WEBVTT 1 00:02:11.130 --> 00:02:14.600 Thomas Trutt: Good morning, or afternoon, depending where you are. 2 00:02:15.720 --> 00:02:16.400 Scott Peterson: Morning. 3 00:02:34.230 --> 00:02:36.170 Thomas Trutt: Transfer the Word… 4 00:02:51.190 --> 00:02:58.030 Thomas Trutt: Last time… I believe we were talking about… Actual cost… 5 00:03:02.890 --> 00:03:11.390 Thomas Trutt: Let's see… Let's share my screen… 6 00:03:25.200 --> 00:03:32.439 Thomas Trutt: Every time I share my screen with the chat, everything disappears. 7 00:03:32.940 --> 00:03:51.570 Thomas Trutt: It's like, no, you really don't want your chat up there, you don't really want the… you don't want the transcript up there, you just think you do. So we're just gonna go ahead and get those. I love Zoom. Actually, I love it when technology decides to make a decision for you without asking, because, yeah, we're all too dumb to make our own decisions. 8 00:03:52.090 --> 00:03:59.770 Susan Kimball: It moves it all the way off to the side. Like, for me, it moves it to my whole other computer. I'm like, what is it? Where did all my controls go? 9 00:03:59.770 --> 00:04:14.799 Thomas Trutt: Exactly. My Mac does that to me all the time, like, if I get a notification on my main window in a Slack message, I have my… I have 3 monitors, and I have my desktops lined up in this very specific order, and if you click on one of those, it will… 10 00:04:14.900 --> 00:04:34.500 Thomas Trutt: grab that desktop and move it to wherever the active one is and swap them. I'm just like, no, just move to that desktop. You don't need to actually physically reorganize them, it just… it drives me nuts. It really does. Especially when you're working on a single screen, and, like, you have things laid out in a particular order, and all of a sudden you swipe left. 11 00:04:35.110 --> 00:04:40.340 Thomas Trutt: And you have Slack instead of the spreadsheet I was working on. 12 00:04:41.320 --> 00:04:44.220 Thomas Trutt: No. No. Stop it. 13 00:04:45.020 --> 00:05:00.130 Thomas Trutt: Okay, so, oops, why is that not working? That was weird. Last time we were talking about claims returned, and just a slight reminder, and switching claims returned 14 00:05:00.390 --> 00:05:08.310 Thomas Trutt: That instead of using the current method that it's used now, is possibly using the, the… 15 00:05:09.070 --> 00:05:18.720 Thomas Trutt: transfer accounts, to hold those. So we're talking about that. This… today, I would like to kind of start talking about… 16 00:05:19.700 --> 00:05:34.380 Thomas Trutt: open credits. And I know that, the people that were in discussions with Holly, we were talking about this as well with her, and for probably everybody on this call, you're probably aware of that when an item is returned. 17 00:05:34.570 --> 00:05:41.389 Thomas Trutt: the refund and the credit are… I'm sorry, the credit and the refund are both processed at the same exact time. 18 00:05:41.950 --> 00:05:47.679 Thomas Trutt: So the account is credited, which puts it in then a negative balance, and then the refund is issued. 19 00:05:47.890 --> 00:05:52.120 Thomas Trutt: That's a problem for people who have actually paid something on the account. 20 00:05:52.320 --> 00:06:09.119 Thomas Trutt: And that's where the refunds to process manually report comes from. This is also an issue with Berger transfer and other transfer accounts, because it's not stuck in that limbo state, it's just automatically closed out of the system. So there is an open ticket that was originally written by Holly to break those into two separate instances. 21 00:06:09.120 --> 00:06:15.669 Thomas Trutt: We can discuss that a little bit more if people would like. What I was interested in is the… 22 00:06:15.940 --> 00:06:24.290 Thomas Trutt: was partially that, but also the interface for handling open credits. Again, this is based on the same 23 00:06:25.060 --> 00:06:41.170 Thomas Trutt: Interface principles is the other two, where there is a drop-down to select what action you want to perform, search and filter options, and then the open credits that are currently in the system. 24 00:06:42.100 --> 00:06:49.070 Thomas Trutt: The idea behind this, like with the other interfaces, is that it would allow you to coordinate off, or… 25 00:06:49.320 --> 00:07:07.449 Thomas Trutt: chunk off pieces of the feed fine system to specific users. So, for instance, somebody in your business services account who is responsible for cutting checks could only have… would have access to this, and you possibly could limit that they don't even know what the instance title is, just that so-and-so needs a check cut for something. 26 00:07:08.480 --> 00:07:12.859 Thomas Trutt: So that's kind of the idea behind this interface. I was kind of wondering what… 27 00:07:13.160 --> 00:07:19.730 Thomas Trutt: People thought of that idea and approach, first off, and then we can probably get into some more of the details of 28 00:07:20.100 --> 00:07:22.719 Thomas Trutt: What can be done with open credits? 29 00:07:30.120 --> 00:07:32.410 Susan Kimball: I like the idea of having them… 30 00:07:33.500 --> 00:07:35.489 Susan Kimball: Be able to pull them up 31 00:07:36.170 --> 00:07:40.300 Susan Kimball: right, kind of on demand. Like, right now, we have to… 32 00:07:40.450 --> 00:07:50.089 Susan Kimball: Export every single cash transaction and siphon out the negative balances to find the ones that were credited, and 33 00:07:50.230 --> 00:07:58.440 Susan Kimball: And it's a huge pain in the butt right now. So, I could imagine a workflow where you're processing credits. 34 00:07:59.010 --> 00:08:04.360 Susan Kimball: And I guess the question is, like, where do they go if you do the transfer? 35 00:08:04.730 --> 00:08:09.949 Susan Kimball: If you're doing them one by one and transferring them. 36 00:08:10.300 --> 00:08:11.510 Susan Kimball: where… 37 00:08:12.030 --> 00:08:20.050 Susan Kimball: Where does that go? I guess, right now, nothing gets… like, you can transfer an individual transaction, so I guess it would be the same… 38 00:08:20.550 --> 00:08:21.770 Susan Kimball: process. 39 00:08:22.120 --> 00:08:27.949 Susan Kimball: We don't use transfer right now, so it's sort of a little bit opaque to me how… 40 00:08:28.590 --> 00:08:32.040 Susan Kimball: how it would work. I know how it worked in Olive, and… 41 00:08:32.049 --> 00:08:32.569 Thomas Trutt: - 42 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:41.220 Susan Kimball: That is sort of the… There's a distinction For our workflow. 43 00:08:41.400 --> 00:08:51.850 Susan Kimball: whether or not something's been reported or transferred. Like, if we haven't told the bursar about it, I don't need to know about the credit. It just goes away, right? So that's… 44 00:08:52.160 --> 00:09:01.230 Susan Kimball: that's sort of what I'm thinking, is, like, these credits… Would they only appear… if… 45 00:09:01.400 --> 00:09:09.549 Susan Kimball: they didn't cancel something out. Like, that's the… I guess that is the piece that I'm not sure what that workflow looks like. 46 00:09:10.250 --> 00:09:18.550 Thomas Trutt: I think that's something we'd have to kind of… something to kind of think through, too. You're right, like, if it's moved to a transfer account, and I kind of want to keep 47 00:09:18.710 --> 00:09:23.569 Thomas Trutt: The idea of transfer accounts as a bubble, and not just specifically… 48 00:09:23.790 --> 00:09:38.910 Thomas Trutt: bursar, because they are used for… if we do use them for the claims returned, or we use them for bursar transfers, or they're used for outside collections, or who knows what. 49 00:09:39.200 --> 00:09:45.810 Thomas Trutt: I think when an item is returned, the… 50 00:09:46.280 --> 00:09:54.970 Thomas Trutt: the credit needs to go onto that transfer account. Right now, what it's kind of doing is it's moving it out of the transfer account. 51 00:09:55.590 --> 00:09:57.660 Thomas Trutt: Crediting it, and then refunding it. 52 00:09:57.820 --> 00:10:02.820 Thomas Trutt: So it's treating it like it's an active fee fine on the person's account. 53 00:10:03.650 --> 00:10:07.400 Thomas Trutt: I guess my… And plea… please… 54 00:10:07.700 --> 00:10:15.080 Thomas Trutt: anybody say, no, this doesn't sound good. I think with my mindset is that the credit should be placed on that transfer account. 