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Alma Acquisitions

Alma Acquisitions training guide.

Invoicing Overview

Roles:

To search for and view invoices, you must have one of the following roles:

  • Invoice Manager
  • Invoice Operator
  • Invoice Operator Extended
  • Purchasing Manager
  • Purchasing Operator

To create an invoice, you must have one of the following roles:

  • Invoice Manager
  • Invoice Operator
  • Invoice Operator Extended

To process receiving the material at the same time as creating the invoice manually, you must also have the role of:

  • Receiving Operator

Navigating Invoices

Viewing Invoices

To view existing invoices, use the search type Invoice and any available criteria. Note that if you use Invoice number, all invoices that share that exact invoice number will come up in the results, even from different vendors.

  • Column Sorting. The invoice results list is slightly different than other results list in Alma, because you can sort it by most of the headers at the top. If there’s just a down arrow, the column is sorted in descending order. An up arrow by itself would mean that it’s sorted in ascending order. If there’s both an up and a down arrow, that means that that column isn’t sorted at all. To sort a column, click on the double arrows. To change the sort from ascending to descending or vice versa, click on the single arrow. You can only sort by one column at a time.
  • Use the Facets on the left to limit the list, and Export to send the list to Excel for offline work.
  • Additional views and actions. From the results list, you can click on the invoice number to see the invoice record, the vendor to see the vendor record, and the number in the Order Lines column to see all orders on that invoice.
  • Under the row action item list, you can Edit the invoice, change the status, and Generate Export XML to send to the ERP (part of invoice data loads).

Creating an Invoice

  1. Go to Acquisitions > Create Invoice
  2. Choose how you want to create the invoice:
    • Manually: you manually input all of the information
    • From PO: you can create an invoice for all items on a purchase order (PO); Alma will use the information from the PO to automatically fill in many of the fields on the invoice, saving you time and prevent transcription errors.
    • From File: these are EDI Invoice loads, and will be managed by systems librarians
  3. Handle Receiving: If you mark this box, Alma will seamlessly move on to the receiving process after the invoice is created.
  4. Complete the Invoice Details page
  5. Add Invoice Lines for each item on the invoice, for shipping and related costs, and any other line items on the invoice
  6. Make sure the invoice total on the Summary tab matches the total on the Invoice Lines tab; adjust as needed
  7. Save and submit your invoice for review

Invoice Statuses

Once an invoice has been created, it may have a number of different statuses:

  • In Review: The invoice was created but not yet reviewed
  • In Approval:- The invoice is waiting for manual approval
  • Ready to be Paid: The invoice was approved and is ready to be sent to the ERP
  • Waiting for Payment: The invoice was approved and sent to the ERP (or skipped the ERP if the institution does not use one)
  • Closed: The invoice is paid and closed

As the invoice moves through creation, review, and approval, Alma will automatically update the status as needed.