change the Day 1 Start Date to an earlier date. (For example, you can change the Start Date from 5/21/02 to 5/14/02.) If you need to change group parameters after Debt Collect has generated a report, you should consult with Customer Support. However, if you need to, you can turn off the Day End processes for the old group, create a new group with the changed information, then activate the Day End processes for the new group.

Also, you should coordinate with your collection agency when you make a change to a group. (For example, you may no longer want to collect on a certain borrower type [BTYPE] [or exclude the BTYPE from qualifying for collection]. You should notify your collection agency to stop collecting on borrowers with that BTYPE.)

To change a group

1 Be sure that you are not running the Debt Collect Day End processes.
2 In the Horizon Client, go to Administration > Table Editor.
3 Select the debt_collect table, and then click OK.

The Debt Collection Group dialog box displays.

4 Do one of these options:
If you want to create a new group, contact your SirsiDynix support representative for more information.
If you want to change an existing group, choose the group you want and click Edit.

Debt Collect displays the Debt Collection Group Edit dialog box:

5 Complete or change these fields, as necessary:

Field

Description

Name

Enter the name that you want for the group.

(For example, if you are using only one location in this group, you may want to enter the name of the location. If you are using more than one location in this group, you may want to use a descriptive name, such as “Eastern Branches” or “Central Consortia”.)

Description

Enter a description that you want for the group.

(For example, if the group is for the “Eastern Branches,” enter the names of the eastern branches.)

Day 1 Start Date

Enter the earliest billing notice or burb entry date (m/d/yyyy) that Debt Collect should use to qualify borrowers for collection.

(For example, enter “4/24/2002”.)

If the start date is June 1, 2009 and the borrower owes $50.00, but $40.00 of it was created prior to 6/1/2009, their eligible balance is only $10.00. If the Amount Due Threshold is $25.00, this borrower would not be sent to Debt Collect. If they have another $50 added later, in July, they will get sent to Debt Collect at that time for the total amount owed of $100. This also assumes that all blocks were created at locations that are specified for the group (for more information, see Assigning Library Locations to a Group).

You choose which type of date (billing notice or burb entry) that you want Debt Collect to consider for the delinquent start date later in this table. (A burb entry is a block, which is entered in the burb table. For more information, see the “Blocks” chapter of the Circulation Guide.)

Important: You can have Debt Collect examine delinquent borrower records from as long ago as you choose. However, if this is the first time that you have used any version of Debt Collect, you may want to run Debt Collect for incremental ranges of dates instead of for a single large block of time. This is because running Debt Collect for a long period (for example, a year) can slow down your system while Debt Collect gathers all the necessary information, generates a report, and prepares and sends email notices.

For example, start by entering a Day 1 Start Date that is a month earlier than the date on which you want to begin generating reports and using Debt Collect. Complete the entire Debt Collect process for that month. Then move the Day 1 Start Date another month earlier and repeat the entire Debt Collect process. Continue moving the Day 1 Start Date back by monthly increments until you have gone back as far as you want to collect on delinquent borrower accounts.

Amount Due Threshold

Enter the maximum amount that a borrower can owe before qualifying for collection.

If a borrower owes the same or less than the amount you enter, Debt Collect does not consider the borrower for collection.

For example, type “5.00” if you want to exclude borrowers that have less than $5.00 owing.

Processing Fees

You can specify fees that are associated with a range of fines. For more information, see Assigning a Processing Fee to a Range of Fines (Optional).

Date Grace Period (Days)

Enter the number of days that you want to allow for a grace period in relationship to the Day 1 Start Date.

(For example, enter “5” for a grace period of five days.)

Debt Collect does not consider borrowers for collection if they have any burb activity within this grace period (for example, a payment, waiver, billing notice, or overdue items).

(For example, if the “Day 1” date is “4/24/2008”, the grace period is five days, and today’s date is “5/31/2008”, then Debt Collect uses the date range 4/24/2008 through 5/26/2008 as the dates that qualify for collection.)

Date to Use

Choose one of these options:

Burb Entry. Choose this option if you want Debt Collect to use the date the entry was made in the burb table (a table containing borrower blocks) for the overdue item when choosing blocks for collection. (For more information, see the “Blocks” chapter of the Circulation Guide.)
Billing Notice. Choose this option if you want Debt Collect to use the date of the billing notices when choosing blocks for collection.

Note: If you choose this, you must also choose a Billing Notice option (oldest or newest). Also, Debt Collect’s processing for this option is slower than for the Burb Entry option.

6 Click Page Down to get to the next set of fields:

7 Complete or change these fields, as necessary:

Field

Description

Billing Notice

If you chose the Billing Notice option for the Date to Use, choose one of these options:

Oldest. Choose this option if you want Debt Collect to use the oldest billing notice date.
Newest. Choose this option if you want Debt Collect to use the billing notice date for the newest billing notice.

