A budget can be used to help track and monitor library expenditure for new books and other library items over a defined period of time, e.g., an academic year, a calendar year, or a period of months.


Budgets usually have an allocated amount of money for a defined period of time and each item purchased during that defined period of time can be allocated to a single budget. Budgets can be optionally aligned to Cost Centres. Based on school preferences, you can choose:

  1. Not use budgets, or
  2. Run a single consolidated budget, e.g., Library Budget, allocating all expenditure for all purchases to this one budget, or
  3. Run multiple department budgets and allocate funds as appropriate, e.g., a History Department budget, an English Department budget, Fiction Budget, Non-fiction Budget, etc.

At any time you can check a budget to review expenditure on items acquired through your chosen Acquisitions workflow and for which a budget has been allocated.


Note: While subscriptions are purchased at a point in time, they will not be included in budget calculations as subscriptions are not linked to budgets. 


Go to: Acquisitions > Budgeting > Budgets


Current active budgets will be listed and expenditure for each defined budget will be calculated and displayed based on the following descriptions:

  1. Show inactive - toggle to show/hide budgets that are active/inactive. Note: Inactive budgets are displayed in italic font.
  2. BUDGET - the name of the budget.
  3. AMOUNT - fixed amount allocated to the budget.
  4. PLACED - amount committed for orders placed with a supplier and awaiting delivery/receipt, dynamically updated each time a new order is placed.
  5. SPENT - amount spent from this budget for orders delivered/received, dynamically updated each time an order or part order is received and copies accessioned.
  6. REMAINING - amount remaining/uncommitted/unspent.
  7. START - beginning of the budget period.
  8. END - end of the budget period.
  9. COST CENTRE - defined cost centre to which this budget is assigned if cost centres are used.
  10. - edit this budget.
  11. - merge this budget with another budget.
  12. - delete this budget.


Note: Because items on order can be as various stages of preparation, in-process, and completion, amounts displayed should be read as a guide to expenditure for a specific budget rather than a precise budget status.


Add A New Budget


Most libraries will have 

  1. - click to add a new budget.
  2. Budget Name - give your budget a suitable name, e.g., Library Budget (202_), History Department (202_).
  3. Amount - the amount of money allocated to this budget. Note: Editing the amount of a budget will impact the budget summary.
  4. Cost Centre - the cost centre aligned with this budget if req.
  5. Start Date - beginning of the budget period.
  6. End Date - end of the budget period.
  7. Re-Budget Resources of this Timeframe - check to re-assign resources whose catalogue date is within this budget range to this budget, if the resource is currently assigned to a budget that has no date and has the same cost centre. Note: This option is only available in budget creation mode and not in budget edit mode.


Once a budget has been created an order can be assigned to that budget to monitor track expenditure against the assigned budget.


Library Donations Budget


Donations are not paid for by your library, but they do add value to your collection and they can have a replacement cost. You can optionally choose to monitor donations on an annual basis:

  1. Create a budget as described above giving it a suitable name, e.g., Donations 2025, Donations 2025/26Donations Fiction.
  2. Allocate $0 to the budget. Note: A donations budget, i.e., a budget with $0 allocated, will not display summary expenditure.
  3. Catalogue donated books and align them to the appropriate budget.
  4. Go to: Reports > Catalogue > Resources/Bibliographic Records to report on donations.


Merge Budgets

  1. - merge one budget into another budget. Note:Budget merges are irreversible.


Delete A Budget

  1. - click to delete. Note: An unwanted budget is easily deleted but it will no longer be possible to report expenditure assigned to that budget.