Working with Claims

You assign a claim status to an item when Polaris shows that an item is out, but the patron claims that she returned the item (Claim Returned) or never had the item (Claim Never Had). Polaris keeps track of a patron’s current claims and the total number of claims the patron has ever had.

In Polaris Administration, the library sets limits for current and total claims. If a patron exceeds these limits, circulation is blocked for that patron. If you have the appropriate Circulation permission (Patron claims: Reset total claim count: Allow), you can reset a patron’s total claim count so that the patron record is not permanently blocked. See Reset a patron’s total claims count.

A Polaris Administration setting also controls whether fines are charged when an overdue claimed item is checked in or checked out. See Fines for Claimed Items.

If your library includes items that are declared or billed lost but the overdue fine has not yet been charged, and/or claimed items in the estimated overdue fine calculation on checked-out items, you can estimate these from the Patron Status workform - Claims view. The library may also choose to include these estimated fines in the threshold calculation that determines if a patron should be blocked for overdue fines.