Overview

Groups are at the heart of the microfinance methodology. A group can have one or more clients or no clients. In some MFI methodologies, groups are the primary units the MFIs interact with; groups maintain a single group savings account and receive a single group loan from the MFI. In other cases, all MFI loans are provided directly to the clients and groups are simply a collection of individual clients. The benefits of the group include:

• By vouching for other members of the group, the group provides due diligence of creditworthiness.
• By co-signing the loan, the group provides insurance of payment by individuals.
• The group provides reinforcement, esprit de’ corps, encouragement.
• By aggregating loans and accounts, operations can be more efficient.  

General Features 

• Groups can be associated to ''__Centers''__ and inherit the meeting schedule and Loan Officer from the center.
• Groups can have positions like President, Treasurer, etc. (defined by MFI) and members can be assigned to one or more positions. This helps in better group management.
• Like an individual client record, group record has to be created and go through an approval cycle to be eligible for the benefits given by MFI.
• If MFI allows groups to have loan accounts, groups can behave as individuals and apply for loans.
• Group’s Historical Data should be accessible for reporting.
• Groups have accounts associated with them. In addition to the product accounts (loan accounts, savings accounts, etc.), groups also have an account through which group fees (membership, joining, application, etc.) and group penalties are charged.

Group Record Creation

The process of group creation and the various group states are explained below:

Group Record State Flow Diagram

The state flow diagram explains the various states or statuses that a group record goes through:

 

Group States

A group record can be in different states or statuses. All states are mutually exclusive.

Important: All state changes for groups are manual and Mifos system validates the fields as per the attributes table. However, external MFI processes and external MFI business logic are not validated. Depending on the permission set of a user, the user may or may not be able to change the state of a group.

A group record can be in the following states:

status	description
Partial Application	If the record has been created, but data is incomplete or the user does not want the status to be “Pending Approval, the status can be marked as Partial Application.
Pending Approval	This is an optional state and can be hidden by the MFI. The record contains all necessary data, and is waiting for approval. Before and after this point, there could be some offline processes, which might govern the approval process. These processes can be specific for each MFI and do not impact the Mifos functionality.
Active/Approved	Group has been approved and is eligible to open a savings account, or apply for a loan or other products offered by the MFI. To be Active, every group must have an LO assigned.
Cancel	A group application can be cancelled due to various reasons: * Group withdraws the application * An MFI officer rejects the application * The group is not eligible, as it has been __Blacklisted.__ * A duplicate group record already exists and thus the new record is being cancelled. A group can reapply anytime after this. When the group reapplies, the old record and system ID can be used and carried forward if the old record has not been archived. From Cancel, a group record can be moved to Partial Application state.
On Hold	If the group status is marked On hold, it has the following implications: * New accounts cannot be opened for the group. * Interest in savings account keeps on accumulating, but withdrawals are not allowed. Deposits are permitted. * New loan accounts are not created for the group, but repayments for current loans remain as scheduled. * On Hold status can either be changed to Closed or Approved. The rules of the respective status are then applicable to the group record. * If a group is On Hold, clients and client accounts are not affected. On Hold status of a group should be indicated on all the accounts to ensure that the users are aware of the group status.
Close	A group record can be Closed to indicate that the group is not banking with the branch anymore, or a duplicate record for the group exists in the system. The Flags associated with this state are: Transferred, Duplicate Account, Left Program, Blacklisted, and Other. * A group cannot be Closed if it has clients or accounts in states other than Cancelled and Closed. * Once Closed, group can reapply, but the record creation has to follow the complete application procedure again. The same system ID will be reused for the group. Refer State Flow. * Every time the status of the group is changed to Closed, Mifos system has to validate if there are any Active loans given to the group, all group accounts have been closed, and all individuals are either reassigned or cancelled or Closed.

 

Blacklisted

• A Blacklisted group can be moved to Active, but will have a permanent flag attached to the group record to indicate that the group has been previously Blacklisted. This should be viewable on the ''Group Details'' page.
• Once Blacklisted flag is attached to a group record, it cannot be removed, irrespective of the state the group moves to.
• If a group is Blacklisted, it does not change the status of its member records or accounts.
• For details, see Flags.

