A case records a damage event and the insurances involved in it. The case itself holds what happened; each insurance affected by it is recorded underneath as a **case item**.

## Recording a case

Click `New Case` in the main form, choose the vessel and the case date, and confirm. The `General` tab is filled in first.

![The General tab of a case](img/case-general.png)

Field | Note {class="compact"}
---|---
TAN | Determined by the system. Nothing has to be entered.
Title, Description | What happened.
Case Category | Classifies the case — Grounding, for example.
Position | Shipyard, at anchor and so on. Depending on the position, the fields for port and for longitude and latitude appear or stay hidden — this is set up under [Configuration > Insurance](/Administration/Configuration/Insurance.md).
Estimated Amount of Loss | Can be left empty. It follows from the estimated amounts of the individual case items.
Root Cause Category, Root Cause | Choose the category first — the system then offers only the root causes assigned to it.
Root Cause Details | Free text.

## Recording the insurances involved

Switch to the `CaseItems` tab and click `Add` to choose the insurance concerned.

![Choosing the insurance for a case item](img/case-item-select-insurance.png)

Only insurances that are active, or still within their tender period, are offered. One that is within its tender period is prefixed with **Laycan**.

At this point only the expected damage for that insurance is recorded. That is deliberate — the case item is the frame for the handling that follows, not the settlement itself.

## How a case progresses

A new case and its items all start in status `new`, recognisable by the white sheet for the item and the brown sheet for the case.

![A new case with its items](img/case-icons-new.png)

Selecting a case item lets you give it a new status with `Assign new Status`. The colours of the statuses, and the icons that go with them, are set up in the configuration.

![Assigning a new status to a case item](img/case-item-assign-status.png)

The case itself shows all its items with their current status.

![The items of a case with their statuses](img/case-items-overview.png)

The status of the case follows from its items:

Case status | When {class="compact"}
---|---
`In Progress` | At least one item is being worked on. Shown as a brown sheet with a yellow tick.
`Ready for closing` | All items are closed. Shown as a brown sheet with a green arrow.

![The icons for In Progress and Ready for closing](img/case-icons-progress.png)

Only a case that is ready for closing can be closed. Trying it earlier gives a message saying so.

![The message shown when a case is not ready to be closed](img/case-not-ready-message.png)

## Invoices

Invoices can be recorded for every case item with `Add Invoice`. They are then shown with the case item.

An invoice can also be attached while editing an effected insurance: click `Edit`, switch to the `Invoices` tab, and use `Add`, `Edit` and `Delete` there.

## The rest

Comments, reminders, attachments and history work on a case and its items exactly as they do on an insurance — see [Insurances per Ship](/Technical/Insurance/General-Usage.md).

*[PO]: Purchase Order  
*[AZA]: local folder
*[(PO]: Purchase Order  
*[RQ]: Requisition  
*[(RQ]: Requisition  
*[RfQ]: Request for Quotation  
*[(RfQ]: Request for Quotation  
*[SO]: Service Order  
*[(SO]: Service Order  
*[SQ]: Service Requisition  
*[(SQ]: Service Requisition  
*[SRfQ]: Service Request for Quotation  
*[OoB]: Open on Board  
*[(OoB]: Open on Board 
*[ART]: Average Running Time (operation hours per day) 
*[MC]: Master Contract
*[ADS]: Advantage Database Server (database engine used in previous versions of the ZeeBORN software)
*[.replic]: file extension for replication files (aka data transfer files)