55 00:10:15.210 --> 00:10:20.879 Thomas Trutt: And then, whatever process is acting on that transfer account, then… 56 00:10:21.100 --> 00:10:27.799 Thomas Trutt: does the refund. So, for instance, if it's a… if it's… if you're trans… if it's an external system. 57 00:10:28.190 --> 00:10:34.089 Thomas Trutt: It's a cue to say, I need you to transfer this credit to the external system. 58 00:10:34.340 --> 00:10:41.769 Thomas Trutt: And then maybe there's a setting on the transfer… on the transfer account that says, automatically close out any credits. So it just closes it out as a refund. 59 00:10:41.900 --> 00:10:49.769 Thomas Trutt: But I feel that that kind of has to be handled separately from the regular accounts. Does all that babbling make sense to me, Paul? 60 00:10:51.290 --> 00:10:52.720 Thomas Trutt: Sorry. 61 00:10:57.170 --> 00:11:04.410 Susan Kimball: I guess we need to develop a system for folks who are not using transfer accounts at all, right? Like, it has to be a system that will… 62 00:11:04.570 --> 00:11:09.180 Susan Kimball: That makes sense regardless of your workflow. 63 00:11:09.320 --> 00:11:14.330 Susan Kimball: And for me, like, if we haven't transferred it. 64 00:11:14.580 --> 00:11:16.519 Susan Kimball: I don't wanna see it, like… 65 00:11:16.970 --> 00:11:21.740 Susan Kimball: Like, you know what I mean? Like, if it hasn't… if nothing's happened with the debit. 66 00:11:22.240 --> 00:11:24.560 Susan Kimball: And the credit cancels it out? 67 00:11:25.190 --> 00:11:26.960 Susan Kimball: I don't necessarily… 68 00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:27.410 Thomas Trutt: You don't care. 69 00:11:27.410 --> 00:11:39.080 Susan Kimball: need to see it, right? Like, I wouldn't need to see it on this open credits, because it's not… from my mind, it's not an open credit, it's been canceled, and… it's canceled, truly canceled, as opposed to… 70 00:11:39.230 --> 00:11:41.089 Susan Kimball: A credit needs to be issued. 71 00:11:41.930 --> 00:11:46.710 Thomas Trutt: Agreed on both points. I think transfer accounts and, 72 00:11:46.730 --> 00:12:01.990 Thomas Trutt: in my mind, transfer accounts and the quote-unquote active account, or the main account that's used in folio, I think should be treated exactly the same. So, the difference with the two is that, I guess, in a way, you assume that if it's in a transfer account, it's already been paid. 73 00:12:01.990 --> 00:12:12.530 Thomas Trutt: So you have to issue a credit, and then when it's transferred or closed in that account, then you're issuing, basically, the refund on the external account, possibly. 74 00:12:12.820 --> 00:12:16.970 Thomas Trutt: for the quote-unquote main active account, I agree 100% as well. 75 00:12:17.080 --> 00:12:23.679 Thomas Trutt: If there is a credit, issued, and it's… it hasn't been paid. So, like, somebody… 76 00:12:23.840 --> 00:12:30.929 Thomas Trutt: Somebody checks out a book, it's Age to Loss, they're fined $150, they return the item. 77 00:12:31.340 --> 00:12:36.990 Thomas Trutt: They get a credit for $150, and there's now zero balance on their account. 78 00:12:37.910 --> 00:12:47.029 Thomas Trutt: that shouldn't show up in this screen. It's only if they paid, let's say, $50 towards it, then that $50 should show up here. Yes, David? 79 00:12:47.710 --> 00:12:55.580 David Bottorff (UChicago): Why… I guess I'm a little bit confused about why we're even talking about introducing credits into something that hasn't been paid. 80 00:12:55.860 --> 00:13:01.119 David Bottorff (UChicago): Because as of now, if you are billed, and you return the item. 81 00:13:01.230 --> 00:13:20.499 David Bottorff (UChicago): there isn't a credit, the bill is waived because of an action where the item has been returned. So there would never be a circumstance unless you completely rip out and change how fees and fines work, which just… this seems overcomplicated. To me, a credit is something that is only issued when you have paid for something. 82 00:13:21.090 --> 00:13:25.980 David Bottorff (UChicago): Somebody lost the book, they paid $150, 83 00:13:26.520 --> 00:13:35.009 David Bottorff (UChicago): they return the book, and if your rules let them get a credit, then the credit is issued. You would never issue a credit 84 00:13:35.480 --> 00:13:36.350 David Bottorff (UChicago): if… 85 00:13:36.660 --> 00:13:44.070 David Bottorff (UChicago): the thing hasn't been paid. And that would work for your transfer account idea as well, presumably, because if the thing has been transferred. 86 00:13:44.220 --> 00:13:53.650 David Bottorff (UChicago): then that is essentially a form of payment, right? The existing bill has been closed. But, like, I'm really nervous about the idea of 87 00:13:53.760 --> 00:13:57.760 David Bottorff (UChicago): Fundamentally changing how the thing that we do 88 00:13:58.270 --> 00:14:08.759 David Bottorff (UChicago): dozens of times a day, because the only way we get books back is when we bill people for them, and they finally return them, and also when they get renewed, and all these other things. That would be just… 89 00:14:09.080 --> 00:14:14.309 David Bottorff (UChicago): Adding a huge layer of complexity to a process that already works. It… 90 00:14:14.450 --> 00:14:17.510 David Bottorff (UChicago): I'm… so that's where I'm just kind of confused. 91 00:14:17.970 --> 00:14:26.150 Thomas Trutt: No, no, no, that makes sense, that makes sense. So, yeah, I was… I was thinking of trying to keep consistency between the transfer accounts and the primary account. 92 00:14:26.520 --> 00:14:29.670 Thomas Trutt: But I see what you're saying, too, is, like. 93 00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:38.580 Thomas Trutt: being transferred out is basically being paid, in a sense. It's a form of payment. Yeah. So… 94 00:14:38.970 --> 00:14:43.420 Thomas Trutt: Yeah, so not having that consistency would make sense in that point in time. 95 00:14:43.590 --> 00:14:49.100 Thomas Trutt: That makes perfect sense. So then, in that case, yes, something's returned, if there's no payments to it. 96 00:14:49.640 --> 00:14:50.940 Thomas Trutt: it's waived. 97 00:14:51.050 --> 00:14:59.210 Thomas Trutt: But if something's returned and there was a payment towards it in any amount, that payment is then credited to that person's active account. 98 00:14:59.770 --> 00:15:19.350 Susan Kimball: That's right. And I think that would be true of any transfer or a payment, right? If it's been reported to someone else, or if it's someone else's responsibility now, and it's already been transferred, or the person paid it, then the credit would come into play. I totally agree, David, you're right, that clarifies it. That's exactly how I expect it to work. 99 00:15:19.540 --> 00:15:20.190 Susan Kimball: Also. 100 00:15:20.190 --> 00:15:28.729 Thomas Trutt: Okay, then we can keep that workflow, that makes sense. And you're right, it would be a deviation from the way it's currently, running. 101 00:15:28.850 --> 00:15:38.299 Thomas Trutt: So yeah, we could do it that way. Now, I do know with some of the original discussions, and right now I just have the open one up here, is… 102 00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:48.030 Thomas Trutt: open credits is… with some of the discussions with Holly, there was the idea of applying the credit from one 103 00:15:49.870 --> 00:15:57.809 Thomas Trutt: FeeFine account to another, or multiple fee fine accounts on a single user's record. 104 00:15:58.210 --> 00:16:08.900 Thomas Trutt: Is that still something people are interested in? Or does that kind of seem like it's too much, or would it be all like to have? 105 00:16:09.040 --> 00:16:13.880 Thomas Trutt: I know, David, you were really heavy in those discussions with Holly when we were talking about that. 106 00:16:13.880 --> 00:16:17.320 David Bottorff (UChicago): Remind me… remind me what this was? I've lost track. 107 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:31.209 Thomas Trutt: It's okay. It's basically what would happen is, in the scenario I said before, let's say somebody had a… checked out a book at Age to Loss, they got a bill for $150, they paid it, then returned the item, they would have a $150 credit on their account. 108 00:16:31.360 --> 00:16:35.389 Thomas Trutt: one of the workflows that Holly set up 109 00:16:35.540 --> 00:16:43.149 Thomas Trutt: And we discussed was being able to take that $150 credit and use it as, quote-unquote, a payment toward. 110 00:16:43.150 --> 00:16:43.510 David Bottorff (UChicago): Right. 