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How to Use SFOpenBook - Spending & Revenue

Table of Contents Site overview
Here is a step by step walk through of the design of the site.





Select Filters. You can choose from the following:
  • The Fiscal Year you'd like to view
  • How many years of data you'd like to view (1 Year or 5 Years)
  • Whether you'd like to view City Revenue (money coming in), City Spending (money going out), Vendor Payments (the portion of spending paid to vendors), Non-Profit Vendors, or Staffing (FTE)
  • Whether you'd like to Include Related Government Units, which include legally separate organizations affiliated with City government (for example: the Treasure Island Development Authority) and fiduciary funds for employee benefits such as health care. Click Go after you have made your selections.
The site defaults to the Current Fiscal Year, One Year, Spending, and Exclude Related Government Units.


Select a Tab. You can begin viewing data by:
  • Organization - Departments and Programs
  • Type - Different kinds of spending such as Salaries or Materials & Supplies
  • Fund - Various funds such as the General Fund or Port of San Francisco Funds
  • Vendor Payments - Information on vendors who do business with the City
  • Job - This tab is only available when viewing the Staffing (FTE) report type
  • Search - Search within a specific field (Organization, Type, Fund, Vendor, or Job) or search all fields
You can switch among the Tabs as you "drill down" in the data (instructions on how to "drill down" are in Step 3.)


"Drill down" in the data by selecting one of the options in the Data Table. From the Organization Tab, you can select the "Culture & Recreation" Org Group to view the Departments within it, which include the Fine Arts Museum and Asian Art Museum, among others. See the Department List to find which Organization a Department belongs to, and the Examples section for some possible drill-downs.

Once you have made a selection, you can also switch to a different tab. For example, from Asian Art Museum you could select the Type tab to view the types of spending that occur in that Department, which include Salaries and Non-Personnel Services, among others.


The "breadcrumbs" on the top left will show you where you have drilled. To move backwards, select the next to the individual filter. To return to the very beginning, select the next to Clear All.


To export the data to a Microsoft Excel Workbook or PDF File, select the PDF or Excel icon next to "Export to." This will export the data table and pie graph on the tab that you are currently viewing.


For questions, select the "Help" link at any time.


To download all the data (at its lowest level of detail) used in this site, click "Get dataset from SF Data."

Diagram of site structure

There are three levels of detail for each tab (except Job which only has two levels). Clicking on the text in a data table will take you to the next level of detail. For example, clicking the Org Group "Public Protection" from the Organization tab will bring you a list of Departments that fall into that category, such as Police.

Please refer to the Glossary for definitions of these levels of detail.



Should I use the back button while using the site?
No. To return to the SFOpenBook page simply close Spending and Revenue (it opens in its own window).

Don't use the Back button while drilling down through organization, department, program, fund, or type searches. Instead, use the on the left of each line of your filter history to move backward through the information that you have brought up.

Here is an example of filter history, which appears above the graph and data table:

For example, if you clicked the to the left of Public Protection in the example above, you would see Permanent Salaries-Uniform for all organizations.

How do I search for information on this site?
Use the tabs to narrow your search one step at a time. Each criterion you select remains as a filter on the data you are seeing and is represented in the "breadcrumb trail". Use the links and drilling features discussed under parts 3 and 4 of the site overview to find more specific information.

  • For example, imagine you wanted to find how much the City spent on salaries for uniformed police officers in 2013. In the upper right part of the screen, set the Report Type filter to spending. For Fiscal Year, select 2012-2013. Set the time span to one year. (Related government units will not impact this data, you can exclude them.)
  • Next, click on the Organization tab and select Public Protection. Click on Police Department. You will see that Public Protection and Police Department have been added to your "breadcrumb trail" at the top of the screen and have red "X's" next to them. Clicking on a red "X" will remove that filter from the data you are viewing.
  • To filter for spending on salaries within the police department, click on the Type tab. Click on Salaries to drill down for more details. Now click on Permanent Salaries-Uniform to see all spending on uniformed police officers during the 2012-2013 fiscal year. You will see a breakdown by pay types and a net total. Notice that the Organization and Type filters you currently have applied are shown in the "breadcrumb trail" at the top of the screen.
How do I download the data I find on this site?
Information can be downloaded into a Microsoft Excel workbook or PDF file by clicking on the icon at the bottom of each page:

This will export the data on the tab that you are currently viewing.

How do I find Citywide activity by vendor?
To see a report containing information on all vendors for the City, please see the Citywide Reports page.

You can use the Spending and Revenue report's search feature to see the citywide activity for one vendor.