Dear Colleagues,
Happy Summer! We hope with fiscal year close soon approaching, you will have time to enjoy your summer. Maybe you'll have time to catch up on your "back burner" to-do list, or even carve out a little time for training opportunities.
While the Gateway and Flexcard classes are well attended, we have noticed the more standard Procurement courses are not. These courses address procurement and contract law, what the difference is between a purchase order and contract, how look for inventorial equipment, how to make small changes to purchase sustainably, and tips on restricted commodities. Some are even
recorded
and
available online for viewing
anytime!
- Equipment Management
- Gateway Invoicing
- Purchasing Basics & the Public Contract Code
- Sustainable Procurement
- Federal Purchasing
- Restricted & International Purchasing
- Business Contracts
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Inventory Audit + Equipment Management
During a post audit of Gateway transactions, we discovered numerous items of inventorial equipment (items whose unit value if $5,000 or greater) had been coded to sub 3 as supplies. These items included 3D printers, laptops and computers, lab freezers and copiers. Equipment Management is assigning asset numbers to these assets and will be processing journals to correct the subs and object codes.
To minimize these types of errors in the future, all orders for $5,000 or greater, on commodity codes related to the purchase of tangible goods, will route to Equipment Management for review. Effective July 1, 2019, if inventorial equipment is coded incorrectly, Equipment Management will work with the departments to correct the coding.
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Subaward / Contractor Determination
This new form includes updates about individuals, who cannot be granted subawards, and clarifies the ownership of Intellectual Property. Please use this version moving forward.
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Test Out a New Product Search Tool
Last year, UC rolled out the new Sustainable Procurement Policy, with a system-wide goal of spending 25% in select categories towards products that meet “UC Green Preferred” criteria. In addition, the Policy and Guidelines establish new minimum mandatory sustainability criteria for certain product categories.
Shopping for products with stated positive social and environmental benefits is not always simple. In order to ease the burden on both buyers and suppliers, UC Santa Barbara is piloting a product search tool (
https://uc.ecomedesdemo.com/
) that enables purchasers to find products that comply with the UC's Sustainable Procurement Policies.
Help us out by testing the
demo site
, and provide your
feedback
! Access to the site and a step-by-step Guide are also available through the Gateway Homepage under Promotions.
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Gateway Updates
New commodity codes with detailed descriptions for categorizing purchases will be added to the Gateway commodity code list as of July 1. Accurately categorizing purchases allows us insight into how we spend UC funds, and in turn we can negotiate better discounts to redirect the funds for use in education and research. Training notices for the additional commodity codes will be sent out in July!
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General Ledger & Prompt Payment Discounts
Starting in June you may notice credits for “prompt payment” discounts on your ledger. These credits are generated when we short pay a supplier invoice in consideration for paying the invoice promptly. Not all vendors offer this type of discount but we are standardizing our supplier payment terms to maximize these discounts for you. Prompt payment discounts can range from pennies to thousands of dollars and add up quickly for other critical purchasing needs.
Prompt payment discounts can be identified by their Journal ID and Description. Journal ID's will start with the letters “PY” and the description will match the description of the invoice payment; as shown below:
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Reimbursements
UC policy authorizes reimbursement to individuals for travel, entertainment, and moving expenses only. Reimbursement for other expenses, like goods or services, are a policy exception and considered on a case-by-case basis. The University may reject some or all of charges incurred and may require additional documentation to explain the circumstances and actions taken to avoid future recurrences of these requests.
Purchases of goods or services should be accomplished using a Flexcard or Gateway purchase order. Please coordinate with your administrative support team if you do not have a FlexCard or access to Gateway.
Bottom Line:
Do not purchase goods or services using your own personal funds
. UCSB purchasing systems operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year!
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Restricted Commodities
When purchasing goods and services, please remember to check the
Restricted Commodity list
, which gets updated regularly. For the most recent version, please check the Gateway homepage or the
Purchasing Forms website
. Checking the "Restricted Items" check box is an important step in completing your purchase requisitions, because it triggers an alert to departments such as Environmental Health & Safety for toxic gases, cranes/hoists, boats, scuba gear, human and primate tissues, and some lab equipment like autoclaves or biosafety cabinets.
We also have two separate Restricted Commodity fields in case you need to route your order to two separate units for approval.
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Office Maintenance
Maintenance services like window washing and carpet cleaning need to go through FM directly; please submit via Work Order in WebTMA.
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For faster answers to your questions for the Purchasing, Contract and Gateway teams, please email us at:
purchasing@bfs.ucsb.edu
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