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Alma supports both automatically generated charges and manually added charges.

Automatic fines and fees include:

• Lost Item Replacement Fee

• Lost Item Process Fee

• Recall Overdue Fee

• Overdue Fines (for short loans)

Manual fines, fees, and credits can also be assigned for the above categories, as well as a Damaged Item Fee or a Credit. Manual fines and fees should always be associated with an item barcode.

For each fine or fee, Alma records information including Creation Date, Status (Active, Closed, In Dispute), Status Date, Comment (if added), Fee Owner, Title, Barcode, Original Amount, and Remaining Balance.

Once a fine or fee has been exported to the external Bursar system, it will display as Closed in Alma.

Alma also records details related to the manual Payment of fines and fees; this can be viewed from the Fines and fees tab of the patron record by clicking on the amount hypertext link of Active Balance or Remaining Balance for Closed transactions.

The staff member who registered the payment is recorded, as well as the Transaction Date and Payment Method, and any Comments added at the time of the transaction.

This information can also be generated by a report in Alma Analytics.

The Fines and Fees Report is a downloadable Excel file that includes a report of the fines and fees transactions that have been performed over a 1- to 7-day period.

This report allows you to specify the following filters:

• Received by library – Filters by the library at which the fine/fees were paid. This filter cannot be used for reporting waive actions.

• Received by circulation desk – If a library is specified, filters by the circulation desk at which the fine/fees were paid. This filter cannot be used for reporting waive actions.

• Transaction types – Filters by the type of transaction:

  • Payment and Waive – includes both payments and waivers

  • Payment – includes only payments

  • Waive – includes only waivers

  • Fine owner – Filters by the owner of the fine/fee, which may or may not be the same location where the fine or fee was paid or waived.

Reports can be sent to a specific user or printer.

In addition, by using the Fines and Fees area, the Design Analytics user is able to create customized reports/dashboards for the Fine and Fees area. The user is able to display the following information:

• A list of all a user's cash transactions

• A list of all the open cash transactions by patron group

• A list of users that have fines and fees with their preferred address, phone, and email information

• A list of all the transaction types and amounts per library