Assumed Lost Report
| • | Paying Assumed Lost Bills Automatically With Patron Credit Accounts |
| • | Pipe-delimited Output |
The Assumed Lost (Assumedlost) report marks items as ”Assumed Lost” after a certain number of days the item is overdue and changes the item’s location to LOST-ASSUM. This report is used when the item is assumed to be lost, but the library expects to recover the item or receive payment from the user to replace the item. The Assumed Lost report updates the assumed lost item’s last activity date to be the run date of the report. Library policies can be configured so the report will automatically add one or more bills to the user record for the item cost, the item type default replacement cost, and/or the lost item processing fee. This report can create lost item notices to be sent to the user.
If your library uses patron credit accounts, library policies can be set up to automatically pay assumed lost item bills that are created by the report. If the patron credit account has enough funds to pay the bill (and processing fee, if applicable), the report pays the bill and fee immediately. If the patron credit account does not contain enough funds to pay the bill and processing fee, the bill and fee are added to the user record. The Assumed Lost report will generate two groups of notices: one group of assumed lost item notices will include automatic payment information for bills that were paid with funds from the credit account. The other group of assumed lost item notices contains bill information for bills that could not be paid with funds from credit accounts.
If you do not expect to recover materials, use the Process Long Overdue Items Report and its associated processes to manage lost items.
The Assumed Lost report contains the following tabs.
| • | Basic Tab: Reports |
| • | Charge Notice Tab |
| • | Charge Selection Tab |
| • | Item Selection Tab |
| • | Long Overdue Options Tab |
| • | Sorting Tab |
| • | Update Option Tab |
| • | User Selection Tab |
| • | User Status Selection Tab |
| • | Patron Credit Tab |
| • | Print Separate Reports for Each Library Tab |
An item can be automatically marked as ”Assumed Lost” by scheduling the Assumed Lost report to run after a certain number of days the item is overdue. The item remains charged to the patron as an inactive charge, and remains on the patron’s record until the lost item bill is paid or until the item is returned. The item’s location is changed to LOST-ASSUM, which is shadowed so the item will not appear in the public catalog. The item’s last activity date is changed to be the run date of the report.
The report will automatically add a bill to the patron record for the cost of the item, and update the user’s estimated fines. Since the overdue item remains charged to the patron as an inactive charge, the fines will continue to accrue after the report has run until the maximum overdue fine limit is reached. The replacement cost is either the price of the item, or can be derived from the Default Price policy. The Default Price policy sets the default price for an item by item type and library. You may configure the Default Price policy to add a lost item processing fee to the patron’s account, and to automatically remove the processing fee with the lost item bill when the lost item is returned to the library. You can configure this policy to always have the Assumed Lost report use the default replacement cost instead of the price set in the item record. If the default replacement cost is not always used, the report will first check for a price in the item record. If one does not exist, the report uses the value set in the Default Price policy.
On the Charge Selection tab, specify how many days an item must be overdue before it is marked as ”Assumed Lost.” By default, this value is set to select any charges with a date due that falls at least 45 days before the report run date. You may select charges that are for a specific library. By default, the Date Claims Returned field is set to NEVER so items a user claims to have returned are excluded from the report, and assumed lost bills are not created for claims returned items.
On the Sorting tab, you can sort results by user name, user ID, group ID, or zip code.
On Update Option tab, the Update Database Records check box is cleared by default. Run the report first with the Update Database Records check box cleared to determine whether the correct users and fees will be assessed when the report is run with the Update Database Records check box selected.
The report also generates assumed lost item notices for the patrons. The assumed lost item notice provides information about the item that is assumed to be lost, the replacement cost, and the processing fee (if any).
Libraries should typically run this report every week.
If your library will provide refunds to users if material is found after the bill has been paid, you must retain bill information for future refunds. When either the Remove Bills (Rembill) or the Remove Paid Bills (Delpaidbill) report is run, set up the reports to exclude bills with reasons of LOST and PROCESSFEE to keep lost item information in the SirsiDynix Symphony system for you to refund lost item bills at a future date.
Paying Assumed Lost Bills Automatically With Patron Credit Accounts
If your library uses patron credit accounts, and if your library policies are configured to allow the automatic payment of bills from credit accounts, use the Patron Credit tab in the report to specify the payment type and credit reason for the automatic payment of assumed lost item bills.
When the Assumed Lost report runs, it generates an assumed lost item bill and processing fee bill (if applicable) for each assumed lost item for a user. If the user does not have a patron credit account, the bills are added to the user’s record. For users with patron credit accounts, the report verifies that the library of the user running the report has bill maintenance library access for the item’s owning library and has patron credit maintenance library access to the library that created the user’s credit account. If the report user’s library does not have bill maintenance library access and patron credit maintenance library access, the bills are added to user’s record.
