What’s on our mind: New patron account linking feature in Koha LMS
Last updated on: 20th May 2026| 20th May 2026 | Jacob O’Mara | Koha
Linked patron accounts in Koha
As you are probably aware, Koha already supports one kind of relationship between patrons: the guarantor/guarantee model, where one adult patron is responsible for a child or dependent’s account. This relationship is hierarchical, meaning that one patron is accountable for the other. This works well for the cases it was designed for but is not suitable for all patron relationships.
Libraries also serve plenty of patrons whose accounts are connected in a different way: partners, housemates, carers, family members who help each other out at the desk. In these situations the relationship between patrons is different to the parent-child dynamic. We needed Koha to have just two (or more) adults who’d like their accounts to recognise each other.
This new feature now adds that second kind of relationship to Koha: a flat, peer-to-peer style link between accounts.
Peer-to-peer style account linking
From any patron’s detail page, staff with the relevant permission will see a new “Linked accounts” section. With a couple of clicks they can search for another patron and link the two accounts together. Linked accounts form a single connected group, so for example if Koha is linked to Henry and Henry is linked to Edna, all three appear in each other’s lists automatically. You can see this in the screenshot below.
There’s no need to link every patron to every other patron and patrons can also leave a linked group at any time, doing so removes them cleanly from every other member’s view.
New system preferences
Linking on its own is useful, but the real value comes from how the rest of Koha responds to it. Two new system preferences that have been added as part of this new feature will let libraries decide how far that recognition should go.
The first preference, NoIssuesChargeLinkedAccounts, lets administrators set a combined fine threshold across a linked group. If the total owed by everyone in the group goes over that limit, staff will see a clear warning at checkout and, depending on configuration, the checkout can be blocked entirely. This stops the situation where one member of a linked group accumulates fines while others in the group continue to borrow freely.
The second preference, AllowLinkedAccountHoldPickup, allows you to pick up holds for any linked account in your group. With this setting enabled, staff can check out a waiting hold to any linked account and Koha will automatically issue the item to the patron the hold was placed for. If a library prefers, the preference can simply be turned off and holds will continue to be picked up only by the patron who placed them.
The whole feature sits behind a master switch system preference, EnablePatronAccountLinking, so libraries that don’t want this functionality at all can leave it switched off and nothing changes for them. Those that do enable it can tune the two behavioural settings independently, for example, allowing combined hold pickup but not applying combined fine limits, or vice versa.
When can I expect this?
Patron account linking has passed community review and is currently awaiting a push to the main branch, ideally being released in this 26.05 cycle.
Blog post featured image: Cyathea dealbata by Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz published under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)