Notes:

• There is no “Deleted” status. All group records are kept in the system. The Closed records can be hidden from the users for transactions, but retrieved if required.
• There is no restriction on the number of times a group status is changed.
• When a group record is created, it can be either saved in Partial Application state or Pending Approval. When Pending Approval (an optional state) is not included by the HO, new group record can be saved in Active state.
• Checklists might be displayed before a group status is changed. This is to remind the users of the offline processes required before a group can be approved.
• Empty groups: An empty group can exist in any state. But if the state is Active, a warning should be displayed to LO/user that the group is empty.
• Mifos system does not build any logic around an empty group. Therefore, an empty group also can have Active accounts.
• If a group is Cancelled/Closed, the associations with centers/clients are not removed.

Attributes for Group Records

Note: Attributes marked as "Mandatory" for Partial state in the table below are the minimum required to create a record. Pending Approval is an optional state; so if the HO decides to hide this state, the attributes marked as mandatory for Pending in the table below should be considered as mandatory for the Active state.

Note: The attributes in this table are divided into three broad sections:

• Group Information: These are group related attributes, available during group creation.
• MFI Related Information: These attributes related to the MFI are available during group creation.
• Attributes and actions that can be viewed/edited only after group creation, from the ''Group Details ''page.

S.No.	Attribute Name	Data Type	Default value	Mandatory for State = Partial/ Pending/ Partial	Editable After State= Pending/ Approved	Range	Can be hidden?	Mandatory/ Configurable	Description/ Notes
Group Information
1.	Name of Group	Alphanumeric	None	Yes/Yes/Yes	Yes/Yes	N/A	No	Mandatory	This must be unique across the branch. Group is a label that can also be defined.
2.	Address of Group - Address 1	Alphanumeric	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	N/A	Yes, if optional	Configurable	First field. The complete address of the group can be hidden by the HO.
3.	Address 2	Alphanumeric	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	N/A	Yes	Optional	Second field
4.	Address 3	Alphanumeric	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	N/A	Yes	Optional	Third field
5.	City	Alphanumeric	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	N/A	Yes, if optional	Configurable
6.	State	Alphanumeric	State of MFI	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	Defined by MFI	Yes, if optional	Configurable
7.	Country	Alphanumeric	Country of MFI	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	Defined by MFI	Yes, if optional	Configurable
8.	Postal Code	Alphanumeric	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	N/A	Yes	Optional
9.	Telephone	Alphanumeric	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	N/A	Yes, if optional	Configurable
10.	Custom fields (10)	Alphanumeric/ Numeric/ Date	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	N/A	Yes, if optional	Configurable	See Custom Fields.
MFI Related Information
11.	LO assigned to group	Drop -Down	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	LOs active in the branch.	No	Mandatory	This should be inherited from center, if center exists. Field is disabled in UI, if center is selected.
12.	Name of Center assigned	Click and select	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	Available centers, if Centre hierarchy exists.	No	Mandatory to be approved if Center hierarchy exists.	This field should only apply if "centers" (i.e. 3rd tier hierarchy) exists in MFI configuration. Center is chosen at the time of group creation.
13.	Trained	Checkbox	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	Selected/Not selected.	Yes	Optional	Once selected, it cannot be cleared. For details, see Trained.
14.	Trained on	Date	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	N/A	Yes, if “Trained” is hidden.	Mandatory, if group is marked as “Trained”.	Once the Date is saved, it cannot be re-entered. The field is then disabled.
15.	External ID	Alphanumeric	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	N/A	Yes, if optional	Configurable	If an old system was being used, and now being transferred to Mifos system, this can serve as a link between old system and Mifos system. There is no built-in intelligence in Mifos system to handle this data.
16.	Branch Name	Alphanumeric	Branch of User	Yes/Yes/Yes	Yes/Yes	Braches as per data scope of logged in user	No	Mandatory	This field has a list of branches where user has access to create groups.
17.	Meeting Schedule - Location of group meeting	Alphanumeric	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	N/A	No	Mandatory	If centers exist, group should inherit the detail from the center. If centers do not exist, then the group can have its own meeting schedules.
18.	Meeting Schedule – Frequency of Meetings	Date/T ime/ Recurrence	Inherited from center	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	999 weeks; 999 months	No	Optional	This value is inherited from center information. If center hierarchy does not exist, group has its own meeting schedule that can be changed anytime. For details, refer ''__Meetings''__.
19.	Apply fee type	Multi select	None	No/No/N/A	N/A - N/A	All fee types applicable to clients	No	Optional	Fee can be applied after choosing an appropriate fee type. This can be edited later on from the ''Group Details ''page. For more details, refer ''__Client Account__''
Attributes/Actions Viewable/Editable After Group Creation
20.	Assign client ID –	Un-editable	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	Clients belonging to the group	No		Clients belonging to the group are listed on the group details page. See Assign Clients to Group
21.	Assigning clients to positions (Officer titles/positions)	Drop-Down	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	Options defined by HO	Yes, if optional	Configurable	See ''__Officer Titles; ''Assign Clients to Positions__
22.	Group System ID	Alphanumeric	N/A	N/A - N/A - N/A	N/A - N/A	N/A	No	Mandatory	This is the independent unique ID generated by the Mifos system to identify a group. This is not editable.
23.	Record creation date	Date	None	Yes/Yes/No	No/No	N/A	No	Mandatory	This is not to be displayed. System generated and stored date when the record was first stored in the system.
24.	Historical data	Alphanumeric/ Numeric/ Date	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	N/A	No	Optional	Group’s historical data has to be maintained and displayed in the ''Group ''Details page. Refer Historical Data
25.	Notes (500)	Alphanumeric	None	No/No/Yes	Yes/Yes	'''N/A'''	No	Optional	A record can have multiple "notes" attached to it. By default, last three notes are visible in the ''Details'' page. Also if the See all notes link is called, all notes related to the record should be shown.
26.	Status	Drop-Down	None	N/A - N/A - Yes	Yes/Yes	Refer State flow	Pending Approval can be hidden by HO
27.	Flag	Drop-Down	None	No/No/N/A	N/A - N/A	Refer flags	No	* The flag is required only for Cancelled and Closed statuses.

