Funds & Ledgers in Alma

First, do your homework.

To begin understanding how the Alma fund architecture works, we suggest you begin by reviewing the following:

If you haven't already watched it, start with this 11 minute video tutorial...

• 01 Alma Acquisitions Conceptual Background 

Then move on to these:

• Ex Libris video overview of funds in Alma (4 min.) 
• Managing Funds & Payments (set of training videos)
• Managing Funds & Ledgers (ExL Knowledge Center documentation) 
• Fund Management FAQs (ExL Knowledge Center documentation) 

Then decide on your fund structure.

How you structure your funds should revolve around how your campus organizes its various campus funds and accounts.  Keep in mind how you usually report out on fund activities for library, campus and CSU entities.  If re-structuring your funds, remember to consider how that will impact your current campus accounting scenarios and plan accordingly with your library accounting and/or campus A/P office.  Some examples of how libraries have built their fund structures in spreadsheet format are linked below, as well as images of how the funds as migrated by SJSU now appear in Alma (to help you get a sense of how SJSU's choices translated):

• University of Rhode Island fund example
• Pacific University (Orbis Cascade) fund example
• Kansas State University Library fund example
• SJSU (tentative) fund example as migrated from Sierra
• SJSU - Same funds as they now export to Excel from Alma
• SJSU - Fund structure updated for FINAL load; includes EXT ID column to populate "External ID" in Alma Funds, which is needed for automated Invoice exports to CFS.

Some views of SJSU's tentative fund structure in the Alma Test environment of "Active" funds:

Ledger view:

Summary Fund view:

All Active Funds view:

So, for example, say we want to limit to just our "Database" funds, in Alma we'd see this:

And we can export to Excel to see those same database funds this way: