An occupant may pay for an entire group of subscriptions with one payment. For example, let’s say Benton College buys free subscriptions for all of its instructors. A single check for 1500.00 from the Dean’s Office might pay for 75 subscriptions. Circulation has the ability to enter and distribute group payments. So, the 1500.00 payment mentioned above can be tracked as a group payment that is split 75 ways. Of course, the payment could also be broken up and entered as 75 individual payments; but the Group Payment feature allows for better tracking and more efficient entry. The procedure for entering group payments is given below.
Note:
Business Rules determine whether all subscribers that have subscriptions billed to the occupant should be listed, or only office pay subscribers who have not made a payment for their last renewal. It also determines whether the payment is initially split evenly among all subscribers (“automatic”), or whether each subscriber begins with a zero amount (“manual”).
Group payments are entered along with regular payments in Batch Payments. Currently, group payments can only be entered in character Circulation (not in the Batch Payments option in Graphical Accounting). Rather than adding the payment by selecting Add, the Group option must be selected from the strip menu. The Group Subscriber Payments screen will display.
Select Add and enter the name, phone number, or subscription ID of the occupant making the group payment (in order to qualify for group payments, this occupant must be the bill-to occupant for at least two subscribers). Then enter the payment amount and other payment information.
The subscriptions billed to this occupant will be listed in the Group Subscriber Payment Distribution screen. Select Modify to enter or change the payment amount for an individual subscriber.
When the entire payment is accounted for, select Accept to accept the group payment and return to the Group Subscriber Payments screen. You can then enter more group payments, or select Accept again to return to the Batch Subscriber Payments screen. Each individual group subscriber will be listed, but marked with a “*GP” to indicate that the payment is part of a group.
Each individual payment will be treated by Circulation as a regular payment, except that users will not be able to cancel individual payments that are part of a group (the whole group payment must be canceled—see Cancel Payment). Group payments entered for a bill-to occupant can be viewed in the Show | Group Payments option in Customer Service.