Location Kind

If you want to choose a location kind now, choose the type of location with which Debt Collect associates blocks. (You can also choose the Location Kind later when you do the steps in the task Assigning Library Locations to a Group.):

Transacting Location. This is the location from which borrowers have checked out items that are now overdue.

For example, if you choose Transacting Location, then Debt Collect associates blocks (and their related fines) with the locations that performed the transactions. (This is useful if you want to collect fines for non-library-owned material or services [such as copying].)

Owning Location. This is the location that actually owns the library material or has it in their catalog.

For example, if you choose Owning Location, then Debt Collect associates blocks (and their related fines) with the locations that actually own the library material or have the material in their catalog.

Locations

You can define the locations to assign to this group for processing. For more information, see Assigning Library Locations to a Group.

Exclude Borrowers less than

If you want to exclude any young borrowers from qualifying for collection, enter the maximum age of borrowers who do not qualify for collection.

This is used to determine initial borrower eligibility to go to Debt Collect.

(For example, enter “18” if borrowers who are 18 years of age and younger do not qualify for collection.)

Exclude Blocks

You can optionally define certain types of blocks that will be excluded from

The Exclude Block is used to determine initial borrower eligibility to go to Debt Collect.

Therefore, if the Debt Collect Amount Due Threshold is $25.00 and lost blocks are excluded, a borrower owing $50.00, but with $30.00 of that in lost blocks, will not get sent to Debt Collect because their eligible balance is only $20.00, which is below the threshold value.

If the same borrower gets an additional $5.00 non-lost charge added later, they will go to Debt Collect with a total balance of $55.00.

Once a borrower has met all the criteria, they get sent for all charges they owe that belong to locations included in the Debt Group locations.

8 Click Page Down to get to the next set of fields:

9 Complete or change these fields, as necessary:

Field

Description

Exclude Btypes

You can optionally specify the borrower type to exclude from collection. For more information, see Excluding a BTYPE from Qualifying for Collection (Optional).

Email

Specify one or more email address IDs to which you want to send email reports.

You can type an ID or click Codes and select the ID from the list of email addresses added to debt collect. For more information, see Creating or Changing an Email Address .

You can add additional email addresses to the group by clicking New and typing an ID or clicking Codes.

You can delete an email address from the group by selecting the email ID from the Email drop-down list and then clicking Delete.

SMTP Host

Enter the SMTP host (or name of the email server) for your library or consortia through which your library or consortia sends email messages.

In an email address, this is usually all of the information after the “at” symbol ( @ ). (For example, enter “mainlibrary.org”.)

Reply To Email Address

Enter the email address at your library or consortia to which the collection agency or others can send reply email messages.

From Name

Enter the name of the person to whom the email address belongs, or the person at your library or consortia that the collection agency or others can contact.

Report File Path

Enter the path name for the directory where you want all of the collection reports stored for this group.

For example, enter C:\My Documents\Debt Collect\Reports\Group1.

Note: Debt Collect does not verify that you have a valid directory path, nor does it create a new directory if you enter one. You may want to make note of the directory you want or enter here, then manually create it while you are completing this field, or soon afterwards.

10 Click Page Down to get to the last set of fields:

11 Complete or change these fields, as necessary:

Field

Description

Submit Report ID

Type or select the report ID that you want Debt Collect to use for the Submit (or New) report for this group. A Submit or New report is a report of all new borrowers that qualify for collection since the last submit report.

To select the ID, click Codes and select the ID from the list.

For example, type 1.

Submit Report Subject

Enter a short subject line for this Submit report’s email message.

For example, enter New Collection Report from Main Library.

This is a free-text box, so you can enter any information that you want to. However, you must limit your subject line to 80 characters.

Submit Report Body

Enter any introduction or explanation text (or whatever you want) for the body of this Submit report’s email message.

For example, enter Here is a report of the new borrowers who are in collection.

This is a free-text box, so you can enter any information that you want to. However, you must limit your body message text to 80 characters.

Update Report ID

Type or select the report ID that you want Debt Collect to use for the Update report for this group. An Update report is a list of borrowers who have had any kind of activity on their account—from a small payment to completely settling their account with the library—since the last Submit or Update report.

To select the ID, click Codes and select the ID from the list.

For example, type 2.

Update Report Subject

Enter a short subject line for this Update report’s email message.

For example, enter Update Collection Report from Main Library.

This is a free-text box, so you can enter any information that you want to. However, you must limit your subject line to 80 characters.

Update Report Body

Enter any introduction or explanation text (or whatever you want) for the body of this Update report’s email message.

For example, enter Here is a report of the borrowers who are no longer in collection.

This is a free-text box, so you can enter any information that you want to. However, you must limit your body message text to 80 characters.

12 Save your changes and Close the dialog box.

 


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