111 00:16:43.510 --> 00:16:57.899 Thomas Trutt: other open fee fines on the person's account. And I know we've discussed, like, do we… does it pick the largest one, the oldest one, or can we manually do it? I was just kind of curious if that functionality was still… 112 00:16:58.470 --> 00:17:04.750 Thomas Trutt: Needed slash wanted, and kind of what the priority around that sort of functionality would be. 113 00:17:04.960 --> 00:17:13.930 David Bottorff (UChicago): So, I would be interested to hear what others think about this. This came out of, in part, the fact that this was functionality that existed. 114 00:17:14.200 --> 00:17:21.500 David Bottorff (UChicago): in Olay. And I will say it is not… trivial to… 115 00:17:22.170 --> 00:17:27.060 David Bottorff (UChicago): figure out the logic of that. And part of that is because, like, you need to be able to… 116 00:17:29.020 --> 00:17:37.670 David Bottorff (UChicago): If you're trying to do anything where it's, like, automated, you have to take into account things like you do not want to get trapped in an endless loop of… 117 00:17:38.010 --> 00:17:50.510 David Bottorff (UChicago): they paid for this lost item, but they still have this other lost item, and I have now issued them a credit, and paid for that lost item, and that's closed that loan, but they were talking to us about that item, and… 118 00:17:50.690 --> 00:17:51.600 David Bottorff (UChicago): you know. 119 00:17:51.750 --> 00:18:00.500 David Bottorff (UChicago): So, I would be interested to hear what other people think about this. I think from Chicago's perspective, we've eliminated a lot of our overdue fines. 120 00:18:00.730 --> 00:18:05.260 David Bottorff (UChicago): Since that functionality existed in Olay, so this just comes up. 121 00:18:06.020 --> 00:18:11.159 David Bottorff (UChicago): Less often, and we've certainly lived without it for… 4 years, so… 122 00:18:12.810 --> 00:18:14.820 David Bottorff (UChicago): I'm interested to hear what others have to say. 123 00:18:15.050 --> 00:18:26.039 David Bottorff (UChicago): I might… I might argue, if I were… if I… if we were to prioritize this feature at all, I would almost argue that you should have to just select which bills you want to pay, and not let the system… 124 00:18:26.580 --> 00:18:29.450 David Bottorff (UChicago): tried to do it automatically, because I think that's… 125 00:18:29.800 --> 00:18:31.680 David Bottorff (UChicago): Gonna take us down a rabbit hole, but… 126 00:18:33.790 --> 00:18:37.029 Thomas Trutt: I have a few thoughts, too, but I'd like to hear what other people think. 127 00:18:39.830 --> 00:18:41.940 Susan Kimball: We don't have any… 128 00:18:42.220 --> 00:18:49.200 Susan Kimball: use for that functionality. I mean, we just report it to the controller, and they, like… we're not… 129 00:18:49.470 --> 00:18:57.160 Susan Kimball: we don't care what… we don't have any overdue fines, so… I agree with David in terms of the complexity of it, like, I can't… 130 00:18:58.760 --> 00:19:14.269 Susan Kimball: really imagine… I just want credits to work. Like, I can't really imagine how this whole thing is gonna get… can get developed. I'm not a developer, but, like, I think it sounds very, very complex, and we're doing so much less billing. 131 00:19:14.430 --> 00:19:17.569 Susan Kimball: And trying to make it as simple as possible, so… 132 00:19:17.900 --> 00:19:23.390 Susan Kimball: I mean, if other folks want it, that's totally fine, but it's not something we… we would need here. 133 00:19:24.060 --> 00:19:24.690 Thomas Trutt: Right. 134 00:19:25.180 --> 00:19:37.470 Thomas Trutt: And I think Cornell kind of falls in the same boat. I could also see a manual workaround for this, is that you have a payment type of system credit. 135 00:19:37.590 --> 00:19:51.550 Thomas Trutt: and you just manually process everything, it's a lot more work for staff, but I could see you doing that process manually. I agree if this is a route that 136 00:19:51.870 --> 00:20:11.710 Thomas Trutt: others outside of this meeting say, yes, we would like to have some way of applying these credits to other accounts. I think it should be a completely… it should be a manual process, it should not be an automated process, where you select what accounts you want to apply to, and it applies it to that account. Yes, David? 137 00:20:12.600 --> 00:20:19.510 David Bottorff (UChicago): I was just gonna say, I mean, this is part of the… I mean, part of the reason… this… this was one of the underlying reasons of saying, like. 138 00:20:20.240 --> 00:20:28.519 David Bottorff (UChicago): issue the credit… I mean, the other is the transfer accounts, but issue the credit, and then the refund as a separate thing, was the idea that you could stop and say. 139 00:20:28.780 --> 00:20:39.139 David Bottorff (UChicago): I am gonna… I don't think the… I think it can't be totally manual, because I think from an accounting perspective, you would need to be able to say, we used this credit to pay for this. 140 00:20:39.410 --> 00:20:46.150 David Bottorff (UChicago): like, we use this, and I don't even think it was across accounts, I think the idea was across fees on an account. 141 00:20:46.690 --> 00:20:48.070 Thomas Trutt: Yes, yes. 142 00:20:48.070 --> 00:20:49.250 David Bottorff (UChicago): Right? So… 143 00:20:49.550 --> 00:21:07.740 David Bottorff (UChicago): But even there, like, you need to be able… on both bills, you need to say, this credit, we issued $100… we used $100 of this credit to pay these 5 bills with their UUIDs, or the HRID. And on those bills, it would need to say, these were paid with a credit from this other bill. 144 00:21:07.750 --> 00:21:13.119 David Bottorff (UChicago): And then there were… and then there's $50 in credit remaining, and then you manually say. 145 00:21:13.200 --> 00:21:15.749 David Bottorff (UChicago): And now I have refunded this. 146 00:21:16.380 --> 00:21:23.570 David Bottorff (UChicago): That is what a financial system should be capable of doing. I think manually selecting which bills you do is probably the easiest way to do that. 147 00:21:23.780 --> 00:21:27.449 David Bottorff (UChicago): But it would be very low priority compared to other… 148 00:21:27.710 --> 00:21:32.930 David Bottorff (UChicago): needs, at Chicago, so yeah, I just want to hear if others just, you know. 149 00:21:33.160 --> 00:21:35.849 David Bottorff (UChicago): For… would need this more readily. 150 00:21:36.170 --> 00:21:49.369 Scott Peterson: And for our libraries, I can't really speak for most of them, because I don't know how many of them are we doing this, but I would see a concern that for an ECS environment, someone wanted to do this, someone wanted to process manually, someone to do not entirely other means. 151 00:21:49.440 --> 00:22:06.700 Scott Peterson: I know more than a few libraries that look at only specifically just that one transaction, refunding or crediting it, as opposed to recrediting or funding a balance. And that might cause problems with the bursar's office, because they want to look at specific, refunds, particular transactions, as opposed to a running balance of some kind. 152 00:22:10.100 --> 00:22:11.180 Thomas Trutt: That makes sense. 153 00:22:11.860 --> 00:22:12.570 Thomas Trutt: Okay. 154 00:22:12.990 --> 00:22:16.509 Thomas Trutt: I can rework the ticket slightly around that, 155 00:22:17.120 --> 00:22:20.310 Thomas Trutt: and throw in a few ideas. The other… 156 00:22:21.840 --> 00:22:31.900 Thomas Trutt: The other thing that came up in a side conversation, outside of this was the need to have… 157 00:22:33.620 --> 00:22:36.720 Thomas Trutt: Expiration dates on a credit. 158 00:22:38.090 --> 00:22:49.020 Thomas Trutt: And this primarily came up when I was talking to Joseph from Spokane, and some of the policies around the public libraries, that they are only allowed to hold onto credit, and 159 00:22:49.760 --> 00:22:56.350 Thomas Trutt: Please do not quote me 100% on the timeframe, but I believe it's, like, one year. After a year. 160 00:22:56.590 --> 00:23:00.900 Thomas Trutt: That money is absorbed by the institution, and they're no longer allowed to refund it. 161 00:23:01.190 --> 00:23:12.069 Thomas Trutt: Is that… functionality that other libraries have, either a specific date range, or a specific date, i.e. 162 00:23:12.800 --> 00:23:23.169 Thomas Trutt: Do your institutions… would your institutions say, at the close of fiscal year, July 1st, we are no longer allowed to issue any outstanding credits if they have not been processed? 