Features in backlog:
Conceptual discussion before framing this out
Have already enabled support for operations in previous fiscal years
Electronic resource databases - multi-year commitment where vendor will give a better deal. May invoice for all three years. Library will pay current portion, but accounts payable will pay the whole amount.
Large prepayments out of Harrassowitz and EBSCO. Don’t use prepaid account, but prepaid object code.
Getting a sense there is not a lot of urgency for this?
Currently in FOLIO has to be money to encumber or pay against
How do you do the business logic?
If you don’t know what next fiscal year budget will look like, can probably just use last year’s allocation and then adjust once known.
Are there circumstances where cash is all technically paid in one year, but you are allowed to spread value over balance sheet for three years?
Library budget is impacted differently. University essentially extends credit to allow library to spread this out and institution saves money from discounted rate.
Has any other system offered this?
Example of scenario on smaller scale compared to prepaid. Agreement with outside department where library’s budget was hit all in one year, but outside department is paying over a number of years. Processed as credits.
All linked together by the order. Is there anything problematic about doing it that way?
You can’t create an invoice ahead of time.
What’s the annoying part about having to create multiple invoices?
What reminds you to create invoices?
More about workflow management and making sure things don’t get missed than actually reporting those numbers and forecasting? Or maybe some of both
Dependent on person handling it
Mixing it in with invoices may not necessarily be ideal - Catch-22.
What percentage of stuff is managed this way? How prevalent are these transactions?
Is that trend increasing, decreasing, or pretty constant?
Cornell - Increasing this year - will be doing 5 more vendors, but not to level of other two. Not sure if this will continue, it may just be a special year.
Dung-Lan Chen - Stays kind of the same with the same vendors.
Folks that are part of Consortia, is there any kind of Consortium purchasing that is similar?
Kristin Martin 8:32 AM
I think there are always opposing forces: stability and cost-savings over time vs. flexibility for the future
Usually commit to things where it is not expected to cancel.
Often for more than one year because it takes a lot of effort to do the negotiation. Doing that annually is not very feasible.
For Read & Publish agreements and other complicated deals trying to plot out a time horizon is helpful.
Molly Driscoll 8:38 AM
I'd recommend reaching out to Slack about the topic because I know some libraries in Oceania are very interested in the multi-year spending but cannot attend this meeting slot.