Fines and Going Fine Free

Fines and Going Fine Free

This is an outline of how overdue fines are managed in Koha and instructions for making your library fine free.

Fines

Fines will be charged based on your circulation and fines rules.
  1. Hold fees will be charged based on the rules you set in the Patron types and categories administration area
  2. Rental fees will be charged based on the settings in your Item iypes administration area
  3. Marking an item ‘Lost’ via the cataloging module will automatically charge the patron the replacement cost for that item
  4. Creating a patron in a category with an enrollment fee
  5. Renewing a patron account in a category with an enrollment fee
  6. Article request fees will be charged based on the article request fees section of the circulation rules page
There are a few system preferences that drive how/when a library charges fines.
  1. finesMode - if charging fines, this should be set to "Calculate and Charge"
  2. ChargeFinesOnClosedDays - charge/don't charge on closed days. Koha will follow the calendar if this is set to don't charge.
  3. CalculateFinesOnReturn - calculate and update overdue charges when an item is returned. If this system preference is enabled, final fines will be calculated when an item is returned.  NOTE: If you are doing hourly loans then you should have this on.
For more information about the Fines Cron Job, see the Koha Manual.

Fines With Daily or Hourly Accrual

If a library wants fines to accrue on patrons' accounts while items are overdue, use these settings:
  1. CalculateFinesOnReturn: set to Do
  2. finesMode: set to Calculate and charge
  3. fines.pl cron: running (Systems/Support can modify)
In this case, fines will accrue each time the cron runs and will be finalized when patrons return the overdue item (or when it goes lost).

Fines Without Accrual

If a library does not want overdue fines to show on patrons' accounts until overdue items are returned, use these settings:
  1. CalculateFinesOnReturn: set to Do
  2. finesMode: set to Calculate and charge
  3. fines.pl cron: not running (Systems/Support can modify)
With these settings, the final fine will show in patrons' accounts only once they return their overdue item.

Going Fine Free

If your library has decided to go Fine Free, here is a good outline to follow:
  1. In Administration > System preferences, set  the system preference finesMode to "Don't calculate.”
  2. Set the system preference CalculateFinesOnReturn and CalculateFinesOnBackdate to “Don’t,” but neither of these system preferences will function when finesMode is set to “Don’t calculate.”
  3. In Tools > Notices and Slips, your library may need to edit notices if they mention fines within the text.  Check any of your overdue notices (typically ODUE, ODUE2, and ODUE3).
  4. Contact the ByWater Support team to disable the fines.pl cron job.
Bywater Solutions recommends that you remove fine amounts set in your circulation rules.

During this process, also consider whether you want patrons with overdue items to be restricted from checking out new materials until they return the overdue items. See the Koha Manual for using overdue notices to add restrictions and this Knowledge Base article about patron restrictions.

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