Comment 23 for bug 1198465

I am in total agreement with Kathy’s comments.

Negative balances have been a big problem for our consortium since day one. It is solely because of the negative balance issue that we don’t automatically age circulations to lost. Negative balances are also a huge problem just with the daily overdue fines many of our libraries charge.

I concur that flaws exist in the current voiding logic. Voiding means it never happened - that makes logical sense. But combining “that never happened” with payments doesn’t make logical sense.

If a bill has been paid, partially paid, or forgiven, voiding the entire bill doesn’t make logical sense. This happens frequently, for example, while checking in using Amnesty mode, overdue fines are voided, regardless of whether they are still outstanding, have been paid or have been forgiven.

Voiding bills that have been forgiven does’t make logical sense. This action credits a patron account for money that the patron never paid.

As Kathy pointed out, the current logic does not support partial voiding, and this functionality is essential, especially in high volume libraries where fines accrue daily.

Regarding the suggestion to keep both the current “void” functionality and add the new payment type, I agree that this would add to general confusion with bills and payment types. We already have six payment types in addition to void functionality:

Cash
Check
Credit Card
Patron Credit
Work
Forgive
Goods

Yet another “credit” payment type while still keeping the existing void functionality would likely make dealing with bills harder rather than easier for staff.

I don’t think I’m providing anything new here, but I just wanted to voice my concurrence with Kathy’s comments and try and convey the impact that the current voiding functionality has on our libraries every day, throughout the day, as they are serving their patrons.

Thanks,
Michele