Monday Minutes: Default Replacement Cost per Item Type

by Kelly McElligott on Feb 14, 2022

In this week's Monday Minutes, Kelly and Jessie talk about setting up a default replacement cost per item type and also the option of adding processing fees.

Item Types

To set up a default replacement cost and processing fee, Item Types lives within the Administration Module.

Within each specific item type that the library has created, both a default replacement price and processing fee can be set up.

There are now two new fields when editing or creating a new item type:

The Default Replacement Cost will be used when a specific item in this item type does not have a replacement cost assigned. Enter a dollar amount in this field. The default replacement cost will be charged to the patron’s account when the item has been changed to lost. (see more details below)

The Processing Fee (when lost) is the amount that will be charged to the patron’s account when this item type is changed to lost. This field is for a dollar amount. On the patron’s account, a separate line item will be added for this processing fee.

System Preferences

Working in conjunction with these new fields in the Item Type set up are two new system preferences.

• UseDefaultReplacementCost: Use/Don’t use the default replacement cost defined in item type.
• ProcessingFeeNote: to set the text that will populate in the column note, table, account lines when the processing fee is applied. (This is a free text box)

Lost Status

There are two ways that both the processing fee and default replacement cost will be charged to the patron’s account.

1. If your library has the “longoverdue.pl” script running on your Koha -which works the system preferences: DefaultLongoverdueChargeValue, DefaultLongOverdueLostValue and DefaultLongOverdueDays
2. When an item’s status is set to “lost”. If your library has the WhenLostChargeReplacementFee set to "Charge".

Patron's Account

Here is what the charges will look like from the Patron's Accounting Tab:

Note: The added lines in the item types: processing free (when lost) and default replacement cost can work separately and do not need both be enabled. Your library can choose to only use the processing fee or the default replacement cost. Also, if you have the system preferences enabled but no dollar amount set up in the item type- the fines/fees won’t be charged.

More Resources

Long Overdue (Lost): How long is long?

Monday Minutes: Lost Values

An Overview of Item Statuses