Procurement Card

Summary

The CALS Finance FBSC will serve as your procurement card coordinator. This includes the release of charges to your Procurement Card from the APPS system and the retention of original procurement card receipts as the responsible point of contact for Audit.

How to Access Services:

Email or phone all of your questions to your Finance Transaction Specialist (FTS).

Department Responsibility

Obtaining a Procurement Card:

• Supervisor who believes his/her staff member needs a University procurement card notifies the Director of the CALS Finance BSC. Note: Supervisor will be required to provide specific examples of the types of goods and services the staff member needs to purchase and the frequency with which purchases will be made.  Procurement cards will only be authorized for individuals whose job requires them to make frequent business-related purchases.
• The Director sends a procurement card application to the supervisor for completion.
• After completing the application, the supervisor approves the recommendation and forwards to the Unit Chair or Business Manager for their review and endorsement.
• The application is then forwarded to the CALS FBSC Director for final approval and verification before sending on to Credit Card Programs. 
• After review of new procurement card applications by appropriate Credit Card Program staff, an e-mail is sent to the applicant (with a copy to their supervisor) which includes instructions about completing the tutorial.

• Applicants who are approved to receive a procurement card must:
• • Read and understand the Procurement of Goods and Services policy.
  • Review the Procurement Card Online Tutorial
  • Pass the Tutorial Exam with a score of at least 85%
  • Sign the "cardholder Agreement" (included with e-mail notification)
  • Send the e-mail confirmation generated by the Tutorial Exam to Credit Card Programs.
• PCard holder obtains receipts for all PCard purchases at time of purchase (detailed packing slips can serve as original receipts). If ordering over the phone, cardholder will ask that a receipt be mailed and/or faxed to PCard holder.
• PCard holder immediately forwards original PCard receipts (with detailed business purpose) to CALS FBSC. If an original receipt is not available, PCard holder will forward documentation to the department's FBSC transaction specialist which states the following (detailed packing slips can serve as original receipts):
• 1. What was purchased (item description and price)?
  2. Why was it purchased?
  3. How does it relate to research or project (business purpose)?
  4. Where was it purchased (merchant name)?
  5. When was it purchased (date of transaction)?
  6. Why you are unable to provide the original receipt.
  7. Document efforts that were made to obtain original receipt.
• Clearly indicate the following on the receipt (or attached the 3M sticky note):
• 1. Business Purpose
  2. For food receipts -- Attendees, agenda/purpose of meeting, alcohol or fill out Meals for Business Purpose Form.
  3. Account number (DUO code if applicable) - if account number is other than default, please indicate the accurate account number.
• Cardholder will review their monthly PCard statement for accuracy - i.e. all purchases are recognized, all purchases were made by cardholder, and all purchases have a legitimate business purpose. You have 60 days from statement date to dispute charges. Statements should be retained by cardholder. Note: Questions/concerns should be directed to CALS FBSC. (Note: Cardholders should retain their statements unless otherwise directed by their departments.)
• Department notifies FBSC when default account number needs to be charged.

FBSC Responsibility

The FBSC transaction specialist works closely with procurement card holder to ensure that receipts include business purpose and account number.

The following explanations can will help both the CALS FBSC procurement card coordinator and Procurement Card holders to understand why it can sometimes be difficult to match receipts to payment information.

• Some vendors (for example VWR, Fisher, etc.) will place an order with a manufacturer who will then ship directly to the person who ordered the goods. In this case the manufacturer's name will appear on the packing slip, but the name of the original vendor (VWR, etc.) will appear in the payment queue.  Often there is not a reference number or a total amount on the packing slips that we receive making it difficult to match. It is helpful to have the name of the original vendor included on the information coming to the FBSC.
• Often the total amount on the packing slip does not match up with the amount in our payment queue because the discounts have not been applied or shipping and handling costs have not been added. This can create problems when matching receipts. 
• Items which have been back ordered will sometimes have two receipts but will only appear as one payment in our queue making it difficult to match up the receipts with payment information.
• The name of the person to whom the items were shipped do not match up with the name of the Procurement Card holder. It is helpful to have the name of the person who owns the Procurement Card that was used to place the order. 
• Often the invoice or packing slip does not indicate whether it was a blanket order or credit card order and they end up getting misfiled.