San Francisco Vendor Payments Since Fiscal Year 2007

Fiscal year 2007 onward, the San Francisco Controller's Office provides a database of payments to vendors and contractors for goods and services. The data excludes sensitive payments like employee reimbursements and is updated weekly. It includes supplier payments and other non-supplier payments such as tax refunds and settlements.

Use Cases

• Analyze spending patterns by vendor categories using the 'Purchase Order' and 'Procurement Contract' tags
• Track weekly updates of payment amounts to monitor city expenditure flows
• Identify major suppliers and contractors from the 'Vendor' and 'Spending' related data fields
• Compare procurement activity across fiscal years using the temporal coverage starting in 2007

Strengths

• Weekly update frequency ensures current data on city payments
• Explicit exclusion of sensitive payment categories like employee reimbursements clarifies data scope
• Covers a long temporal range from fiscal year 2007 onward
• Data originates from the authoritative San Francisco Controller's Office

Limitations

• Specific column names, row counts, and data size are unknown, limiting precise analytical planning
• The exclusion of certain payment types (e.g., human services, judgments) may create gaps for specific research on total city spending
• Data is limited to the City and County of San Francisco, not generalizable to other regions

Provenance

Source

San Francisco Controller's Office

Collection Method

Extracted from the Vendor Payments report hosted at openbook.sfgov.org, with sensitive information removed.

Time Range

Fiscal year 2007 onward

Freshness

Updated weekly.

Geography

City and County of San Francisco, California, USA