For all the bills the Assumed Lost report can pay using the patron credit account, the report pays each lost item bill and associated processing fee in full until all of the bills are paid, or the credit account balance is depleted. Any lost item bills and associated processing fees that cannot be paid in full are added to the user record.
Lost and Process Fee bills that are created and paid by this report will take into account where the billing library is based on the charging library or owning library, depending on how the system is configured. If the system is configured to charge by charging library, then the LOST and PROCESSFEE bills created by the report are also created for the charging library (the charging library is the bill library). If the system is configured to charge by owning library, then the LOST and PROCESSFEE bills created by the report are created for the owning library (the owning library is the bill library.
When the Assumed Lost report runs and automatically pays a LOST or PROCESSFEE bill, the bill payment library will be the same as the bill library.
If the report is set up to generate assumed lost item notices for patrons, the report will generate two groups of notices. For assumed lost items that were automatically paid for using funds from patron credit accounts, the Assumed Lost report generates notices that include information about the item that is assumed to be lost, the replacement cost, the processing fee (if any), the amount paid from the credit account, and the payment type. The other group of assumed lost notices is for any bills that could not be paid by the patron credit account, and include item information, the replacement cost, and the processing fee (if any).
If a user has multiple assumed lost item bills, and the user’s credit account can only pay some of the bills in full, the user will receive two assumed lost item notices from the same run of the Assumed Lost report. One notice will show the assumed lost item bills that were paid automatically with the user’s credit account. The other notice will show the assumed lost item bills that were added to the user record.
For more detailed information about how the Assumed Lost report processes lost item bills and processing fees for automatic payments from a patron credit account, refer to FAQs: Managing Assumed Lost Materials. For information about patron credit accounts, refer to FAQs: Credit User Accounts.
If Generate Pipe Delimited Output is selected on the Charge Notice tab, the report creates a pipe-delimited file and places it in the /Rptprint
directory with the naming convention of yyyymmdd_internalrptname.pipe. The report log lists the pipe-delimited report file name. This pipe-delimited file can be opened using a third-party application, such as a spreadsheet application.
Sorting selections made within the report are not applied to pipe-delimited files. For example, if you sort the report by zip code, the zip code sort is not applied to the contents of the pipe-delimited file.
The entries listed in the Brief Entries attribute of the User Address Format wizards are used to supply information for the address fields in the pipe-delimited file. The City/State field (if it is used) is evaluated as one field, not as two separate fields for the city and the state. The report will check user records for the fields listed in the Brief Entries attribute and print only the populated fields in the pipe-delimited output.
Pipe-delimited Key File
The pipe-delimited key file defines each field of the pipe-delimited file for a particular notice.
The following pipe-delimited key file defines the fields for an assumed lost item notice.
|date|library name|street|line|city, state|zip|user ID|user name|street|line|city,state|zip|group ID|salutation|notice text|title|author|call number|item ID|datedue|price|accrued fine|lost fee|processing fee|
For example, the following is a pipe-delimited key file for an assumed lost item notice, and the notice output that is produced from the file.
|Friday, May 12, 2006|Rockerfeller Public Library|123 Main St.||St Louis, MO|55555|ID:1234|James Patron|1234 Fair Oaks Lane||St Louis, MO|55555|Group ID:|Dear Mr. Patron,| The following Library materials are assumed lost. You are sent the following bills. Thank you. |Adventures of Huckleberry Finn : Tom Sawyer’s comrade / Mark Twain ;;edited by Walter Blair and Victor Fischer.|Twain, Mark, 1835-1910.|PS1305 .A2 B531985|924-1001|4/26/2006,23:59|$25.00|$1.60|$25.00|$5.00|
Friday, May 12, 2006
Rockerfeller Public Library
123 Main St.St Louis, MO55555 ID: 1234
James Patron
1234 Fair Oaks Lane
St Louis, MO
55555 Group ID:
Dear Mr. Patron,
The following Library materials are assumed lost. You are sent the following bills. Thank you.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn : Tom Sawyer’s comrade / Mark Twain ;
edited by Walter Blair and Victor Fischer.
Twain, Mark, 1835-1910.
1 call number:PS1305 .A2 B53 1985 ID:924-1001
due:4/26/2006,23:59 price:$25.00 accrued fine to date:$1.60
Lost item fee:$25.00 processing fee:$5.00
Related topics
FAQs: Managing Assumed Lost Materials