163 00:23:27.940 --> 00:23:32.399 Susan Kimball: We do for our graduating seniors, like, we have a… 164 00:23:33.300 --> 00:23:41.529 Susan Kimball: We clear their loans after that period of time, so we have a workaround, but for alumni, we only give them… 165 00:23:41.680 --> 00:23:49.650 Susan Kimball: one fiscal year past their graduation to return books, and then they're not eligible. So it's… 166 00:23:50.740 --> 00:24:03.379 Susan Kimball: you can sort of come up with some of it on the… I guess you can't really do it on the fee-fine policy, because it's sort of a fixed date, as opposed to a rolling, like, 365 days past 167 00:24:03.780 --> 00:24:05.630 Susan Kimball: Age to Lost, or whatever. 168 00:24:05.940 --> 00:24:13.330 Susan Kimball: So we do have that, we work around it by getting those books off their accounts before… at that date. 169 00:24:19.460 --> 00:24:23.210 David Bottorff (UChicago): Yeah, I mean, ours is a poli… is a library policy, not… 170 00:24:23.690 --> 00:24:32.180 David Bottorff (UChicago): an externally imposed rule or law, so we can always make exceptions. But our general… 171 00:24:33.220 --> 00:24:35.769 David Bottorff (UChicago): Our policy is, it's… it's… 172 00:24:36.070 --> 00:24:39.399 David Bottorff (UChicago): 365 days after you pay for the thing. 173 00:24:39.720 --> 00:24:42.660 David Bottorff (UChicago): Like, if you find the item and return it. 174 00:24:42.830 --> 00:24:48.349 David Bottorff (UChicago): But since everything is manual, and frankly, like, they would have to bring it to our attention. 175 00:24:48.600 --> 00:24:52.230 David Bottorff (UChicago): Right now, there's not even really a workaround. 176 00:24:52.370 --> 00:24:54.889 David Bottorff (UChicago): Right? Because there's nothing, right? Like, we have to… 177 00:24:55.570 --> 00:24:59.389 David Bottorff (UChicago): Like, talk to our budget office to have a check cut. 178 00:24:59.590 --> 00:25:05.630 David Bottorff (UChicago): For somebody, and so it's easy to catch, and it's pretty… Pretty rare. 179 00:25:06.940 --> 00:25:19.560 Thomas Trutt: I will freely admit, I don't know what our policies are, and I probably should, because I do the bursar transfer. Basically, our bursar's office has an internal policy when they cannot 180 00:25:19.730 --> 00:25:25.289 Thomas Trutt: when they can no longer refund money, I have not hit that yet. 181 00:25:25.480 --> 00:25:28.680 Thomas Trutt: But to be fair, 90% of the time. 182 00:25:29.280 --> 00:25:45.550 Thomas Trutt: we don't get returns after somebody has graduated, because if they have an outstanding bursar account, they have to pay everything off, and they're more apt to return items that they have. Otherwise, if they don't pay off their bursar account, they don't get their diploma, so… or their transcripts, so they really want to get that paid off. 183 00:25:45.550 --> 00:25:53.970 Thomas Trutt: So we'll get a bunch of people returning stuff. Faculty and staff are a little bit different, because we don't have an external collection agency for them anymore. 184 00:25:54.500 --> 00:26:01.900 Thomas Trutt: I believe if a faculty or staff member returns something back goes to our business services office, they may have a one-year kind of limit on it. 185 00:26:03.820 --> 00:26:10.510 Thomas Trutt: But it does sound like this would be used by other institutions, and so it would… would you… 186 00:26:11.280 --> 00:26:23.040 Thomas Trutt: more apt to have a… it sounds like it's also more that you have a specific time frame. Like, it's 365 days, or 2 weeks, or 6 months from the time the credit was issued. 187 00:26:23.160 --> 00:26:30.770 Thomas Trutt: to when they can collect it, and not a set date. Does that sound… Correct. 188 00:26:34.570 --> 00:26:42.189 David Bottorff (UChicago): Probably… I… I also wonder, and again, this is getting into… I mean, this is… I'm… you're giving me PTSD flashbacks of the… 189 00:26:42.650 --> 00:26:46.870 David Bottorff (UChicago): fee-fine conversations in LA, but, like, 190 00:26:49.530 --> 00:26:57.030 David Bottorff (UChicago): For that kind of thing, should the credit continue to be open, or should there be a mechanism that essentially… 191 00:26:57.420 --> 00:27:02.300 David Bottorff (UChicago): Closes, like, resolves the credit, not as a refund, but as a… 192 00:27:03.100 --> 00:27:09.129 David Bottorff (UChicago): There is no credit anymore because the credit has reached the time frame at which point 193 00:27:10.220 --> 00:27:18.640 David Bottorff (UChicago): Right? Like, you wouldn't want to be opening the person's account and see a $150 credit in perpetuity. 194 00:27:18.840 --> 00:27:19.540 Thomas Trutt: Right. 195 00:27:19.540 --> 00:27:22.490 David Bottorff (UChicago): And yeah, like, we do have a credit agency, but again, it's like… 196 00:27:22.710 --> 00:27:27.459 David Bottorff (UChicago): We want the book back, so we're… we're not… we're not going after people who… 197 00:27:28.930 --> 00:27:37.149 David Bottorff (UChicago): I mean, if they've already paid, no one's going to get tracked down, because it's resolved. It's the people who still have our stuff, and then… 198 00:27:38.140 --> 00:27:41.130 David Bottorff (UChicago): that's all moot anyway, right? Right. 199 00:27:43.610 --> 00:27:44.610 Thomas Trutt: Agreed. 200 00:27:44.750 --> 00:27:48.510 Thomas Trutt: I think to stick to. 201 00:27:48.510 --> 00:27:49.120 David Bottorff (UChicago): Nope. 202 00:27:50.360 --> 00:27:51.740 David Bottorff (UChicago): That was not what I meant. 203 00:27:52.110 --> 00:27:53.290 Thomas Trutt: Oh, okay. 204 00:27:53.340 --> 00:27:55.759 David Bottorff (UChicago): Was not laughing at all, it was thumbs up. 205 00:27:56.510 --> 00:28:10.720 Thomas Trutt: Oh, okay. That's okay. I think to stick to… I want to try anything that we do from here, moving out, is to try to ensure that the fee-fine records stick to 206 00:28:10.860 --> 00:28:16.169 Thomas Trutt: At least some resemblance of an actual accounting record. 207 00:28:16.660 --> 00:28:28.530 Thomas Trutt: And from my very… my one year, which was a half year… which ended up being a half-year college course in accounting, I do remember there is a specific way that you can write, open… 208 00:28:29.270 --> 00:28:44.820 Thomas Trutt: are write-off open accounts where money is owed to an outside organization. Because I remember the example coming up was gift cards. Like, gift cards are good for 365 days, how do you write this off? And the account was closed using a specific, 209 00:28:44.990 --> 00:29:00.669 Thomas Trutt: terminology… use specific terminology. I think that's where we would have to go with this as well, is that any… if we do decide to go down this route where credits can only be held by… for a specific time frame, once it hits that time frame, an automated process would 210 00:29:00.700 --> 00:29:09.240 Thomas Trutt: close the credit with something, I'm just gonna throw a term out, like, Credit absorbed by institution. 211 00:29:09.480 --> 00:29:11.109 Thomas Trutt: Or something of that nature. Yes, David? 212 00:29:11.570 --> 00:29:13.979 David Bottorff (UChicago): No, that makes sense. I was just making sure that we're not… 213 00:29:14.210 --> 00:29:21.989 David Bottorff (UChicago): always assuming that there is an outside entity, because we don't all have outside entities. Some of us don't, thank God, have to deal with bursar transfers. 214 00:29:22.300 --> 00:29:23.170 Thomas Trutt: Well, in… 215 00:29:23.170 --> 00:29:26.620 David Bottorff (UChicago): All of these conversations just make me so glad that we don't do that. 216 00:29:27.040 --> 00:29:32.380 Thomas Trutt: Well, when I'm saying outside entity, I'm thinking more of, 217 00:29:32.830 --> 00:29:57.620 Thomas Trutt: it's an account payable to somebody else, so in this case, the outside entity would be actually the user. So the money is owed to the user, they don't collect it, or they don't get it within a year, so therefore, it's absorbed by the institution as additional profit. And I always hated that, because then you have to add it to another line item somewhere else as profit, as some sort of weird profit, and then it throws off the balance sheet, and I was always off by 5 cents, and it drove it. 218 00:29:57.620 --> 00:29:58.170 Thomas Trutt: nuts. 219 00:30:01.800 --> 00:30:14.109 Thomas Trutt: But anyways, we weren't allowed to use accounting software or spreadsheets either. We had to do everything manually, which was evil. Of course, I went to school back in the… this was back in high school, back in the dark ages when I did that. 220 00:30:15.680 --> 00:30:29.510 Thomas Trutt: I mean, theoretically, if you have an office that's taking care of this, my guess is that these would be closed out anyways before that one year, because you'd be just writing checks and sending them out on a regular basis, but… 221 00:30:30.610 --> 00:30:36.060 Thomas Trutt: Let's see, what else is there around credits? Is there any other… 222 00:30:37.760 --> 00:30:47.790 Thomas Trutt: Concerns, workflows, are questions people have around credits and… Refunds to patrons. 