FAQs: Managing Assumed Lost Materials

The ”Assumed Lost” (LOST-ASSUM) Location policy, the ”Claims Lost” (LOST-CLAIM) Location policy, and the Default Price policy must be created before the Assumed Lost (Assumedlost) report can be used to mark an item as Lost. For more information about modifying these policies, refer to the FAQs: Defining Missing and Lost Policies topic.

What report can I use to automatically mark items as Lost?

The Assumed Lost (Assumedlost) report can be set up to run periodically and mark items as ”Assumed Lost” after a certain number of days the item is overdue. The item remains charged to the user, and the item’s location is changed to LOST-ASSUM. Your library can configure policies to automatically add a bill to the user record for the cost of the item, or for the item type default replacement cost. A processing fee bill can also be added to the user’s record.

If your library policies are configured to allow automatic payment of bills from a patron credit account, the Assumed Lost report can be set up to pay the lost item bills and processing fees immediately with funds from the patron’s credit account. If the credit account balance is insufficient to pay the entire lost item bill or fees, the report creates the bill and adds it to the user’s record.

The Assumed Lost report can be set up to create a notice to be sent to the user that states the overdue item is assumed to be lost, and the user is being billed to replace the item.

With the new lost item processing, is there any reason to use the Process Long Overdue Items report?

The Process Long Overdue Items report is used for items that you do not expect to be returned. However, we do not recommend that you use this report to process lost items that the library hopes to recover at a later date. There are two reasons for this.

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The Process Long Overdue Items report will charge items to a LOST user and remove the charge link between the patron who originally lost the item.

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The Mark Item Lost wizard uses a different workflow to process lost items. It has been modified so that it does not charge items to a LOST user but retains the link between the patron who lost the item and the lost item itself until the item is found.

You can use the Process Long Overdue Items report to process items that the library does not expect to recover, such as items that are more than 365 days overdue.

How should I set up the Remove Bills report and Remove Paid Bills report so I can keep Lost Item bill information for future manual refunds?

The Remove Bills (Rembill) report and the Remove Paid Bills (Delpaidbill) report should be set up 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.

How do I remove lost items from the collection after the patron has paid the lost item bill?

When the patron pays the lost item bill, the item is removed from the user record, and the item retains the location of LOST-ASSUM or LOST-CLAIM. Run the Set Items to Discard (Setdiscard) report to select the items in these locations and change the current location to DISCARD. Then run the Remove DISCARD Items (Remdiscard) report to permanently remove the items from the collection.

How do I remove lost items from the collection when the patron has not paid the bill?

A lost item cannot be removed as long as the item charge and item bill remain on a user’s record. Do one of the following.

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Run the List Items with Bills (Billitem) report to select items that have unpaid bills with a LOST or PROCESSFEE bill reason. Use the list produced by the report to manually forgive, cancel, or waive the lost item bills. When the lost item bills are forgiven, cancelled, or waived, the item charge associated with the bill is also removed. Run the Set Items to Discard report to select the items in the LOST-CLAIM and LOST-ASSUM locations and change the current location to DISCARD. Then run the Remove DISCARD Items report to permanently remove the items from the collection.

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Run the Process Long Overdue Items (Longoverdue) report to discharge many lost items and remove item bills at one time. The report will create bills that are not linked the lost items and add them to the user records. Run the Set Items to Discard report to select the items in the LOST-CLAIM and LOST-ASSUM locations and change the current location to DISCARD. Then run the Remove DISCARD Items report to permanently remove the items from the collection.

How do I set up the report to pay assumed lost item bills automatically with funds from 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. If the user has a patron credit account, 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, each lost item bill and corresponding processing fee are added together and compared to the balance in the patron credit account. If the total exceeds the credit account balance, the bill and corresponding fee are added to the user’s record. If the total does not exceed the credit account balance, the bill and corresponding fee are stored until every bill and processing fee are evaluated for the user.

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.

When the report finishes sorting out the bills and corresponding fees that could potentially be paid with funds from the patron credit account, the report compares the first bill and corresponding processing fee total for the user to see if it can be paid with funds from the patron credit account. If the lost item bill and processing fee bill can both be paid in full from the credit account, the bills are both paid automatically and the credit account balance is adjusted. The report evaluates each of the remaining bills and corresponding fees and pays those that can be paid in full from the credit account. Any bills and fees that cannot be paid in full from the credit account are added to the user’s record.

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.

Refer to FAQs: Credit User Accounts for the policy and wizard configuration requirements for using patron credit accounts.