Cash Credits being created with Description "Payment Change"

• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 17.01

Description:
Some of our users' accounts have a credit amount. The Description on the transaction is "Payment change". There is no Bibliographic information. The credit on the User profile offsets any payments due, up to the amount of the credit.

We would like to identify the cause of the creation of the “Payment Change” (Credit), so we can prevent any further creation of credit to user accounts, and the Users account on which there are credit to be corrected, in order to reflect the true activities of the user.

Resolution:
The "Payment change" text is "1001" in the ./error_eng/pc_cash_c0708 file. The pc_cash_c0708 program calls "get_error_message" with 1001 as the value, when the sum of the payment is greater than the value of the selected transactions.

I find, in the GUI Circ Cash, when I click on "Pay Sum", the "Cash Transaction" screen which pops up has the text "Are you sure you want to pay the library 9.99 US dollars". This amount is equal to the "Sum to Pay" at the bottom of the top panel of the Cash screen. There is no way to pay more than this sum.

When I highlight one or more cash transactions and click on "Pay Selected", the "Cash Transaction" screen which pops up has a "Pay Sum" box with the sum of the selected transactions -- but this amount can be overwritten by the operator.

If this amount is exactly equal to the sum of the transactions, then those transactions are simply marked as Paid.

But when the operator types over this sum with a value which is *more* than the sum of the transactions, not only are the transactions marked as Paid but a new Cash transaction is created with the Description "Payment change", with the difference between the Sum entered and the sum of the highlighted transactions as its Credit amount. There is no bibliographic information because this transaction is *not* linked to any of other specific cash transaction.

In order to prevent these extra "Payment change" transactions, I suggest that you tell operators to *not* use the "Pay Selected" option but instead always use the "Pay Sum" option -- even in the case where multiple transactions are being paid. If all transactions are to be paid, there is no need to use anything but the "Pay Sum" Cash Transaction screen.

In the case where the patron wants to pay some transactions but not others, then the "Pay Selected" screen will need to be used. But as long as the operator never changes the "Pay Sum" amount to a higher value, no "Payment change" transaction will be created.

• Article last edited: 10/8/2013