223 00:30:49.820 --> 00:30:54.240 Thomas Trutt: I'm trying to think of any other… Deviations in this and that. 224 00:31:03.160 --> 00:31:04.319 Thomas Trutt: I guess, David. 225 00:31:04.320 --> 00:31:09.400 David Bottorff (UChicago): I mean, the only thing that I can think of with all of this is, like, is just the… 226 00:31:09.660 --> 00:31:16.959 David Bottorff (UChicago): the hill I always die on for everything, which is, like, you need to have someone with the right level of permissions to, like, override or reverse 227 00:31:17.260 --> 00:31:23.820 David Bottorff (UChicago): any kind of automated action. So, like, if you do have something where, like, a credit is getting closed out after a year, and then you… 228 00:31:23.930 --> 00:31:33.969 David Bottorff (UChicago): have the right person complain about a thing, you need some way of being able to go back and account for. No, we actually are going to issue that refund after all, even though it's… 229 00:31:34.140 --> 00:31:44.100 David Bottorff (UChicago): Day 366. You could do that as just a manual process, but, like, right now you can create a manual fee, but you obviously can't create a manual 230 00:31:44.560 --> 00:31:45.510 David Bottorff (UChicago): Credit. 231 00:31:45.760 --> 00:31:50.680 David Bottorff (UChicago): Just whatever, you know. 232 00:31:51.110 --> 00:31:55.629 David Bottorff (UChicago): Just bear… keeping all that in mind so that you don't end up in any kind of system where… 233 00:31:56.200 --> 00:32:06.109 David Bottorff (UChicago): This is the… this is the rule, and no one, no matter what godlike powers they have been granted by the library, can reverse it, because it's just baked in. 234 00:32:10.260 --> 00:32:11.459 Thomas Trutt: That's a good point. 235 00:32:11.810 --> 00:32:20.379 Thomas Trutt: And Scott, since you're in an ECS environment, I have… and actually, also, no, five colleges, you're not in ECS, correct? 236 00:32:20.770 --> 00:32:22.230 Thomas Trutt: His grace, yes. 237 00:32:22.400 --> 00:32:23.830 Scott Peterson: We're ECS, yes. 238 00:32:24.430 --> 00:32:34.430 Thomas Trutt: Do you think that any of these credits or refunds would be processed centrally, or would they be taken care of by the individual data tenants? 239 00:32:34.640 --> 00:32:41.460 Scott Peterson: individual data tents, they all function separately, and they all have everything going through either their bursar or the library directly. 240 00:32:43.100 --> 00:32:47.389 Thomas Trutt: That makes life a lot easier. Thanks. 241 00:32:49.380 --> 00:32:50.789 Scott Peterson: You know, simple is good. 242 00:32:51.230 --> 00:32:52.560 Thomas Trutt: Yeah, I know. 243 00:32:52.680 --> 00:32:56.690 Thomas Trutt: I mean, I have heard… that… 244 00:32:56.830 --> 00:33:02.890 Thomas Trutt: some ECS… or potential ECS environments were interested in central fee fine processing. 245 00:33:03.380 --> 00:33:09.359 Thomas Trutt: which could work… possibly work, but I think it would be very tricky, 246 00:33:10.300 --> 00:33:14.570 Thomas Trutt: But yeah, okie dokie, what else was there? 247 00:33:15.210 --> 00:33:23.560 Thomas Trutt: So, as I said, the two interfaces I had here, I had one which was a unlocked one, which had the instance title and had access to 248 00:33:23.670 --> 00:33:43.509 Thomas Trutt: the loan details, and then a locked one, which would be someone that would not have access to the loan data, and it would just show the actual credit information. From there, they could say, transfer or refund the credit, and in this case, transfer credit is paying another account with it. 249 00:33:46.250 --> 00:33:48.850 Thomas Trutt: Well, if there's no other questions with that… 250 00:33:49.280 --> 00:33:59.970 Thomas Trutt: We can move on to another one, which there's a setting in Fees and Fines, but has never been used. It is another interface for replacement with copy. 251 00:34:00.490 --> 00:34:13.279 Thomas Trutt: I know that we have in the fine settings that if you do a… that there is an option that if you say something is replacing with a copy, that it allows you to charge a processing fee. 252 00:34:13.600 --> 00:34:29.820 Thomas Trutt: I was extending on that, and actually making a replacement with copy interface, and allowing… again, this was kind of like the credit interface, where you could potentially… well, no, actually, you would need… never mind, I strike that. You would need to know what the, 253 00:34:30.260 --> 00:34:34.710 Thomas Trutt: Loan information is, but you might not actually need to know what the fee fine information is. 254 00:34:37.679 --> 00:34:48.380 Thomas Trutt: My question is, I guess, is how many people are allowing replacement copies, and who normally takes care of that? Is that your billing coordinator, or is it somebody in LTS? 255 00:34:56.130 --> 00:34:57.130 Thomas Trutt: Yes, David. 256 00:34:57.139 --> 00:35:05.279 David Bottorff (UChicago): So, for us at circulation staff, in consultation, if it's not clear, I mean, we have sort of guidelines 257 00:35:05.479 --> 00:35:09.349 David Bottorff (UChicago): Where basically, like, oh, does the IS be unmatched? Then yes. 258 00:35:09.659 --> 00:35:17.619 David Bottorff (UChicago): Unless the condition is not good, or… but if it's, like, not an exact match, then we reach out to the selectors for… 259 00:35:18.009 --> 00:35:22.029 David Bottorff (UChicago): Approval, and… I mean… 260 00:35:22.569 --> 00:35:27.039 David Bottorff (UChicago): The payment type that is we're paying for this with a replacement copy has worked fine. 261 00:35:27.419 --> 00:35:36.079 David Bottorff (UChicago): For us, I don't know how much… We would need a separate… Factality at this point. 262 00:35:36.650 --> 00:35:37.370 Thomas Trutt: Okay. 263 00:35:37.980 --> 00:35:46.059 Thomas Trutt: what about everybody else who's doing replacement copies? How are you kind of handling it now? And do you think this is kind of overkill? 264 00:35:50.780 --> 00:35:54.960 Susan Kimball: Ours is similar to David's. I mean, we do accept them, but it's pretty… 265 00:35:55.100 --> 00:36:01.549 Susan Kimball: Casual, and, if we accept it, we just waive the replacement 266 00:36:02.630 --> 00:36:04.520 Susan Kimball: Well, let's see, what do we do? 267 00:36:04.760 --> 00:36:18.150 Susan Kimball: I think we usually… we would check it in, maybe, and mark, and then charge them only… because we don't want the thing on their account, right? We want the loan off, but, then we would charge them just the processing fee. 268 00:36:18.840 --> 00:36:21.620 Susan Kimball: It's a little bit… fudgy. 269 00:36:22.150 --> 00:36:23.030 Susan Kimball: And we just… 270 00:36:23.030 --> 00:36:29.890 David Bottorff (UChicago): Really, we just created a fee type, a payment type. There's cash, credit card, replacement copy. 271 00:36:30.690 --> 00:36:35.810 David Bottorff (UChicago): And then you just pay the fee… With the replacement copy. 272 00:36:36.150 --> 00:36:37.100 David Bottorff (UChicago): payment type. 273 00:36:39.240 --> 00:36:39.830 Susan Kimball: Just… 274 00:36:39.830 --> 00:36:41.270 David Bottorff (UChicago): Made it easy for ourselves. 275 00:36:41.280 --> 00:36:47.430 Susan Kimball: So does that mean… what happens to the loan? I guess it becomes lost and paid. 276 00:36:47.800 --> 00:36:51.530 David Bottorff (UChicago): It becomes lost and paid, which closes the loan and takes it off the patron's account. 277 00:36:51.530 --> 00:36:52.189 Susan Kimball: Yeah, do you… 278 00:36:52.550 --> 00:36:56.780 Susan Kimball: Pay it with the whole… Do you pay the whole amount? 