Collection Agency Reports
Collection Agency Reports contain information about delinquent patrons, that is, patrons who have unpaid fines and/or overdue books. If your library has acquired the Collection Agency Report product, Sierra enables you to create and send electronic reports on delinquent patrons to a collection agency.
Library staff sets the criteria for these reports in the Collection Agency Settings table. These reports include two basic types:
- New Submissions Report
- This report lists all patron records that:
- meet the criteria specified by the current Collection Agency setting.
- have not previously been included in a Collection Agency Report.
- are not marked for Collection Agency Exclusion.
- Updated Patrons Report
- This report lists all of the patron records that:
- belong to a location and P TYPE specified by the current Collection Agency setting.
- have previously been included in a Collection Agency Report.
- have a different value in their MONEY OWED fixed-length field since the last Updated Patrons Report was prepared.
The following are described below:
Report Elements
The New Submissions Report and the Updated Patrons Report each start with a header line containing the following information:
- Name of the report
- The Sierra version your library uses
- Date the report was generated
The following elements are included in both types of Collection Agency Reports:
| Label | Description |
|---|---|
| PATRON RECORD NUMBER | Patron record number. |
| NAME | The patron's name. Corresponds to the PATRN NAME variable-length field. |
| TELEPHONE | The patron's telephone. Corresponds to the TELEPHONE variable-length field. |
| PTYPE | The patron's patron type. Corresponds to the P TYPE fixed-length field. |
| PATRON HOME LIB | The patron's home library. Corresponds to the HOME LIBR fixed-length field. |
| MONEY OWED | The total money the patron owes. Corresponds to the MONEY OWED fixed-length field. |
| TOTAL ITEM COST | The sum of the item cost of outstanding replacement charges (charges with the type "Replacement"). |
| FIRST FINE DATE | The date of the earliest fine outstanding at the time the New Submissions or Updated Patrons report is sent. If the patron has no fines, this field is blank. |
| <Optional fields> | Any additional fixed- or variable-length fields that your library specified for inclusion in the report. For example, your library might ask Innovative to configure Sierra to include the BIRTH DATE fixed-length field so that the collection agency can avoid contacting juveniles. |
The Updated Patrons Report also includes the following elements:
| Label | Description |
|---|---|
| ITEMIZED CHARGES | An itemized list of the current charges, including for each charge the item number (if the charge is associated with an item), the invoice number, and the amount owed. |
| RETURNED BILLED MATERIAL | The cost of any billed items that the patron has returned since the last report was generated. |
| CHARGES PAID | The sum of all payments made since the last report was generated. |
| CHARGES WAIVED | The sum of all charges that have been waived since the last report was generated. |
| NEW CHARGES | The total amount of new charges added since the last report was generated. |
| SYSTEM REMOVED | The sum of the charges removed from the patron's record when any billed items are returned. The types of charges removed when billed items are returned depend on the setting of the Check-in of billed item. Reduce bill to circulation option. |
| REMOVAL DATE | If the patron record has been removed from the Collection Agency Report, this field includes the date and time that the patron was removed from the Collection Agency Report. Removal dates for excluded patron records are not included on the report. |
Example Reports
Typical New Submissions Report
The following excerpt shows the first entry of a typical New Submissions Report. Note that Sierra has included the BIRTH DATE and ADDRESS fields.
Collection Agency New Submissions Sierra 5.3.0_7 May 20 2021 04:05PM
PATRON RECORD NUMBER: .p1000792
NAME: Behrman, Kenneth
TELEPHONE: 916-555-1212
PTYPE: 40
PATRON HOME LIB: west4
MONEY OWED: $21.00
TOTAL ITEM COST: $15.00
FIRST FINE DATE: 05-05-18 08:53PM
BIRTH DATE: 12/15/65
ADDRESS: 844 North Street,Fremont, CA 94539
Empty New Submissions Report
The following excerpt shows the entirety of an empty New Submissions Report:
Collection Agency New Submissions Sierra 5.3.0_7 May 12 2021 03:55PM
Typical Updated Patrons Report
The excerpt below shows the first two entries of a typical Updated Patrons Report. Note that the second patron has been removed from the report.
Collection Agency Updated Patrons Sierra 5.3.0_7 May 20 2021 04:10PM
PATRON RECORD NUMBER: .p1002315
NAME: Castillo, Jane
TELEPHONE: 510-555-9897
PTYPE: 1
PATRON HOME LIB: mainp
MONEY OWED: $86.05
ITEMIZED CHARGES: .i24928768 inv329367
$20.00,.i1049827@eee33 inv329414 $34.20,
.i1023524@evv1 inv298745 $28.85,inv329429
$3.00
TOTAL ITEM COST: $65.00
FIRST FINE DATE:
RETURNED BILLED MATERIAL: $0.00
CHARGES PAID: $10.00
CHARGES WAIVED: $0.00
NEW CHARGES: $3.00
SYSTEM REMOVED: $0.00
PATRON RECORD NUMBER: .p1000850
NAME: Friedman, Raymond
TELEPHONE: 602-555-1256
PTYPE: 8
PATRON HOME LIB: north
MONEY OWED: $0.00
TOTAL ITEM COST: $0.00
FIRST FINE DATE:
RETURNED BILLED MATERIAL: $30.00
CHARGES PAID: $10.00
CHARGES WAIVED: $0.00
NEW CHARGES: $0.00
SYSTEM REMOVED: $20.00
REMOVED ON 05-20-20 02:10PM
Empty Updated Patrons Report
The following excerpt shows the entirety of an empty Updated Patrons Report:
Collection Agency Updated Patrons Sierra 5.3.0_7 May 12 2021 03:55PM