Vendors - Finances Overview

Owned by Jennifer Koerber (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Dec 05, 2018

This is the second section of the finances module of the Alma Overviews course. The video is at the top of the page, followed by the script.

In this video, you'll review:

In this video, we’ll look at vendor records inside of Alma. Alma contains detailed information pages for Vendors, including contact information, performance analytics, and lists of accounts, orders, and invoices connected to that vendor. For eResources vendors, these records also contain snapshots of usage data.

Finding & Viewing Vendor Records

You can find and view Vendor records in most of the same ways that you used for Funds:

  • From the main menu, choose Acquisitions, then Acquisition Infrastructure, and then Vendors to see a list of all vendors and use facets to limit that list.
  • You can use the persistent search bar, choose the search type Vendors, and then leave the search term box empty to see a list of all vendors.
  • Or, you can use the search bar and specific criteria to find individual vendors.

We’ll use the blank search box for right now to find a list of all vendors. As with funds, your results will default to Active vendors of all types. To see inactive vendors, choose All or Inactive or Active appropriately from the Vendor Status drop-down filter.

You can also use the Vendor Type filter to view just one type of vendor:

  • Material Supplier are for physical materials
  • Governmental are for governmental materials
  • Access Provider, Licensor, and SUSHI Vendor are all e-Resources-related vendor types

Vendor Codes

Next, let’s use this master list to look at the vendor code. Some vendor codes have changed as part of migration. If you were familiar with the old codes in Aleph, you may want to search by Vendor Name or use the filters to find the vendor that you want in this list, rather than the code, until you’re comfortable with the new codes.

One set of code changes is related to Dataloads, and I can search for Vendors, -EDI to find a list of all the vendors who are now set up to EDI order, which is now set up library-wide for these six vendors.

  • If a vendor has a code in Alma that ends with EDI, it means they are set up to send orders out of Alma directly via EDI.

    As you can see, there are 6 vendors set up for this:
    • AMALIVRE-EDI
    • CASALI-EDI (Casalini)
    • EBC-EDI (Eastern Book Company)
    • ERASMUS-EDI (Erasmus in Amsterdam)
    • ERASMUSFR-EDI (Erasmus in Paris)
    • HRSW-EDI (Harrasowitz)
  • Note that this does not impact EDI invoices, which are coming in to Alma – those can be configured for many vendors, but that will not lead to them having the -EDI added to their vendor codes. The -EDI only appears with vendor codes that will send EDI orders out of Alma.

Vendor Information

Now, let’s look more closely at vendor information using the Casalini vendor record. As with funds, if I click on the vendor code, that will take me to the vendor record.

In Alma, there is a primary Vendor Code, and then specific Vendor Account Codes linked to specific accounts with that vendor. These will identify specific bill to and ship to addresses. So, when you are placing an order, you will need to select the appropriate Vendor Account Codes. If I skip down on this summary page for a moment, I can see a list of all of the vendor account codes for Casalini.

In addition to having the specific bill to and ship to address, the vendor account record also sets a default claim period for an order. You can override this default when placing an order, and this is covered in the One-Time Orders training.

For newly created or updated unit-based vendor accounts, a convention was developed: use as much of the following as necessary to make the code unique: the library code, type of order, and an account number. You can see examples of this here for Casalini for Biblioteca Berenson. BER for Berenson, CO for Continuous Orders, OT for One-Time Orders, and SO for Standing Orders, and then the specific account codes tacked on the end with a Description telling you exactly what each one stands for. This is true for all of the account codes underneath the master vendor account for Casalini.

Just to show you, if I click through on a vendor account code, I get to the specific vendor account details for the Biblioteca Berenson SO subscription order account. Again, account details, payment methods, and that claim information.

But now, let’s go back to the master Casalini vendor record. You can see that there are many more tabs on a vendor record than a fund record. Because Casalini is an EDI vendor and a provider for both print and electronic materials, this vendor record has nearly all of the possible tabs and is a good example to look at.

Tabs on a Vendor Record

The Summary tab has general information about that vendor, including the libraries that it works for. It has that list of all of the accounts, and in this case because it is also and eResources vendor, the different interfaces are also listed and whether or not they are active. You’ll notice that for all of these, I get a row action item list where I can manage these individual things.

The next two tabs are Contact Information and Contact People for this vendor. Again, this is generally for the vendor and not specific account codes. I get addresses, emails, phone numbers, and web addresses.

For EDI vendors, there is an EDI Information list for all the EDI-related information for this vendor.

Similarly, because it’s an eResources vendor, we get Usage Data. This shows SUHI – Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative protocol – data (SUSHI is a much shorter thing to say) for this vendor’s resources. You can see the SUSHI accounts at the top, uploaded files, and you can view that statistical information as well.

The next two tabs are all Invoices and PO Lines associated with that vendor, across the library. If I click on a tab, I get a very large list because we are dealing with Casalini. As with any other search, I can use filters or facets to limit these lists. I have a filter for different statuses for these invoices. Or I can use the "search within this list" search bar to search by a number of different fields within those individual invoice records. So, I could search by invoice number or any other specific information from that record.

Same thing for PO Lines. I can use the facets down the left, or the search within” box to search within this list of nearly 30,000 records. Per usual, I can also expand the information on each record to see whether or not it’s been received. the link is here to see more information about that order, by Purchase Order or Order Line.

Because we are still inside of the Casalini Libri vendor record, we still have our tabs, so I can go straight from a list of orders to the Communications tab.

The Communication tab. These are general messages sent to the vendor originating in Alma, including who sent it and what the subject is. You can click through to add a response or close that communication if it’s complete. You can also see a list of All or Closed communications or search by the subject or the body of the messages. Some permissions levels will determine whether you can view the message, start a new communication for that communication line, or additional activities.

A best practice suggestion from the Acq/Serials Working Group: if you need to contact a vendor about a specific order, do that on the Communication tab associated with that specific order, not here on the general vendor record. This might be different for the status of an entire series or the status of an entire publication, but for specific orders it’s best to do the communication on the order record itself.

The next two tabs, Attachments and Notes, again are any PDFs, Excel lists, or other documents associated with this vendor – in this case, it’s the EDI files – or any notes on that vendor.

Finally, this is an Analytics tab. On the Analytics tab for a vendor record, this will actually show you vendor order performance for orders created in the last year. This is going to take a few moments to open up, because Casalini is such a large vendor. ... After a brief pause to let this particular list of Analytics open up in a new window, you can now see the vendor performance for orders created in the last year by Casalini. Their performance on the number of Active and Cancelled and Closed orders, orders received and not received, and the specific details. Also the average days from order send to item arrival for one-time POLs.

More About Vendors

For more information about Vendors, you can visit the LTS wiki pages on Vendor Information for Acquisitions Processes and Vendors: Searching and Navigation. Both of these are found in the Acquisitions – General topics and references section in the functional area documentation.

You can also always click on the Help for this Page option to see the vendor-related page information in the Ex Libris Knowledge Center.