279 00:36:57.240 --> 00:37:00.179 Susan Kimball: Or do you don't charge a processing fee? 280 00:37:00.180 --> 00:37:00.870 David Bottorff (UChicago): Charger Processing. 281 00:37:00.870 --> 00:37:05.319 Susan Kimball: We honestly don't. We say we do, but we often don't. 282 00:37:06.140 --> 00:37:15.710 David Bottorff (UChicago): Our processing fee had gotten so ridiculously high that I think it was… I'm sure it was actually disincentivizing people. 283 00:37:16.050 --> 00:37:22.999 David Bottorff (UChicago): To bring in replacement copies, which is what we actually wanted. And instead they were, like. 284 00:37:24.110 --> 00:37:36.669 David Bottorff (UChicago): fighting and claiming to have returned things that they clearly lost, because it was like, oh, you can get this for $10 on Amazon, but we are charging you $35 285 00:37:37.130 --> 00:37:41.229 David Bottorff (UChicago): as a processing fee for the privilege of giving it to us, and I… 286 00:37:42.370 --> 00:37:46.720 David Bottorff (UChicago): convince the higher powers to eliminate it, and it has, I think. 287 00:37:47.440 --> 00:38:05.149 David Bottorff (UChicago): getting more replacement copies. So yeah, we just… but you can also, like, do that in folio by having a separate processing fee that is charged at the moment of aging or being billed as lost, because that's the other thing, is sometimes somebody loses something, and it hasn't aged loss in the system, so you just have to bill it 288 00:38:05.300 --> 00:38:13.300 David Bottorff (UChicago): you have to declare it lost to create the bill, and then you close it out. So if you just… if you just keep those two bills separate. 289 00:38:13.480 --> 00:38:18.070 David Bottorff (UChicago): Then you don't have to worry about doing partials and things like that. 290 00:38:19.380 --> 00:38:24.280 David Bottorff (UChicago): That's why I just, yeah, the… just creating the replacement copy… 291 00:38:24.540 --> 00:38:32.799 David Bottorff (UChicago): Payment type, which you could just do in 5 seconds of the… in the settings, was our workaround, and it has worked great. 292 00:38:33.660 --> 00:38:36.869 Thomas Trutt: Do you run into any issues with… 293 00:38:38.160 --> 00:38:51.700 Thomas Trutt: Somebody's… somebody has something that ages to loss, they give you a replacement copy, so then you pay that fee fine as, fully paid with the replacement copy, and then later return the original item. 294 00:38:53.420 --> 00:38:57.440 David Bottorff (UChicago): I mean, it depends on what you mean by a problem. 295 00:38:57.660 --> 00:39:03.840 David Bottorff (UChicago): The system… right, the… I don't… I don't see it as a problem. The system is not going to flag… 296 00:39:04.400 --> 00:39:13.190 David Bottorff (UChicago): I mean, I guess the system would say, hey, this thing is lost and paid, so, if you're trying to return it, and that would let somebody… that would let a staff member… 297 00:39:13.790 --> 00:39:15.079 David Bottorff (UChicago): Look into it. 298 00:39:16.070 --> 00:39:16.630 Thomas Trutt: Right. 299 00:39:17.010 --> 00:39:25.560 David Bottorff (UChicago): Which is fine. I consider it, honestly, the patron's responsibility if they lost something, paid for it, and they… and then… 300 00:39:25.670 --> 00:39:34.639 David Bottorff (UChicago): found it to tell us if there's something we need to do for them. I don't… I don't feel like I need the system to be telling me 301 00:39:35.290 --> 00:39:41.819 David Bottorff (UChicago): oh, hey, this is… was paid, or this had a replacement copy, or this had this other thing. It happens, frankly, so rarely. 302 00:39:42.010 --> 00:39:46.170 David Bottorff (UChicago): That, it's easy enough to tell within the bill history 303 00:39:46.330 --> 00:39:52.479 David Bottorff (UChicago): like, what the situation is. And then we have a separate policy that I didn't copy over, where it's like, if you… 304 00:39:52.590 --> 00:39:58.919 David Bottorff (UChicago): You know, provided a replacement copy, and you find the book within a year, we'll give you, like. 305 00:39:59.660 --> 00:40:02.740 David Bottorff (UChicago): Whichever copy we decide. 306 00:40:03.590 --> 00:40:05.190 Thomas Trutt: Right? 307 00:40:05.190 --> 00:40:07.140 David Bottorff (UChicago): Well, like, if you find the original. 308 00:40:07.420 --> 00:40:12.300 David Bottorff (UChicago): Like, 6 months later, then we'll look at the two and decide which one we're gonna give you. 309 00:40:12.720 --> 00:40:13.420 David Bottorff (UChicago): back. 310 00:40:13.770 --> 00:40:14.860 Thomas Trutt: Okay. 311 00:40:14.910 --> 00:40:24.230 David Bottorff (UChicago): For… for whatever reason. It's the same reason we have a policy that is never used, where we're like, it's a $150 lost item fee, we reserve the right to raise that. 312 00:40:26.230 --> 00:40:30.439 David Bottorff (UChicago): If you lost something that was, like, you know, worth 2 grand or something. 313 00:40:30.860 --> 00:40:42.720 Thomas Trutt: Yeah, we do the same thing specifically for textbooks, because a lot of the textbooks are four or five hundred bucks, and they take it out, and they actually get a deal at $150. We've actually had, and this was years ago, because I was actually still in CERC, 314 00:40:42.730 --> 00:40:52.140 Thomas Trutt: A few students that would check out one of the biochemistry… would check out the biochemistry textbooks from the library, pay the $150 lost fee. 315 00:40:52.250 --> 00:41:06.259 Thomas Trutt: and then sell it to the bookstore for 100 bucks after the semester is over as a used book. So, yeah. You gotta give students credit, they think of everything. 316 00:41:06.950 --> 00:41:08.230 Thomas Trutt: Okie dokie. 317 00:41:08.370 --> 00:41:21.530 Thomas Trutt: So, our replacement… our replacement system is a little odd. It's kind of like with everyone else. It is a combination of the billing coordinator, and we have our two billing coordinators. 318 00:41:21.770 --> 00:41:35.829 Thomas Trutt: Yeah, and believe it or not, we only have two billing coordinators for all of Cornell University, which is insane. But it's a combination of our… one of our two billing coordinators with Library Technical Services. And the workflow kind of is, 319 00:41:37.650 --> 00:41:41.779 Thomas Trutt: When an item, when somebody asks to do a replacement copy. 320 00:41:41.950 --> 00:41:51.320 Thomas Trutt: it's accepted by the billing coordinator who does an initial check, but then it has to go to LTS for final verification, and if they do not agree. 321 00:41:51.670 --> 00:41:58.239 Thomas Trutt: on the copy, then it is declined, flat out. They also, we don't have a flat… 322 00:41:59.700 --> 00:42:02.520 Thomas Trutt: We don't have a flat replacement. 323 00:42:02.890 --> 00:42:11.050 Thomas Trutt: fee, we have kind of a floating fee, and it's whatever Library Technical Services tells us. So, for instance, if it's just a standard 324 00:42:11.300 --> 00:42:27.429 Thomas Trutt: regularly bound book, we don't charge a replacement fee, usually, our processing fee. But if it's something that needs to be sent out for stiffening, or something of that nature, then we might charge them $25, $30, and we won't know that until it actually goes to LTS. 325 00:42:27.620 --> 00:42:41.649 Thomas Trutt: So our referral is slightly different. But it sounds like this functionality would be fairly low priority, at least for the people in this group, if not really needed at all. 326 00:42:43.270 --> 00:42:47.059 Susan Kimball: Yeah, it sounds like the only workflow we don't really have… 327 00:42:47.170 --> 00:42:57.909 Susan Kimball: I mean, your workflow, there certainly isn't anything now, but David's works because they waived the whole thing. Like, if you wanted to keep the processing fee, there isn't… 328 00:42:58.240 --> 00:43:00.830 Susan Kimball: Really a mechanism to do that. 329 00:43:01.040 --> 00:43:02.100 Susan Kimball: Easily. 330 00:43:02.640 --> 00:43:03.869 David Bottorff (UChicago): No, I think there would be. 331 00:43:04.720 --> 00:43:10.679 Susan Kimball: But how would you keep it on the… like, if you don't… Pay the entire amount. 332 00:43:11.280 --> 00:43:11.630 Thomas Trutt: I'm gonna… 333 00:43:11.630 --> 00:43:12.919 Susan Kimball: Close the loan. 334 00:43:13.170 --> 00:43:15.550 Susan Kimball: The loan is gonna stay on their account, right? 