"Formed by" Field

In addition to the above attributes, “Formed by” attribute is added to group creation and edit pages to address the following requirement: The LO that manage a group may not be the same as the one who formed the group. To track which LO formed the group, this field is required.

• Data type- Single select, drop down
• The list will contain all active Loan officers in the branch where the group is being created.
• Should not depend on the data scope as per user hierarchy, i.e. irrespective of whether the user is an LO or a Non-LO, the list should contain all LO's in the branch.
• This field will be mandatory in all states and the value can not be modified once specified during group creation. It should, however, be displayed in the details and edit pages as read only information.
• LO assigned to the group can be the same as the LO who formed the group.
• Default value should be loan officer assigned.

Some other attributes are discussed in detail below:

MFI Related Details

Name of Center Assigned

• If center hierarchy exists in the system, groups have to be assigned to a center to be approved. Group inherit the meeting schedule and LO from the center.
• If center hierarchy does not exist, the user fills up the meeting details manually.
• A group's center can be changed. Before the center is changed, all loan accounts of the group and all clients belonging to the group should be in Closed or Cancelled state.

Assign Group System ID

This is an independent unique ID generated by the Mifos system to identify a group. This is displayed on the user interface and is un-editable.

Group Trained

This is a flag to depict if a group has been trained or not.

• Training is an MFI-wide setting and the training flag is tracked at group level.
• A group can be marked as “Trained” only once.
• When a group is marked as “Trained”, Training Date has to be specified.
• Once the Training Date is saved, it cannot be edited or re-entered.
• Only one Training Date is saved per group record.

Assign Clients to Group

During client record creation or later in the process, clients can be added to the group. To belong to a group, the following rules are imposed:

• An individual can belong to only one group at any time.
• An individual record status should be equal to, or behind the status of the group.
  • If Group state = Partial Application, it can have clients who are in Partial state only.
  • If Group state = Pending Approval, it can have clients in Partial Application or Pending Approval states only.
  • If Group state = Approved, it can have clients in Partial Application, or Pending Approval, or Approved or On Hold states.
• An empty group with no clients can get Approved.
• If a group is On Hold, the clients are not affected; new clients can be assigned to On Hold groups and client records can be Closed.
• If a group is Active, a client belonging to that group can be Closed.
• If clients are active, the group cannot be closed before assigning them to another group or closing them.
• If clients are in Closed/Cancelled state, group can be closed.
• If any client in the group is On Hold, the group cannot be closed unless that client is Closed or assigned to another group.
• If a group status is changed from Pending Approval to Cancelled, the system should change the Pending Approval status of any clients of the group to Partial Application.
• If clients have inherited meeting schedule and/or LO from the group, the same should be removed if the clients are transferred to another group. In effect, clients who initially belonged to the group will no longer have this association.

Assign Clients to Positions

• Members of the group can be assigned to different titles.
• One member can hold more than one position. But, one position cannot be held by more than one member.
• Clients in states other than Closed and Cancelled can be assigned a position in the center or the group.

