Center Accounts

An MFI can optionally configure MIfos to support centers (see System Configuration). If Mifos is configured with centers turned on, then all groups must belong to a center.

When a center is defined, a loan officer, joining date (when the center joined the MFI), and meeting schedule must be specified. A meeting schedule is required even if the MFI has configured Mifos to support the disbursal of loans and collection of repayments on non-meeting days [See Meetings]. If this option is turned off, then all repayment schedules and disbursal dates will be scheduled on meeting days. Note the following about centers:

Savings accounts. Savings accounts can be opened for centers (centers cannot have loan accounts). If a center has a savings account, all clients belonging to that center can make deposits to and withdrawals from that savings account. A user can specify which client made the deposit or withdrawal. Alternatively, a user has the option to not specify the client who made the transaction.
Center Charges. Periodic and one-time center fees can be pre-defined from the Admin tab. See Fees. These can be defined to be automatically charged to any newly created center, appearing on the "Center Charges" page. An LO can remove one or more of these fees for a particular center account and edit the fee amount if it is a one-time fee. If a fee is removed from one account, it does not affect other accounts. In addition, an LO can apply pre-defined fees as well as miscellaneous fees or penalties on the account after it's been created. These charges will be added in the next payment.
Inactive State. Clients and groups associated with a center must be in a closed state for a center to be made inactive. When a center is made Inactive, the associations with groups and clients are retained. Outstanding penalties or amounts due listed in the "Client Charges" section remain attached to the record, although a user can still waive outstanding fees. Users will not be allowed to apply any payments or charge any additional fees to an inactive center.

Attributes for Center Accounts

The attributes for a center account, provided in the following table, are divided into two parts:

Attributes defined during center creation, which can also be viewed/edited later from the account details page.
Attributes that can be viewed/edited only after center creation, from the account details page.

S.No.	Attribute Name	Data Type	Default value, Mandatory for state inactive - active	Editable in state active - inactive	Range	Can be hidden?	Mandatory -Optional -Configurable	Description/Notes
Attributes During Center Creation
1.	Name	Alphanumeric	None - Yes - Yes	Yes - Yes	N/A	No	Mandatory	Name of center should be unique across branch. Name of the center may be modified after center creation.
2.	Loan officer assigned to Center	Drop-down	None- No - Yes	Yes- Yes	LOs in that branch	No	Mandatory	This information percolates down to all groups and clients linked to the center.
3.	MFI joining Date	Date	Current date - Yes - N/a	Yes - Yes	N/A	No	Mandatory	This is the date when the center joins the MFI. The user can enter any past or future date.
4.	External ID	Numeric	None - No - Configurable	Yes - Yes	N/A	Yes	Configurable	If an old system was being used, and now is transferred to the Mifos system, this can serve as a link between old system and the Mifos system. There is no built-in intelligence in Mifos system to handle this data.
5.	Meeting schedule – Frequency of Meetings	Frequency/ Recurrence	None - No - Yes	Yes - Yes	999 weeks; 999 months	No	Mandatory	This is the number of times meetings are held within a time period (number of weeks, months). For details, refer ''__Meetings''__.
6.	Meeting Schedule - Location of Meeting	Alphanumeric	None - No - Yes	Yes - Yes	N/A	No	Mandatory	This is the text field indicating where meetings are held for the group. This information percolates to all the groups belonging to this center.
7.	Center Address -Address 1	Alphanumeric	None - No - No	Yes - Yes	N/A	Yes	Optional	The Address fields for centers can be hidden. If hidden, address fields including city, state, country and postal code are not displayed in the UI.
8.	Address 2	Alphanumeric	None - No - No	Yes - Yes	N/A	Yes	Optional
9.	Address 3	Alphanumeric	None - No - No	Yes - Yes	N/A	Yes	Optional
10.	City	Alphanumeric	None - No - No	Yes - Yes	N/A	Yes	Optional
11.	State	Alphanumeric	None - No - No	Yes - Yes	N/A	Yes	Optional
12.	Country	Alphanumeric	None - No - No	Yes - Yes	N/A	Yes	Optional
13.	Postal Code	Alphanumeric	None - No - No	Yes - Yes	N/A	Yes	Optional
14.	Telephone	Alphanumeric	None - No - No	Yes - Yes	N/A	Yes	Optional
15.	Question Groups		None - No - Configurable	Yes - Yes	N/A	Yes	Configurable	See *Question Groups.*
Attributes and Actions Viewable/Editable only After Center Creation
16.	Groups assigned to Center	Group names	None - No - No	Yes - Yes	Groups in that branch	No	Mandatory	Groups cannot be assigned to Inactive centers. But a center can be made Active without any group assigned to it.
17.	System ID	Numeric	N/A - N/A - N/A	N/A -N/A	N/A	No	Mandatory	System generated unique center ID to identify the center.
18.	Date created in system	Date	The Date the record is first created - No - No	N/A -N/A	N/A system filled	No	Mandatory	Date when the center record was created and saved in the system.
19.	Assigning clients to center titles (Officer titles/positions)	Drop-down	None - No - No	Yes - Yes	Titles defined by MFI and Names of Clients belonging to the center	Yes	Configurable	See *Assign clients to positions*
20.	Notes (500)	Alphanumeric	None - No - No	Yes - Yes	N/A	No	Optional	A record can have multiple notes attached to it.
21.	Status	Radio Buttons	Active - N/A - N?A	Yes - Yes	Active; Inactive	No	Mandatory	By default, a new center is saved in Active state

Center Account Details

The account details screens display the following information:

Account information: current loan, savings and center accounts; all the closed accounts and cancelled states
Groups assigned to the center.
Center information including official titles, meeting details etc.
Associated notes
Performance history, as described below.
Attached Question Groups

Performance History

Mifos tracks the performance of each center and provides the following metrics, which are displayed in the Performance History box on the account details page.

Performance metrics	Formula
Number of active clients	Total number of active and on-hold clients belonging to the center
Number of active groups	Total number of active and on-hold groups belonging to the center
Total outstanding loan portfolio	Total original value of all outstanding loans (including all group loans and client loans)
Portfolio at risk	The remaining balance of all outstanding loans (of groups and clients together) that have one or more installments of principal past due more than 30 days / Outstanding principal balance of all outstanding loans. These values are principal only; they do not include interest. *Currently not available in Mifos.
Total Savings	Includes all the savings accounts of the center, group and also of the clients belonging to the group