335 00:43:15.550 --> 00:43:20.010 David Bottorff (UChicago): Oh, is that how the processing fee works? The processing fee keeps the loan open? 336 00:43:20.870 --> 00:43:21.910 Susan Kimball: Well, ours is our… 337 00:43:21.910 --> 00:43:23.029 David Bottorff (UChicago): I mean, that makes sense, I don't know. 338 00:43:23.030 --> 00:43:23.730 Susan Kimball: I only have one. 339 00:43:23.730 --> 00:43:24.210 David Bottorff (UChicago): You know… 340 00:43:24.210 --> 00:43:24.830 Susan Kimball: So… 341 00:43:25.340 --> 00:43:37.130 Thomas Trutt: I think… I think you could waive the lost fee, and then just pay the processing fee. So if you had a processing fee of $50, then a lost fee of $150, you could waive the $150 fee. 342 00:43:37.130 --> 00:43:45.790 Thomas Trutt: and then pay the $50 processing fee with, like, what David is doing with the replacement copy, and that should allow the loan to close out. 343 00:43:46.040 --> 00:43:49.850 Susan Kimball: Right, but I'm saying if you want to charge the processing fee. 344 00:43:50.080 --> 00:43:54.959 Susan Kimball: you would have to wait for the user to pay it, or… right? 345 00:43:54.960 --> 00:43:56.540 David Bottorff (UChicago): Is that not what you would… 346 00:43:57.080 --> 00:44:04.459 David Bottorff (UChicago): Well, I mean, I guess part of this is… I mean, first of all, I don't know, because we don't have the separate fee, so I don't know what happens to the actual loan, but… 347 00:44:05.630 --> 00:44:18.530 David Bottorff (UChicago): so I don't know if the processing fee is treated more like an overdue fine, or more like the lost item fee. Like, I don't know, can you have… and that would be a question that we could answer is, can you have an open 348 00:44:18.830 --> 00:44:24.780 David Bottorff (UChicago): processing fee… but the loan itself is closed. Like, does paying a lost item fee… 349 00:44:25.290 --> 00:44:30.090 David Bottorff (UChicago): close the loan, but the processing fee is left, because it's a processing fee, it's not… 350 00:44:31.250 --> 00:44:36.930 David Bottorff (UChicago): for the thing. So if you had those two, but then the other sort of philosophical question would be. 351 00:44:37.120 --> 00:44:42.630 David Bottorff (UChicago): Well, do you want the loan to be closed? Because they haven't actually paid the processing fee, so they do still need to… 352 00:44:43.350 --> 00:44:45.040 David Bottorff (UChicago): To do that, right? 353 00:44:46.930 --> 00:44:47.859 Susan Kimball: Yeah, it's common. 354 00:44:47.860 --> 00:44:49.620 David Bottorff (UChicago): And I just don't… I don't know… 355 00:44:50.650 --> 00:45:00.920 David Bottorff (UChicago): Yeah. So, like, I mean, from a technical perspective, you absolutely could pay the lost item fee with a replacement copy payment type, and the processing fee would remain. 356 00:45:01.220 --> 00:45:06.300 David Bottorff (UChicago): I think the part that we don't know is… and then blocks would be based on… 357 00:45:06.530 --> 00:45:08.189 David Bottorff (UChicago): Either a law, you know. 358 00:45:10.100 --> 00:45:15.750 David Bottorff (UChicago): I guess the question is, yeah, what happens to that… to that item? Does… if you pay a lost item fee. 359 00:45:16.070 --> 00:45:18.370 David Bottorff (UChicago): But not the processing fee. 360 00:45:20.220 --> 00:45:22.869 David Bottorff (UChicago): Somebody's gotta go in and test… test that, I think. 361 00:45:23.650 --> 00:45:34.030 Thomas Trutt: Well, and actually, yeah, I agree, so it needs to be tested, but I would also then pose the question as how would people want it to work? So, one of the… one of the ideas is… 362 00:45:34.280 --> 00:45:38.899 Thomas Trutt: to, I want to say simplify, but combine 363 00:45:38.980 --> 00:45:57.779 Thomas Trutt: Right… right now, the… right now, they're two separate transactions. So, you have… when an item is marked as lost in the system automatically or manually, there is the lost replacement fee that is… that is… can be assessed, there is a overdue fine that can be assessed, and then there's a processing fee that can be assessed. 364 00:45:57.780 --> 00:45:59.980 Thomas Trutt: So, theoretically, if you have 365 00:46:00.130 --> 00:46:13.049 Thomas Trutt: policy set up for all 3 of those. On a single loan, you have 3 fee fine accounts that are generated for that user. Oddly enough, I don't know why it's called an account and folio, but you have 3 separate accounts. 366 00:46:13.050 --> 00:46:21.090 Thomas Trutt: My inclination is to get rid of the three separate accounts, and that you have one account that represents all the fees. 367 00:46:21.130 --> 00:46:23.740 Thomas Trutt: And transactions for that loan. 368 00:46:24.010 --> 00:46:26.760 Thomas Trutt: So, instead of having 3 separate… 369 00:46:27.150 --> 00:46:33.560 Thomas Trutt: Bills, you have one bill that's representative of everything around that item, or that loan. 370 00:46:36.180 --> 00:46:45.310 Thomas Trutt: Would you expect that if somebody, like the scenario that we were talking about with replacement copies, if somebody gives you a replacement copy, but they still owe 371 00:46:45.620 --> 00:46:51.650 Thomas Trutt: the… An overdue fine, or a processing fee. 372 00:46:53.600 --> 00:46:59.090 Thomas Trutt: Would you expect the loan to still remain open? 373 00:47:00.160 --> 00:47:02.060 Thomas Trutt: Or would you expect the loan to close? 374 00:47:08.310 --> 00:47:09.579 Thomas Trutt: That's correct, David. 375 00:47:10.190 --> 00:47:18.479 David Bottorff (UChicago): I don't know that I would have an… I mean, I think that might vary by institution, but I'm just looking at the lost item fee policy page. 376 00:47:18.610 --> 00:47:21.830 David Bottorff (UChicago): And… I'm pretty sure the loan gets close. 377 00:47:22.120 --> 00:47:24.349 David Bottorff (UChicago): Because, 378 00:47:25.460 --> 00:47:31.870 David Bottorff (UChicago): It's got settings like if lost item returned or renewed, removed lost item, processing fee, yes or no. 379 00:47:32.020 --> 00:47:38.079 David Bottorff (UChicago): If lost item replaced, remove lost item processing fee, yes or no. 380 00:47:38.280 --> 00:47:46.289 David Bottorff (UChicago): Replacement processing fee, Which is different from the lost item processing fee. 381 00:47:46.810 --> 00:47:58.830 David Bottorff (UChicago): And a no-fee fines shall be refunded if a lost item is returned more than blank. So, like, some of this is, like, there were places put into this to tie in functionality that doesn't exist. So… 382 00:47:58.830 --> 00:47:59.440 Thomas Trutt: Yes, yes. 383 00:47:59.440 --> 00:48:01.329 David Bottorff (UChicago): One thing would be… 384 00:48:01.580 --> 00:48:08.209 David Bottorff (UChicago): There is a place for a replacement. There was a concept of a replacement processing fee. 385 00:48:08.440 --> 00:48:21.020 David Bottorff (UChicago): That was separate from and different from a lost item processing fee, right? The lost item processing fee was a sort of… you have inconvenienced us, and we are charging you $5 because you were a bad person. 386 00:48:21.270 --> 00:48:28.619 David Bottorff (UChicago): And we are judging you. And the replacement processing fee is, you have created work for us, and we are charging you for our labor. 387 00:48:28.960 --> 00:48:30.679 David Bottorff (UChicago): To process this thing. 388 00:48:30.990 --> 00:48:37.499 David Bottorff (UChicago): I don't know if the… I don't think the replacement processing fee actually, like, does anything. 389 00:48:37.650 --> 00:48:42.770 David Bottorff (UChicago): Like, I think you could put… I think you could put that amount in the… in the lost item fee policy, and I don't think it… 390 00:48:43.130 --> 00:48:50.570 David Bottorff (UChicago): Because there is no… Mechanism of… Processing a replacement copy. 391 00:48:51.100 --> 00:48:57.530 David Bottorff (UChicago): Therefore, there is no trigger for a replacement processing fee to be created. 392 00:48:58.180 --> 00:49:01.050 Thomas Trutt: I want to save… 393 00:49:01.050 --> 00:49:06.800 David Bottorff (UChicago): I was just gonna say, but in Susan's example, then, if you did have that, that would be the way you would do it, right? You would… 394 00:49:06.950 --> 00:49:10.029 David Bottorff (UChicago): You would potentially select… you would… 395 00:49:10.340 --> 00:49:20.020 David Bottorff (UChicago): pay for the lost item fee and the lost item processing fee with the replacement copy. It would close the loan, and then you would create 396 00:49:20.160 --> 00:49:23.349 David Bottorff (UChicago): A replacement processing fee as part of that. 397 00:49:25.220 --> 00:49:30.509 David Bottorff (UChicago): Transaction, but that would require building up an actual 398 00:49:32.120 --> 00:49:39.490 David Bottorff (UChicago): Replacement copy trigger that's different than just me typing in the word replacement copy instead of credit card. 399 00:49:40.260 --> 00:49:41.580 Thomas Trutt: Right, right. 