In some cases, a tax payer will have to pay their taxes in smaller chunks or installments. This is sometimes the course of action from board approval or bankruptcy court. The MIPS Treasurer system handles these scenarios through the Partial Payment feature. A property owner will get their own partial payment record, and can contribute to their balance until enough money has been collected to pay off a half or all of their taxes owed. The Partial Payments screen can be found under the Utilities menu.
To create a new Partial Payment record, click Add in the tool bar of the Partial Payments screen. This will create a blank Partial Payment record to be filled out. Make sure to enter the ID field at the top of the screen, the owner information, and which parcel the funds will be going toward. The easiest way to tie a partial payment record to a parcel is by using the LOAD PARCEL button located at the top of the screen. This will allow for selection of the parcel out of a list and populate the owner fields as well if they are blank. Once that information is filled out, the record can be saved by clicking the Save button in the tool bar.
Money received from a tax payer towards their partial payment balance can be recorded on the Partial Payments screen. To do this, pull up the partial payment record in question by clicking the Find button in the tool bar and selecting the appropriate record. Once open, click Edit to begin editing the record. On the bottom portion of the screen next to the Activity heading is an Add button. Once pressed, the Add Partial Payment Item screen will be displayed. This is where the payment date, the amount collected, and any comments can be entered. Clicking the Add button on this screen will add an activity record to the partial payment record. Once all the necessary activity has been entered, the partial payment record can be saved by clicking the Save button in the tool bar. This will affect the current balance of the partial payment record. If the payee would like a receipt, it can be printed by using the printer button for the given activity record.
The process for entering an Order-on for a partial payment record can be done two ways: using the payment buttons on the partial payment screen, or manually by adding activity to the partial payment record.
In order for the payment buttons to be used on the partial payment screen, a few things need to be true:
Once these conditions are met, the payment buttons will become available. Pressing either the First Half or Total Due buttons will add a payment to the shopping cart just like any other statement, except the payment will get marked as being paid by partial payment.
Once the shopping cart gets posted, a new activity record (Order-on) will get added to the Partial Payment record automatically, decreasing the balance by the required amount. An Order-on receipt will get printed along with the statement receipt at that time.
If the partial payment record is for multiple parcels or not tied to any parcel in particular, the balance can be reduced by entering an Order-on activity manually. This process is identical to the process for collecting a partial payment, with the exception of entering an Order-on amount instead of a Collected amount. Keep in mind that in this scenario a payment will have to get posted for the statement in question like any other tax collection.