External ID Number

This is required in case the MFI used a different system in the past to transfer data to Mifos system. This ID can be used as a link to the old and new systems. Mifos system does not hold any logic to handle this field.

Fee Types and Miscellaneous Charges

Miscellaneous fee or penalty can be charged to groups and these charges are stored in the group accounts. These are “one-time” charges and penalty is not charged for fee due which was not paid. Refer fees for details.

When a group record is closed,

• System should stop applying any periodic fee linked to the group record.
• Transactions can still be made to this record. Miscellaneous penalty or any amount that is due remains as it is.
• System does not allow user to apply any periodic fee type to the account, though upfront fee and miscellaneous penalty can still be applied to the group account.

Preview Group Record

Once all the above-mentioned data are entered in the system to create a group, there should be a provision to preview the entire information in one screen to validate the data. This is mandatory before saving the group record to the system.

• Before the preview page, error checking for all mandatory fields and valid data has to be done. If any invalid entry is found or any mandatory fields have been left empty, error messages should be prompted.
• When a user approves the preview page, a group’s data is saved in the database.
• Every time a group record is edited or state of the group is changed, the data is displayed in the preview screen before the record changes are saved/updated in the database.

Identify Duplicates

Group name has to be unique across the branch. This ensures there are no duplicate records for the same groups. No further validation is required to check for duplicate groups records.

Group Record Management

All group related activities and related information are discussed below.

The section includes the rules for moving groups, and the parameters for tracking group performance.

Performance Metrics

The following parameters are used to track the performance of each group by the system:

s. no.	performance metrics	formula	description
1.	Number of active clients	Total number of active and on hold clients belonging to the group irrespective of the client status
2.	Amount of last group loan if applicable	Total amount of the last group loan disbursed	Last group loan that was disbursed is displayed.
3.	Average loan size for individual members	Sum of active loan amount for all client loan accounts / Number of client loan accounts
4.	Total outstanding loan portfolio	Total original value of all outstanding loans (including group loans and all client loans)
5.	Portfolio at risk	The remaining balance of all outstanding loans that have one or more installments of principal past due more than 30 days / Outstanding principal value of all outstanding loans	This includes only Loan product loans Also, these values are principal only; they do not include interest.
6.	Total Savings	Total of all savings accounts of the group and those of the clients belonging to the group	This should include all the savings accounts of the group and also of the clients belonging to the group.
7.	Loan cycle per product		See description below

Loan cycle per product

• Separate loan counters for each product instance to be maintained for each group.
• The counter should be maintained, if at loan product definition level, attribute "include in loan cycle" is set to "Yes". If the value is changed to "no" anytime for the product, it should take effect for all the accounts present in the system for the product instance.
• The counter should be incremented when a loan account is approved
• Counter should be decremented for rescheduled loans or written off loans.
• To be displayed in client's and groups’ detail page in the performance history box.
• Example, if the group has taken 2 "Agricultural loans" and 3 "Cattle loans", her performance history should display loan cycle for educational loan= 2; loan cycle for cattle loan= 3
• Loan cycle number from historical data should not be included in any of the above counters

Move Groups

• Groups can be moved from one center to another. If this is done, meeting time and Loan Officer of the new center are inherited by the group along with its members. But groups cannot be transferred unless all the active loan accounts are closed.
• Loan Officers assigned to groups can be changed.
• No notification is required, if a client or group is moved from one LO to another.
• When group/client is transferred from one branch to another, all loan accounts attached to this group/client have to be closed. But the group details and group savings accounts carry forward to the new branch. Also, the clients belonging to the group are also transferred to the new branch along with their savings accounts (Any individual loans should be closed before this transfer is permitted.).
• Movement of group from one state to another is always manual.
• The movement is tracked in the change logs, similar to other attribute changes. For details, see Change Logs.
• A group cannot be transferred from one branch to another, if the new branch already contains a group with the same name. To resolve this conflict, the group name should be changed in the old branch.

UI Functionality from Group Module

• Display account information:
  • Display current accounts: Displays the accounts for each group
  • Display closed accounts: Displays all the closed accounts and account states for each group
• Display clients assigned
• Display group information: Displays training details, official titles assigned, and meeting details.
• Display all associated notes
• Display historical data: Displays number of loans, past performance, etc.

Out of Scope for Version 1.0

• Movement of group loan accounts from one branch to another when a group is transferred to another branch. Accounts other than loan accounts are transferred.
• Field to capture maximum number of people allowed in a group.