Heritage Acquisitions
The Heritage Library Management System has a fully-integrated, comprehensive acquisitions facility which offers all the control mechanisms necessary to manage the ordering of new stock. The Acquisitions module is optional and can be purchased separately, but is provided free of charge as part of the Serials Management Module.
A wide variety of order types can be handled, including standard orders, instant orders, standing orders, subscriptions, open orders and returns. In multi-site libraries orders and budgets can be managed separately for each site.
A suppliers file provides a place in which to store essential contact details including: telephone and fax numbers, addresses, email addresses, discounts and instructions for supply and delivery. These details can then be transferred automatically to order letters, which are also user-definable in terms of layout and can be sent to suppliers via post or email. Invoice information can also be entered on order records - searches can then be performed on invoices if necessary. It is also possible to produce reports on supplier performance using the Command Line Reporter.
Budgets are managed by Heritage and allow the librarian to define any number of allocations and add to them. Budgets by year are maintained and each stage of the order updates the committed, spent, and balance totals. All transactions are audited by Heritage and these can be listed in reports.
Serials are handled in the acquisitions facility. Purchasing the serials module will activate those parts of the acquisitions facility which handle standing orders and other requirements necessary to manage the complexities of serials/periodicals. Heritage removes much of the hard work from ordering and chasing serials with automatically generated letters, chasers and forms.
Receipts
Receiving items in Heritage couldn't be simpler. If the record has already been entered, either in part or in full, just scan or type in the ISBN/ISSN and the relevant order record will appear on the screen. All that remains to be done is to change any part of the record which is not correct from its first entry and then assign a new accession barcode label to the item - all from one screen!
Budgeting
Heritage provides full budgetary control for library staff as part of the acquisitions facility. Any number of funds can be set up and Heritage handles multi-tiered budgeting where a main fund needs to be broken down into departments. It is also possible to have user/group specific budgets, where only authorised users are allowed access to certain budgets (this is particularly useful in multi-site libraries).
At any time the librarian can see what the status of a fund is and produce reports accordingly. Allocation, committed, spent and balance totals are all maintained and Heritage will allow comparisons to be made between current and past budgets; it will also allow budgets to roll-over into the next year where required and funds can be frozen. Adjustments and corrections can be made to totals with each of the changes recorded for auditing purposes.