Set up lending terms

Give your check-out desk a short menu of named options — each with its own loan length and fee — instead of one blanket loan period. A term with no length is a community loan: it goes out with no due date, never shows as overdue, and never sends reminders.

Lending terms are set per library by an Org Admin or that library’s Library Owner, under Library settings → Lending terms. If a library has no terms, check-out works exactly as before: the due date pre-fills from the library’s default loan period.

Steps

1. Open Lending terms

Go to your library’s Settings and choose the Lending terms tab.

2. Add a term

Choose Add a lending term and fill in:

• Term name — what staff see in the check-out picker, e.g. “7 days”, “14 days”, or “Community loan”.
• Loan length in days — how long the loan runs. Leave it blank for a community loan (no due date). 0 means due the same day.
• Fee in dollars — what the caregiver pays for this term, e.g. 5.00. Leave it blank for free. The fee is shown at check-out and recorded on the loan — you collect it yourself (cash, Venmo, check); no payment happens in the app.

A library can hold up to 10 active terms. Term names must be unique among active terms.

3. Use them at check-out

Once a library has terms, the check-out flow asks staff to pick a term. Picking one pre-fills the due date (staff can still adjust it — say, to your next meetup) and shows the fee. Picking a community-loan term clears the due date entirely.

What was picked — the term’s name and fee — is kept on the loan forever, even if you later rename the term, change its fee, or archive it. Reports and exports always show what was actually agreed at check-out.

Community-loan carriers

If a specific carrier should always go out as a community loan, pin the term to the carrier: open the carrier’s detail page, choose Lending term from the manage menu, and pick your community-loan term. Check-out then fixes that term for this carrier. (Pinning a priced term just pre-selects it — staff can still switch.)

The pin clears automatically if the carrier is transferred to another library, because terms belong to a library.

Changing the list later

• Edit a term to change its name, length, or fee. Loans already made keep the old name and fee.
• Archive a term to retire it. It disappears from the check-out picker but history is untouched, and its name becomes free to reuse. You can restore it later if there’s room under the 10-term cap.
• There is no delete — history-bearing terms are archived, never removed.