Chetan,
Great start! I especially like all the examples you detailed on how the
penalty should be applied, super helpful. I've made some edits and added in
some inline comments/notes (Marked in red with a TODO) - I will also call some
out below and I'll also post these comments to the page as well. I've been
looking at it for over an hour, so going to take a break now, let you take a
look and make some edits, then let me know and I'll do another pass.
You can also view my edits by clicking here:
http://mifosforge.jira.com/wiki/pages/diffpages.action?pageId=14909950&originalId=14910007
Although I'll warn you, its in wiki markup.
So, General Comments:
1. I see that you are doing this for loans and savings. It might make sense to
break the savings out as a separate Spec since it operates a bit differently
(maybe the Devs can comment). What do you think? Also, how many MFI's are
asking for this on savings? Might be easier to do loans first and then savings
later.
2. I see the requirements on how to create the penalties are in the Functional
Requirements section - I'm a little worried these are light - where are the
details on the limits for the fields? What errors need to be added? These
might warrant their own Use cases.
3. Some screen mockups would be helpful for this document I think
4. It's very important we stress the difference between fees and penalties in
this product as that affects the order on how payments are applied. Are we
sure this will be ONLY a penalty? (IE, paid before Fees) - You also talk
somewhere about changing the payment order? That's not clear what that entails.
5. I updated Use cases 4.1 and 4.2 - I've been looking at this for awhile, so
taking a break. Look at those and see what you think, I was trying to flesh
out a bit more. I also think you were a bit confused on what the validation
part is for. See if that makes sense and we can alter the rest and add more.
Some Open Questions (for you and the community)
1) Do we want to break out penalties from Fees in the UI? This would be in
the admin page, loan creation, savings creation, etc. For now, I've updated as
it saying Fees/Penalties in the document, but I see here that you list it as a
new section in the Admin page. If we decide to separate it, remove the (Late
Fees) section as Penalties could apply elsewhere and aren't just limited to
late payments. Personally, I'm inclined to keep them together, but that may
create more design/coding issues.
2) Is this for Individual only? Can you apply this to groups? Centers (for
savings accounts) - We may need a lot fleshed out here as well - should be
specific here.
In response to your Questions
1) This would mean re-opening a loan and applying a one time penalty? Or is
this to go back and change records entered in the past? I think the way to do
this would be to add an option on the closed loan page to "Add Penalty", and
after going through the workflow, the loan would be re-activated and the fee
applied. This might be a lot of work - could be some accounting considerations
to think of.
2) I'm not sure I'm clear on this question - but off the top of my head I see
there being two kind of late payment penalties. One is based on the number of
days you are late and the amount that is late, right? So every day I'm late,
it incrementally goes up. The second option I see is that a general penalty is
add whenever I'm late (Missed a payment, get knocked 5, miss another, get
knocked another 5). Does that sound about right?
3) I noted in the document that I don't think you need to get specific about
that - instead you need to detail how you expect this to work and the devs will
figure out if it needs to be a batch job or something else (I believe the
desire is to move away from batch jobs...)
4) Good question - I can see both being useful. Cumulative makes sense,
especially in regards to a maximum penalty. But the limit per penalty
application makes sense too as a lot of organizations have a fee that is stated
as the user either pays X or a percentage of the amount overdue, whichever is
higher. Do we have any feedback from users how they'd like this applied?
Last Comment - One thing to consider and maybe some of the devs can weigh in is
how can we simplify the feature? I only say this as there is a LOT to this,
I'm not sure this will be a simple job based on all the detail I see in the
spec and what more we need to add. May just be quicker to get something
simpler in first (that meets most needed requirements), start getting users to
use that and work on the next version that gets more into the weeds. Just a
thought.
Ryan
On Jan 6, 2012, at 1:08 AM, <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I have come up with a DRAFT version of the FS for this functionality and
> have tried to cover as many scenarios as I can taking into consideration the
> inputs from Mifos 3384 and other general Mifos requirements. Here is the wiki
> link to the FS
>
> http://mifosforge.jira.com/wiki/display/MIFOS/Functional+Spec+Automatic+Application+of+Late+Payments+Penalties
>
> I am sure this will undergo more changes based on feedback from the users.
> Can you please go through the Wiki and let me know if there are changes
> required or if some feature which you as an user wanted but has not been
> addressed ?
> I do have a couple of open issues which I have marked red and also have
> listed below the issues.
>
> 1) How can we adjust Penalties for loans which are closed? ( this
> requirement is being requisitioned by multiple users) . Any pointers
> /workarounds here will be useful.
> 2) Need to review the savings penalty calculations? If two consecutive
> mandatory deposits are missed, do we apply one single penalty or multiple
> penalties?. For loans, we have clear use cases which we can look up to from
> the banking scenario but not sure for savings.
> 3) Batch job for penalty calculations : do we create a new batch job or
> modify one of the existing batch jobs for this ?
> 4) How do we want to handle the minimum and maximum penalties ? Should
> we have a cumulative limit on the penalties or a limit per penalty
> application ? Right now I have added the cumulative case and made the use
> case examples for it.
>
> Kindly review the FS and let me your feedback so that we have comprehensive
> FS for this functionality.
>
> Thanks
> Chetan
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Ed Cable [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Friday, December 30, 2011 11:53 PM
> To: A good place to start for users or folks new to Mifos.
> Subject: [Mifos-users] Functional Requirements for Automated Penalties/Late
> Fees
>
> Mifos Users,
>
> The community is coming together in strong force. One of the oft-requested
> features they are currently tackling is the need for automated late
> fees/penalties.
>
> SolDevelo will be taking on development of this feature for the next major
> release, Release H. Chetan from SunGard Technology Services in India (cc'd on
> this email) is going to be consolidating requirements and drafting a clear
> functional specification.
>
> There are many variations in which the MFIs assess, accrue, and collect
> fees/penalties for being late so we want to build the feature to be as
> comprehensive as possible while minimizing complexity.
>
> Currently inputs are being tracked through this issue -
> http://mifosforge.jira.com/browse/MIFOS-3384. We'll also have a wiki page up
> soon for the functional spec.
>
> Any users who will be using this feature, please share your processes and
> requirements for assessing late penalties by commenting on the issue,
> responding to this thread, or attaching a requirements document to the issue.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ed
>
>
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---------------------------------------
Ryan Whitney
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infrastructure or vast IT resources to deliver seamless, secure access to
virtual desktops. With this all-in-one solution, easily deploy virtual
desktops for less than the cost of PCs and save 60% on VDI infrastructure
costs. Try it free! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Citrix-VDIinabox
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