About Finance, Accounting, and Budget Services

There will be a change in bookstore operations at each of the colleges in the coming year. Following is information for faculty and staff who are a part of the textbook adoption process. More information will come to provide further instruction and support.

Akademos will serve as Seattle Colleges’ bookstore vendor for Fall Quarter 2024 and for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Follett, our current vendor, has chosen not to renew its contract but is committed to completing all adoptions for Summer Quarter and fulfilling all student commencement regalia orders at our campus bookstores.

The relationship with Akademos is a temporary contract for the coming academic year only to allow us the time to engage in an inclusive process with stakeholders from faculty, students and others to determine what the Seattle Colleges students and faculty need in a bookstore function. This will guide the steps we take to provide this function in the future.

What faculty need to know and do

Please do not submit Fall Quarter adoptions to Follett. Submit Fall Quarter adoptions via this form:

https://forms.office.com/r/xvke4uH2QZ 

When sending the adoption list, please note the:

• Course number
• Section number
• Campus
• ISBN, and
• Whether the course material is required or optional

Once we have the new contract in place, these adoptions can be sent to Akademos for processing. Note: any adoptions for Fall Quarter already submitted to Follett will be transitioned to Akademos.

The majority of book orders will be delivered directly to students, however over the course of Summer Quarter, on-campus delivery locations will be identified for students who prefer to pick up their materials on campus.

Why this is happening

On April 18, Follett informed Seattle Colleges that it is exercising its right to decline renewing its service to Seattle Colleges with a 120-day notice, as permitted in the contract.

Since receiving notice from Follett, the Finance Office has revisited vendors who previously submitted proposals in our solicitation for bookstore management vendors to minimize the time needed to research vendors who can provide this service. This review has identified Akademos as an acceptable vendor for our upcoming 2024-2025 academic year.

The transition to Akademos is an emergency response to the short notice of termination provided by Follett. It allows us to minimize the interruption of course material access for our students and faculty across the district. We understand that this is not an ideal scenario—and it will not solve all issues involved in this process—but we will proceed to provide access to course materials via a reliable vendor.

What to expect next

We will provide a timeline and instructions for Fall Quarter 2024 adoptions as soon as possible. Angela Gurney, Director of Purchasing, is working with Follett and Akademos to gather information to share openly as we finalize our contractual commitments.

If you have questions about the textbook process with Akademos, please contact Angela Gurney.

We will provide more information in early Fall 2024 of the process we will initiate to make bookstore services decisions beyond the 2024-2025 academic year.

The decision has been made to embark on the Reorganization Plan for Seattle Colleges’ District Finance and Operations and College Business Offices. This reorganization is designed to unify the District Finance and Accounting Team as well as the District Purchasing Team. It will also realign the Business Office Teams, including the Cashiering Teams, across our three colleges. This plan has been developed over the last two years districtwide.  

With this announcement, we now move to a new phase where we will work with our union partners to ensure our team members understand the new structure and their place in it. We will be engaging in the necessary conversations to reach understanding and agreement. We are hoping to begin recruiting for positions as soon as possible to start the new fiscal year strong.

We have developed a reference page that details this reorganization on our website: District Finance and Operations Reorganization Plan.

On this webpage you may read the executive summary of the proposed reorganization as well as see the old organization charts and the new organization charts. There are some historic organization charts to show how finance and accounting has been organized in the past to help folks understand our past and current context.

We recognize that change presents challenges, and I want to assure everyone that we are striving towards a unified team working together to support the three colleges and the district in the most efficient way possible.

We will continue to provide updates as our plan and actions progress.

We in Business and Finance are always working to improve service delivery. We are excited to share that we are now using the online Help Desk ticketing system developed by IT to serve you better. Joining others using this system across Seattle Colleges allows us to share tickets between departments in the background to address your issues and concerns more seamlessly and efficiently.

The new Business Office category of IT’s online Help Desk ticketing system is now live.  There is nothing you need to do to prepare, and you can begin using it immediately.

How to Get Started

1. Go to the online IT Help Desk at https://helpdesk.seattlecolleges.edu.

2. Login in with your MySeattleColleges credentials.
Note: if it is your first time logging into the IT Help Desk ticketing system, you will receive a prompt to set up your account profile. Refer to the document “First time login to New Help Desk”.

3. Select the “Create a New Ticket” button and complete the form. Be sure to select “Business Office” as your category so it will route to our Business and Finance experts. In the form, describe the support you need, detailing the issue and your concerns and questions. Examples may include topics like:

• Budget manager/user meetings
• Capital projects coding
• Purchasing contracts
• Other contracts
• Grants
• Other support needed

Note: For full details on creating a Help Desk ticket, refer to the attached document “Create a Help Desk Ticket”.

4. Alternately, you can click “See Our COMPLETE SERVICE CATALOG Here” and then select Business Office to complete the form.

We are officially retiring the campus respective “Business Office” email addresses. If you email these addresses, your email WILL NOT be forwarded, and you will get an auto-reply asking you to go to the online Help Desk for assistance.