FISCAL ACCOUNTING AND RECONCILIATION

OF

PROSPECTOR BILLED ITEMS

 

Original:  October 22, 1998

Revised on March 15, 1999

Revised on March 28, 1999

Revised on April 18, 1999

Revised on August 28, 2000

Revised on September 28, 2000

Revised on March 19, 2001

Finalized on March 21, 2001

“Real World” additions made September 10, 2001

 

 

 

PREVIOUSLY DECIDED STANDARDS

● Individual institutions should decide through their financial/auditing offices how to best set up funds to collect monies paid throughout the year for the net pay-outs. 

●If a patron wants to actually replace a lost book:  Arrangement must be made between the billing and owning library for this transaction.  No global policy will be set for this type of specific transaction.  Local staffing levels, workflows and policies may determine what libraries participate in this type of exchange. 

●Prospector considers a book to be lost after no more than 55 days.  Libraries could opt for shorter billing cycles if they prefer to, or to match local billing policies.  

●Local libraries will define the number and frequency of their own notices such that the billing notice is produced by the date established in the Prospector billing policy (or as close as possible taking into account weekends, etc.)

●The claims-return function will be used to sever virtual links in cases when the library is proceeding to replace a long-billed item or when the borrowing institution is assuming responsibility for a non-returned item (i.e. they believe their patron who claims to have returned an item).

 

 

THE ADOPTED RECONCILIATION PROCEDURE*

● Just as a book is considered billed after 55 days, a book will now be considered to be in the reconciliation stage 200 days after it is billed (or 255 days from the due date).

● On the 200th day of the year (this falls around July 17), each institution will create a INSTITUTIONAL OVERDUE ITEM LOCATION LIST with a minimum overdue parameter of 200 days and a maximum parameter of <blank>.  This will begin the reconciliation cycle for the previous calendar year.  The resulting list will be sent to the Alliance where all the lists can be reviewed by the Committee Chair and George Machovec; then copied and redistributed.  These lists will be comprehensively searched in everyone’s stacks.  This process will be given 2 weeks.  Items not found in this search will be paid for.

● Simultaneously, each library will print and share items on their RETURNED TOO LONG reports that are dated in the previous calendar year.  RTL items not found will be paid for.

● Again, simultaneously, each library creates a list of all items in their catalog with CLAIMED RETURNED NOTES for the previous calendar year (see separate procedure).  This list represents the books that other institutions have claimed returned and will be paying you for.  One last search can be performed at this time.

● Lastly, and again simultaneously, each library should prepare a list of DAMAGED ITEMS from the previous calendar year to be included in the reconciliation.  If you have used the best practice of cooperatively resolving the matter of the damaged book between your institution and the other consenting institution, please do not re-include it in this list.

● The Document Delivery Committee Chair meets with George Machovec and sorts through the lists received.  Final product is a chart outlining numbers of items in each of the 4 categories for each of the institutions involved in the reconciliation (i.e. x axis is the institutions, y axis is the 4 lists).  The chart will be put into Microsoft Excel so that each Committee member can review the values for correctness and/or determine if any data is missing that should be included.

● Once verified, the combined 4 lists from each institution is distributed for comprehensive searching.  The searched lists, minus the items found, will be used to determine net pay-outs.  Alliance will recompile the searched information from each institution to determine the net payout calculations (the resulting product will be 4 charts with numbers and dollars indicated).  The 4 charts will then be distilled into one master/net payout chart.  This process will take up to two weeks as well and the Committee chair may assist.  So, by mid-late-August (or into September), all processes involving reconciliation will be complete and the net payout amounts can be distributed to the Deans/Directors for action.

● In order to preserve audit trails, specific books must be identified for the pay-out process.  This way, both paying and receiving libraries will have records of what the monies are attached to.  This will also prevent double payment should the book remain on the institutional overdue list during the next cycle.

 

*Process for adoption of this reconciliation procedure took place over several months of meetings:  September 13, 2000, October 4, 2000, November 15, 2000, January 17, 2001 and February 21, 2001.

 

 

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OLD CONSIDERATIONS:

● At the one year anniversary mark (end of July), CSU reports that patrons were billed for a total of 30 Prospector items.  All were returned except for 3, and these 3 were just billed in late July.  This amounts to $225.00 that CSU potentially owes to other libraries (assuming $0.00 is owed back to us from those libraries) if the reconciliation took place at the end of July.   At the same time, an institutional overdue report was generated showing 8 books overdue 55 days or longer.  Longest overdue was due on 1/18/00.  Thus, other institutions potentially owe CSU $600.00 if the reconciliation took place at the end of July.  Granted this is just one year of data, but are these amounts significant enough to pursue reconciliation in 2001?  Might the committee decide to study for one more year?

●Prior to now, the taskforce/committee has never considered the ramifications of NOT removing long-billed books from patron accounts.  Originally the taskforce designated this a local practice.  For instance, CSU removes billed books from patron accounts after 6 months in the billed-book stage.  Jefferson County may leave a billed book on a patron’s account indefinitely in case that patron moves away and then comes back some time later.  Both of these policies work well in local environments.  However, the latter may be problematic for a lending library.  Keeping a billed Prospector book on someone’s account means that the virtual links are not severed; thus, the lending library will not be able to complete a record deletion should they want to replace or write-off  the long-billed item.