[Koha-devel] RFC: Modification to Fines System

[Joe Atzberger]

I studied (and ranted) on fines several times previously.  You have the
right idea.  One important thing to realize is that you need a primary key
in accountlines.  There is no way for the table to refer back to itself
without it.

I also think that in the proposed structure, maybe "amountoutstanding"
should go away completely, since the data will be represented by the sum of
the line and any payments against that line.

Ideally, we also create an "accountlines_paid" table where fine lines that
have been paid completely and ALL their associated payment lines are copied
over, such that accountlines only holds unpaid, current fines.  hah.

The main impediment is that these revisions are non-trivial, and legacy data
cannot be reliably "upgraded".  So the restructuring would have to be timed
and coordinated appropriately.

--Joe

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 10:03 AM, Kyle Hall <kyle.m.hall at gmail.com> wrote:

> Here is my problem, and my proposed solution.
>
> One of our libraries is requesting a breakdown of payments by day, by
> account type. That is, they want a report the gives the total amount
> paid for Late Fees, for Damaged Books, and for Lost Books. Apparently,
> they have separate money accounts for each.
>
> In Koha as it stands, there is no direct way to connect a payment to a
> particular accountline that was paid.
>
> The least invasive idea I have is to add a new column to accountlines
> ( say, accountno_paid ) for payments. Each payment would then refer to
> the fine or charge that it was paid against.
>
> The largest difference, is that instead of one large payment that runs
> down the amountoutstanding field for a number of charges, the total
> payment would need to be broken down into a series of smaller
> payments, one for each accountno paid on.
>
> For example, suppose that a borrower has 3 items with and overdue fine
> of $5.00 each, and the borrower is paying in full. The current version
> would create a payment line of $15, and then set the amountoutstanding
> to $0.00 for each of the 3 accountno's. The revamped system would
> still set the  amountoutstanding to $0.00 for each accountno, but
> would create three separate payment lines, one for each of the 3
> accountno's, and the accountno paid on would be stored in
> accountno_paid.
>
> I don't think this would break any existing reports or functionality.
>
> Does this sound like a reasonable solution? Or have I missed something
> that may solve my problem without code?
>
> Thanks,
> Kyle
>
> http://www.kylehall.info
> Information Technology
> Crawford County Federated Library System ( http://www.ccfls.org )
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