Closing out Fiscal Year 2016-17

Background

As we finalize migration to the ULMS, we will be closing out fiscal year 2016-17 in our old systems, and beginning 2017-18 in Alma.  There are some steps we recommend in order to capture needed data from the old system, and to prepare to start a fresh fiscal year in the Alma.  

Best practice recommendations

Libraries should consider if the following activities would be beneficial in their local situations:

• Remember to wrap up any Demand-Driven services early so you don't have surprise invoices at or after fiscal close
• Don't be shy to push your vendors for rushed invoices if needed to meet this year's odd close schedule
• Export and archive extra financial and fund data to have on hand for reference and/or for populating Alma.

Access to Innovative system data may remain available to some campuses for a time, but it will likely not be supported. Consider what data you might wish to access if you have no access to the old system at all.

Let your local needs be your guide.  You may want to consult with your campus accounting contacts for suggestions on extra data to archive. Some suggestions:

• • • Full list of fund codes
    • Balances from the system prior to completing your fiscal close
    • Complete list of all encumbrances/carry-overs into the next FY
      
      
• Consider running fiscal close in your old system during the Technical Freeze because...why not?
• Educate yourself regarding starting a new fiscal year in Alma:

Making decisions on your fund structure - consult the following resources:

• • • Acq Task Force wiki page regarding developing funds & ledgers
    • Read Managing Funds & Ledgers and pay attention to the Fund Transaction Terminology
    • Read Configuring Fund & Ledger Fiscal Periods
    • Fund Types in Alma are purely informational (vs functional) and optional; to decide if they would work well for your library, read Configuring Fund Types
    • Learn about Managing Fund Allocation Transfer, and Moving Funds

Seeing how fiscal close is run in Alma helps understand how you need your funds to work, so

• • • read this - Fiscal Period Closure 
    • watch this - Alma Fiscal Period Closure (35:08 min video)

...and in case you haven't had enough on Fiscal Close, 

• • • Ask the Experts training session on Fiscal Period Closure (59 min WebEx)
    • Support Corner presentation - Alma Fiscal Year Close (42 minute video; I found this session helpful and clear. This is a password-protected presentation, so please contact me directly (Carole.Correa-Morris@sjsu.edu) and I'll share access info.)  The session description:  

"In this session, we will discuss the best practices when preparing to execute Fiscal Period Close in Alma. We will discuss some new features that allow additional control over what is included in your annual rollover in addition to common questions like:

-          How to duplicate your fund structure to the next fiscal year.

-          How open orders are handled by the system.

-          Best practices for testing your data before rollover is finalized."

And not specifically fiscal close tasks, but related overall:

• Inform campus accounting partners that this migration is happening and keep them informed on changes; request that communication be a two way street, and that account changes be relayed to you since our ILS's are potentially going to be more fully integrated with campus finance systems.
  
• Take a look at the Alma-CFS wiki pages to learn about automating invoice exports to CFS
  • Systems' group's Alma and PeopleSoft Finance Integration page
  • Acq TF Workspace for Invoice Exporting: Alma-to-CFS
• Consider what other Acq data you may wish to export and archive from the old system, such as a full list of vendors and their details
  
  

Procedures in Alma

(See training and documentation listed above)

Action log