3.3. Funds

Last Updated 10/30/2023

What is a Fund?

Funds allow you to allocate credits toward specific purchases. They typically are used to track spending and purchases for specific collections. Some libraries may choose to define very broad funds for their collections (e.g. children’s materials, adult materials) while others may choose to define more specific funds (e.g. adult non-fiction DVDs for BR1). In the funds interface, you can create funds; allocate credits from funding sources to funds; transfer money between funds; and apply fund tags to funds. Funds are created for a specific year, either fiscal or calendar. These funds are owned by org units. At the top of the funds interface, you can set a contextual org unit and year. The drop-down menu at the top of the screen enables you to focus on funds that are owned by specific organizational units during specific years. If your library does not need detailed fund account tracking, you can create one large generic fund and use that fund for all of your purchases.

Create a Fund

To create a funding source, from the Administration menu, select Acquisitions Administration.
On the Acquisitions Administration splash page, select Funds.
Click the New Fund button.
Enter a Name for the fund. No limits exist on the number of characters that can be entered in this field.
Create a Code for the fund. No limits exist on the number of characters that can be entered in this field.
Enter a Year for the fund. This can be a fiscal year or a calendar year. The format of the year is YYYY.
Select an Org Unit from the drop-down menu. The org unit indicates the organizational units whose staff can use this fund. This menu is populated with the shortnames that you created for your libraries in the organizational units tree (See Administration → Server Administration → Organizational Units).
Select a Currency Type from the drop-down menu. This menu is comprised of entries in the currency types menu. When a fund is applied to a line item or copy, the price of the item will be encumbered in the currency associated with the fund.
Click the Active box to activate this fund. You cannot make purchases from this fund if it is not active.
Enter a Balance Stop Percent. The balance stop percent prevents you from making purchases when only a specified amount of the fund remains. For example, if you want to spend 95 percent of your funds, leaving a five percent balance in the fund, then you would enter 95 in the field. When the fund reaches its balance stop percent, it will appear in red when you apply funds to copies.
Enter a Balance Warning Percent. The balance warning percent gives you a warning that the fund is low. You can specify any percent. For example, if you want to spend 90 percent of your funds and be warned when the fund has only 10 percent of its balance remaining, then enter 90 in the field. When the fund reaches its balance warning percent, it will appear in yellow when you apply funds to copies.
Check the Propagate box to propagate funds. When you propagate a fund, the ILS will create a new fund for the following fiscal year with the same parameters as your current fund. All of the settings transfer except for the year and the amount of money in the fund. Propagation occurs during the fiscal year close-out operation.
Check the Rollover box if you want to roll over remaining funds into the same fund next year. You should also check this box if you need the ability to roll over encumbrances without rolling over funds. In order for this to work correctly, you must also go to the Library Settings Editor and set Allow funds to be rolled over without bringing the money along to True.
Click Save.

Note: The rule of parental inheritance applies to this list. If you are a multi-branch library that will be ordering titles for multiple branches, you should select the system as the owning Org Unit, even if this fund will only be used for collections at a specific branch. If you are a one-branch library or if your branches do their own ordering, you can select the branch as the owning Org Unit.

Allocate Credits from Funding Sources to Funds

You must add money to a fund before you can begin using it. Credits can be applied to funds from Funding Sources using the Fund interface. The credits that you apply to the fund can be applied later to purchases.

To access funds, click Funds on the Acquisitions Administration splash page.
Click the hyperlinked name of the fund.
To add a credit to the fund, click the Create Allocation tab.
Choose a Funding Source from the drop-down menu.
Enter an amount that you want to apply to the fund from the funding source.
Enter a note, if desired. (This field is optional.)
Click Apply.

Transfer Credits Between Funds

The credits that you allocate to funds can be transferred between funds if desired. In the following example, you can transfer $500.00 from the Young Adult Fiction fund to the Children’s DVD fund.

To access funds, click Funds on the Acquisitions Administration splash page.
Click the hyperlinked name of the originating fund.
The Fund Details screen appears. Click Transfer Money.
Enter the amount that you would like to transfer.
From the drop-down menu, select the destination fund.
Enter a note, if desired. (This field is optional.)
Click Transfer.

Track Balances and Expenditures

The Fund Details allows you to track the fund’s balance, encumbrances, and amount spent. It also allows you to track allocations from the funding source(s), debits, and fund tags.

To access the Fund Details, click on the hyperlinked name of the fund that you created.
The Summary allows you to track the following:
Balance - The balance is calculated by subtracting both items that have been invoiced and encumbrances from the total allocated to the fund.
Total Allocated - This amount is the total amount allocated from the Funding Source.
Spent Balance - This balance is calculated by subtracting only the items that have been invoiced from the total allocated to the fund. It does not include encumbrances.
Total Debits - The total debits are calculated by adding the cost of items that have been invoiced and encumbrances.
Total Spent - The total spent is calculated by adding the cost of items that have been invoiced. It does not include encumbrances.
Total Encumbered - The total encumbered is calculated by adding all encumbrances.

Fund Reporting

A core source, Fund Summary, is available in the reports interface. This core source enables librarians to easily run a report on fund activity. Fields that are accessible in this interface include Remaining Balance, Total Allocated, Total Encumbered, and Total Spent.

Fund Summary core source in Database Source Browser

Edit a Fund

To edit a fund, double-click your cursor in the row that you want to edit.
The pop-up box will appear, and you can edit the fields.
After making changes, click Save.

Fund Tags (Optional)

You can apply tags to funds so that you can group funds for easy reporting. For example, you have three funds for children’s materials: Children’s Board Books, Children’s DVDs, and Children’s CDs. Assign a fund tag of children’s to each fund. When you need to report on the amount that has been spent on all children’s materials, you can run a report on the fund tag to find total expenditures on children’s materials rather than reporting on each individual fund.

Create a Fund Tag

To create a funding source, from the Administration menu, select Acquisitions Administration.
On the Acquisitions Administration splash page, select Fund Tags.
Click the New Fund Tag button.
No limits exist on the number of characters that can be entered in this field.
Enter a Fund Tag Name. No limits exist on the number of characters that can be entered in this field.
Select a Fund Tag Owner from the drop-down menu. The owner indicates the organizational unit(s) whose staff can use this fund tag. This menu is populated with the shortnames that you created for your libraries in the organizational units tree (See Administration → Server Administration → Organizational Units).
Click Save.

Note: The rule of parental inheritance applies to this list.

Apply a Fund Tag

To create a funding source, from the Administration menu, select Acquisitions Administration.
On the Acquisitions Administration splash page, select Funds.
Click on the hyperlinked name for the fund.
Click the Tags tab
Click the Add Tag button and select the tag from the dropdown menu.

For convenience when propagating or rolling over a fund for a new fiscal year, fund tags will be copied from the current fund to the new year’s fund.

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