The San Francisco Controller's Office maintains a database of payments made to vendors from fiscal year 2007 forward. This data is presented on the Vendor Payments report hosted at http://openbook.sfgov.org, and is also available in this dataset in CSV format, which represents detailed data by voucher. We have removed sensitive information from this data – this is intended to show payments made to entities providing goods and services to the City and County and to protect individuals. For example, we have removed payments to employees (reimbursements, garnishments) and jury members, revenue refunds, payments for judgments and claims, witnesses, relocation and rehousing, and a variety of human services payments. New data is added on a weekly basis.

City Department spending may occur three ways: 1) from Contract to Purchase Order (i.e. a PO with an accounting Encumbrance) to Payment (i.e. an accounting Voucher), AKA On-Contract spending, 2) direct-to-Purchase Order (no contract, only a PO agreement and accounting Encumbrance) to Payment, and 3) Direct Voucher Payment (for limited one-time, non-recurring payments, e.g. a membership or a subscription). Therefore, it is helpful to use both the Supplier Contracts and Supplier Payments reports on SFOpenBook, as well as on DataSF.

Supplier payments represent payments to City contractors and vendors that provide goods and/or services to the City. Certain other non-supplier payee payments, which are made to parties other than traditional City contractors and vendors, are also included in this dataset, These include payments made for tax and fee refunds, rebates, settlements, etc.