400 00:49:42.010 --> 00:49:44.990 Thomas Trutt: I thought I saw somewhere… 401 00:49:48.700 --> 00:49:50.890 Thomas Trutt: Maybe not. I'm hallucinating. 402 00:49:52.530 --> 00:50:05.660 Thomas Trutt: I'd like to blame it on something else other than my brain being the way it is, but, I thought I saw somewhere that there was an option to say, replace item, or replace copy on the loan record, or on the fee fine, but there isn't. 403 00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:10.129 Thomas Trutt: So you're right, that, that, that's just basically… 404 00:50:10.580 --> 00:50:13.940 Thomas Trutt: That field in there does absolutely nothing. 405 00:50:18.300 --> 00:50:24.929 Susan Kimball: Yeah, I think all of those were placeholders, like, do you accept a replacement copy? Like, that was for future development, so… 406 00:50:24.930 --> 00:50:25.650 Thomas Trutt: Yeah. 407 00:50:25.650 --> 00:50:31.169 Susan Kimball: I think it's… It's there if we decide to develop it. 408 00:50:31.350 --> 00:50:33.030 Thomas Trutt: Exactly, I get it, yeah. 409 00:50:33.030 --> 00:50:35.230 David Bottorff (UChicago): Should, should be grayed out. 410 00:50:35.230 --> 00:50:51.609 Thomas Trutt: Yeah, yeah. And actually, that is on my list of revamping that policy, is either removing those or graying them out and making them inactive, since they don't do anything. As well as rearranging some of the things. I guess it… I kind of go back to my original question, though, is that… 411 00:50:51.650 --> 00:51:03.450 Thomas Trutt: If you have somebody that… if the fee fines are based on a single loan, and you have somebody that has a $150 overdue or lost fine, and a $50 replacement fine. 412 00:51:04.010 --> 00:51:05.319 Thomas Trutt: A replacement fee. 413 00:51:05.770 --> 00:51:09.320 Thomas Trutt: And they pay the $150, but don't pay the $50. 414 00:51:09.500 --> 00:51:23.279 Thomas Trutt: should the loan be closed, or should it still be open? And the ramifications of that would be, if the loan is still considered open, then it would count against their lost items count. 415 00:51:30.320 --> 00:51:38.260 Thomas Trutt: Yes, Katie, and then I saw David unmuted, so… You're still muted, Katie. 416 00:51:42.110 --> 00:51:45.089 Katie Rahman: This cannot ever find my little arrow. Okay. 417 00:51:45.310 --> 00:51:47.170 Thomas Trutt: It's okay. 418 00:51:47.360 --> 00:51:54.119 Katie Rahman: I have windows right in front of me, so, like, just glaring. If they return the item. 419 00:51:54.460 --> 00:51:59.849 Katie Rahman: or pay for the item, but do not pay the processing fee, I would expect it to close. 420 00:52:00.280 --> 00:52:04.250 Katie Rahman: And that processing fee remain. I don't think you need to pay 421 00:52:04.970 --> 00:52:12.340 Katie Rahman: both, because that's just kind of, like David was saying, a labor charge, so I… I would expect the loan to close. 422 00:52:13.700 --> 00:52:16.639 Thomas Trutt: Would you feel the same, with an overdue fee? 423 00:52:20.980 --> 00:52:26.709 David Bottorff (UChicago): Yeah, and that's exactly… I mean, overdue fees are only charged when the loan is closed. That's exactly how I would. 424 00:52:26.710 --> 00:52:27.350 Katie Rahman: Yeah. 425 00:52:27.570 --> 00:52:32.140 David Bottorff (UChicago): And you can block somebody because of the amount of money they owe. 426 00:52:32.530 --> 00:52:33.310 Thomas Trutt: Correct. 427 00:52:33.310 --> 00:52:38.670 David Bottorff (UChicago): Which we do, right? Like, we block people at $50, and we block them if they have a lost item. 428 00:52:38.860 --> 00:52:40.190 David Bottorff (UChicago): So, if… 429 00:52:40.580 --> 00:52:50.400 David Bottorff (UChicago): they returned the item, or paid for the item, then the loan is closed, because they have paid for it. Any processing fees would simply add towards… 430 00:52:51.030 --> 00:52:55.339 David Bottorff (UChicago): blocking their account for other reasons, I would consider the loan resolved. 431 00:52:56.330 --> 00:53:01.490 David Bottorff (UChicago): Which I think was… I think, Susan, was that your point, was that you were afraid that the loan would not be resolved? 432 00:53:02.070 --> 00:53:07.170 Susan Kimball: Exactly, yes. I think if they've… they've replaced the item, 433 00:53:07.310 --> 00:53:17.920 Susan Kimball: then it shouldn't be on there, because the fee fine should hold the loan information for reference. Like, if you need to go back and see why did they get this charge, you could see. 434 00:53:24.960 --> 00:53:29.279 David Bottorff (UChicago): So in that case, like, the lost item processing fee might even be… 435 00:53:29.560 --> 00:53:32.190 David Bottorff (UChicago): usable as a replacement. I get why we… 436 00:53:32.430 --> 00:53:37.759 David Bottorff (UChicago): talk… I mean, whatever, we talked in a lot… we talked about a lot of things. 437 00:53:38.390 --> 00:53:45.000 David Bottorff (UChicago): I understand having a separate lost item and replacement fee, but, processing fees, but… 438 00:53:45.650 --> 00:53:55.300 David Bottorff (UChicago): I would guess, Tom, if you test this, that paying for the… paying the lost item fee will close the loan, and the lost item processing fee will just linger, or not, depending on what the… 439 00:53:56.170 --> 00:53:58.169 David Bottorff (UChicago): Policy set. 440 00:53:58.670 --> 00:54:16.140 Thomas Trutt: I agree. I didn't want to say that, yeah, that's how it works, because I haven't tested it, but I… my recollection is that is how it works, is that if you pay the… and because they're separate accounts, it's easier to track. Because you're paying the lost item fee, that triggers the loan to be closed, and the other 441 00:54:16.140 --> 00:54:26.639 Thomas Trutt: the other processing fee, overdue fees, and all that other stuff, are just additional accounts that are open that happen to be associated with that same item and our loan. They don't actually… 442 00:54:26.750 --> 00:54:37.750 Thomas Trutt: stop the loan from closing. But I was kind of curious, like, what people's thoughts were, if they should kind of remain that way, or if it should still kind of be a blocker for the loan closing. 443 00:54:37.920 --> 00:54:57.920 Thomas Trutt: But it sounds like it should kind of remain that way. And also kind of get back on the replacement copy thing, I think if the functionality that I'm showing on the screen right now with having an actual replacement copy functionality in folio, that allows people to review it in that, I would almost change the replacement copy 444 00:54:58.490 --> 00:55:08.370 Thomas Trutt: Options to be more like the lost copy options, where you either can set a flat replacement copy, or have a to-be-assessed by staff. 445 00:55:08.520 --> 00:55:10.120 Thomas Trutt: Primarily because 446 00:55:10.540 --> 00:55:29.090 Thomas Trutt: I think with the… with the universities that… there's… the universities are doing both. There's ones that might just charge a $10 replacement processing fee, but then there's ones like Cornell that actually will go through and look at how much it's going to cost us to actually, like, stiffen the book, or rebind it, or something of that nature. 447 00:55:29.510 --> 00:55:30.800 Thomas Trutt: Okay, cool. 448 00:55:32.360 --> 00:55:37.809 Thomas Trutt: Really interesting conversation. Thank you, everybody. And we're at 6 minutes, so… 449 00:55:38.090 --> 00:55:44.030 Thomas Trutt: I'm gonna say, everyone go to lunch. If you're in the correct time zone to do so. 450 00:55:44.030 --> 00:55:49.100 Susan Kimball: Or the desk, if your staff has called out sick, so I'm headed to the desk. 451 00:55:49.100 --> 00:55:55.710 Thomas Trutt: This is one thing I like about working from home, is nobody can call me in to work at the Cirque desk. 452 00:55:55.710 --> 00:55:57.840 Susan Kimball: Indeed. 453 00:55:57.840 --> 00:55:58.899 Thomas Trutt: Yes. Thanks. 454 00:55:59.300 --> 00:56:02.160 Thomas Trutt: Thank you, everybody. Take care. 455 00:56:02.160 --> 00:56:04.329 Scott Peterson: Thank you. Have a good day. Bye. Bye.