Change in looking up fines and how they are processed

From now on, the way fines are viewed will be different. This stays the same: when a student has a fine, they will still have the option to pay here ONLY after they return their item. Please make sure the student will stay around until after you have discharged all their items, so that you can let them know of a possible fine.
 Otherwise, as before, it will be loaded into their Texan bill pay. However, what is different is that instead of it being manually input, it will automatically load into their Texan bill pay every day at 4am and then that fine will in a way disappear from workflow and they will not be blocked by checking out items even without paying their fine. (Please note: that if they have a fine over $5.00 at the time of return, and they do not choose to pay that fine at that moment, they will still be blocked in workflow until the fine is transferred at 4am). If they NEED to check out more items, their only option will be to pay in cash or Texan card, at that moment, or they will just have to wait to check out items the next day.


This is where it gets a little confusing. If someone asks about a fine they have from the past, please get a supervisor first, but, if a supervisor is not available, you can look under their account by going to display user, then click on "Bill", and at the bottom select "Paid". This will bring up the bill that has been automatically put into their Texan bill pay account. Even though it is shown under "Paid", this DOES NOT mean that the student has actually paid it. (If they are uncertain, they will need to check with the business office). It just means that on our end, it has been transferred to their Texan Bill Pay and they then will need to pay online. (At that point, they have no way of paying here).


If they believe they have been billed incorrectly, they are still able to fill out a fine appeal form within 30 days of when they were billed. Hopefully, in the future, we will have automatic emails sent out alerting students of this deadline.


I know this all seems scary at the time, but we believe it will work out just fine since most of the concerns we get about fines are people upset because they were blocked, this will take away most of that problem. And, of course, we will still have people with questions at then end of the semester when they register for classes, because they will still be blocked from that and getting transcripts if they have unpaid fines.


Please refer to the picture below, this is how it will look when you look under "Bills" and "Paid". If you have any questions or would like us to show you this in person, let us know!


Thanks!


Ginger