Meetings

Owned by Ed Cable
Last updated: Jun 20, 2014
4 min read

Introduction

MFIs working under the group lending model, rather than a teller model, conduct regular meetings to provide a platform for interaction for their centers and groups. At these meetings, questions are answered, loans are disbursed and loan repayments and savings deposits are collected. Trainings can also be scheduled or take place at these meetings.

Beginning with version 1.1 of Mifos, repayment schedules and loan disbursals no longer need to coincide with meeting schedules.  This feature is called LSIM (Loan Schedule Independent of Meeting) and an MFI can specify this during system setup.

Meeting schedules are set up for a center, if one exists, or for a group.  Clients not belonging to a group can have individual meeting schedules.

If LSIM is turned off, meeting times are mandatory for any client/group/center to be Active. Meeting times are not mandatory if LSIM is turned on.  Clients can have only a single meeting schedule at any time. Currently, all clients, regardless of whether or not they belong to a group, must have a meeting assigned to them.

If an MFI ties repayment schedules to meetings, the client loan repayment schedule is spread evenly over a specified number of meetings, and the frequency of payments must match the frequency of meetings, if repayment occurs at meeting times.  If LSIM is turned on, this is not required.

Meeting definitions

Meeting schedules are defined when a center account is created. Client inherits the meeting schedule from the group and the group in turn inherits the meeting schedule from the center (if center hierarchy exists).

A meeting schedule definition includes the meeting location and the meeting frequency, which can be specified in terms of days, weeks or months. When defining meetings in terms of days, the user can specify the frequency (recur every xx day(s)). When defining meetings in terms of weeks, the user can specify the frequency (every <x> weeks) and the day of the week. When defining meetings in terms of months, the user can specify either every <x> day of the month or the <x>  <day> of every <x> month.

Users are not allowed schedule meetings on non-working days.  Mifos will prevent this from happening.  Non-working days are set in configuration.  [Link to config]  Meetings also cannot be scheduled on a holiday. However, these days are included in calculations. If a repayment or meeting falls on a holiday, it is shifted depending on the repayment rule set when the holiday was defined.  Repayment rules available are “Next working day”, “Next meeting/repayment day”, or "Same day". 

Meeting changes

Meetings can be changed only by the office that created them. If Definition of a week is modified and more days are included in the working week (by changing working days in System Configuration), existing meeting schedules and repayment schedules are not affected or recalculated. If the meeting schedule itself is changed, repayment dates of existing loan accounts are updated but repayment amounts will not be updated. Meetings can only be defined or changed at the highest level, i.e., at the center (if it exists), group if the client is a group member, and at the individual level only if the client does not belong to a group.

Meetings can be changed (irrespective of the state of loan accounts) in the following ways only:

  • Days: no possibility to change frequency
  • Weeks: only the day of the week can change; number of weeks cannot be changed
  • Months: day number and the day of the week can be changed; number of months cannot be changed. For example, first Monday of every one month can be changed to third Tuesday of every one month. Day 2 of every five months can be changed to day 7 of every five months (only the bolded entries can be modified).

In Mifos 1.5.0 and beyond, when changing a center meeting date in an installment “period”, the change will always be applied in the next installment “period”, where a period is the frequency of your meeting schedule and the repay Check to Removement falls in.

For example, if you have a weekly meeting on Wednesdays currently, and you change the meeting date to Thursday, the current working week will still keep the original repayment days of Wednesday. Your meeting date will be changed next working week to Thursday. This is regardless of whether or not a repayment has past this week. In this particular example, today (March 1st), this week’s meeting will still occur on March 3rd, but next week’s repayment will now be on March 10th. Working week and workdays are defined by your Mifos configuration.

The same applies for monthly meetings. In this example, you normally have a meeting date on the 20th of every month, and you change the meeting date to the 5th of every month. In the current month (March), your meeting date will still fall on March 20th. However, in April, the following month, the meeting date will be on April 5th.

Task-list

Task list is a functionality for the Loan Officer which allows to display all collected centers (or list of groups if center is disabled) for a day. This option helps Loan Officer to organize and arrange upcoming meetings:

  • Task list is displayed below Search button on Mifos homepage.
  • Loan Officer sees bold 'Upcoming meetings' and drop-down list with seven following dates started from actual date.
  • Loan Officer may choose one of date from drop-down list.
  • Task list is bulled in one column.
  • Centers are a main category, inside each center may be groups categories and inside each group may be clients.
  • If any task is added into a date nothing will be displayed after choosing this date.
  • Loan Officer may open center/group/client page and display detailed information.