Koha Question of the Week: How Do We Pause Overdue Fines?

by Kalleen Marquise on Oct 1, 2021

Each Friday, we will bring you a new Koha Question of the Week. We will select real questions that we receive and share the answers with you!

Question: How Do We Pause Overdue Fines?

When many libraries shut down and paused fines, we did a whole series of blog posts and town halls on how to prepare your library for closure(s). You can see these here:

• Preparing for Library Closures
• Town Hall Preparing for a Library Closure

But, we have seen a couple questions come through about this again recently. Maybe a library is temporarily closed, moving, remodeling, experiencing an emergency situation, or running a holiday fine-free promotion. Whatever the situation is, we are here to help when your usual circulation rules no longer apply.

The most straightforward way is to turn off finesMode by going to Administration > System preferences, and then searching 'finesmode'. (Or, the Fines section under Circulation in System Preferences). If you change it to "Don't calculate", fines will not be charged until you turn it back to "Calculate and charge".

Additional Resources

You may be wondering how to turn everything back on after pauses or closures. Here is more information on preparing for reopening:

• Reopening Your Library: Circulation Rules
• Town Hall Reopening After the Pandemic