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Fees & payments

The kinds of fees, when they apply, and how payments and balances work.

Kinds of fees

  • Membership and joining fees — set on each membership type.
  • Overdue / late fees — for toys returned past their due date.
  • Damage / missing-piece charges — damage is recorded at return; a missing piece is charged automatically after a grace period, with a notice and reminders in between (see below).
  • Refundable bond — held while a household is a member, returned when they leave.

Fee rules

Fee rules decide when and how much — e.g. a per-day overdue fee with a cap. They live in Settings → Fees, separately from membership types, so you can change the late-fee policy without touching membership pricing.

An overdue rule also decides what one charge covers:

  • Each overdue toy — a family five toys late is charged five times over.
  • The whole visit — one late fee for everything that went home that day, however many toys it was. This is how most libraries actually run it, and how SeTLS worked.
  • The member — one late fee across everything they have out, even from different visits.

A one-off (fixed) fee can't be charged per member: it would only ever be charged once in a family's lifetime. Use the whole visit, or charge per day. A cap per toy only applies to the per-toy option — there is no toy to cap once one charge covers a visit.

When a missing-piece fee waits

The missing-piece fee is taken automatically, on a timer: the grace period you set (30 days by default) after the piece was recorded, and never without a warning three days beforehand. Several things put that on hold, and the missing-pieces list says which one is holding each row.

The family's own answer holds it most often:

  • "Found it — I'll bring it back" holds the fee for a fortnight, and "I'll replace it" for three weeks. Nothing is charged on the day a hold ends — a fresh warning goes out first, so a family who is a day late hearing from you is not billed the same morning.
  • "Still looking" does the same, twice at most.
  • "It was already missing when I borrowed it" stops everything until a volunteer decides. On the missing-pieces list the row says whether the copy's previous return was actually counted, and the decision is either the fee stands (reminders resume) or accept it (the case is written off and nothing is charged).
  • "I can't find it" is the opposite: the button quotes the amount, so pressing it accepts the fee and the next nightly run charges it — warning them again after they have agreed reads as not listening. Where your library charges nothing, the same answer simply closes the case.

The record holds it in other cases, and these are decisions ToyHive makes on its own: nobody recorded which piece went missing, more than one family held the copy since it was last counted, the loss came across in a migration, the family already paid a loss fee for that toy, or a party-hire bond was kept to settle it. Those appear on Loans → Fees to review with the reason in plain words. A family asked only on the off-chance (a stocktake loss with no loan behind it) is never charged at all.

Anyone with fee-waiving permission can write a case off from the missing-pieces list with a reason. That stops the chasing and the fee; it does not say the piece came back, and the toy goes on counting short until someone hands it in.

Recording payments

Every charge and payment lands on the household's balance. Staff record payments (cash, bank transfer, card) against it; members can also pay online through the library's connected Stripe or PayPal. The balance always reflects charges minus payments.

A family who joined online choosing pay at the library starts with their membership fee owing on this balance — they appear on the dashboard's households with outstanding charges worklist, and can't borrow until the fee is recorded as paid (the normal Record payment flow on their household page, nothing special).

Waiving vs refunding

With permission, staff can waive a fee (e.g. a first-time overdue) — the waiver is recorded so the books still reconcile. A waiver cancels a charge; a refund returns money already paid. They're different actions for different situations.

Your library's own ToyHive subscription

Everything above is money between members and your library — set up under Settings → Payment methods, which is where you connect Stripe or PayPal so members' payments reach your own account.

Keeping fees down: if your library is a registered charity or not-for-profit, apply for PayPal's charity rate through your own PayPal account — it substantially reduces the fee on every member payment made through PayPal, with nothing to change in ToyHive. And for a fee-free option, enable bank transfer and add your PayID under payment methods — members can then pay from their banking app in seconds, with staff recording the payment when it arrives.

Separately, your library's subscription invoices from ToyHive appear under Settings → ToyHive plan & invoices — each has a Pay now link to a secure Stripe payment page, and paid invoices offer a PDF for your records. You do not need a Stripe account of your own to pay them. Set a billing contact on the same page (e.g. your treasurer) so invoices and reminders go to the right person; if left empty they go to the library owner. An unpaid invoice never interrupts your library's day-to-day operation.