The Boston University Purchasing Card (“PCard”) Program is designed to provide an efficient means of making routine purchases of under $3000.00 per purchase, with a $30,000.00 per month credit limit. The Single Purchase Increase Form form is for temporary PCard spend increase requests due to unusual circumstances. It may only be completed by PCard Cardholder approvers, as denoted within the Bank of America Works system, and an invoice, quote, or screenshot must be attached.

Boston University’s PCard team will respond to requests within 2-3 business days; please plan accordingly. Requests that violate the PCard policy, that contain incorrect/incomplete information, or that are made by persons other than the PCard Cardholder’s designated Approver will not be approved.

The form can be found here.

In instances where there may be ambiguity as to the appropriate method for purchasing various goods and services, the Ordering Method Matrix can be an extremely useful tool for identifying the ideal methods for making these purchases.  It lists primary methods, as well as (where applicable) secondary/tertiary methods; and notably, any method that isn’t marked on the chart should not be used.

Any end users involved in making purchases/payments of any kind would benefit from reviewing this chart, as it will payments as efficient as possible, while minimizing the consequences of using unapproved methods.

When validating invoices in the “To Approve” or “To Watch” queue in Ariba, please be sure that the supplier is submitting for a single invoice only, and that the invoice amount in Ariba matches the single invoice attachment.  The supplier should not submit multiple invoice attachments on a single invoice entry in Ariba.  Please validate this by reviewing the supplier’s invoice (directions below) to ensure that only one invoice has been submitted.  If multiple invoice attachments are submitted, please reject the invoice back to the supplier to resubmit each invoice separately in Ariba.

We are working with Ariba to create a warning to the supplier.  Ariba is also assisting Accounts Payable with a customized tracking mechanism to identify and reject these scenarios in the future.

Viewing Supplier’s Invoice Attachment: Suppliers have two locations to place an invoice attachment in Ariba: Invoice Summary tab OR Invoice Line Item

• Invoice Summary tab: Click on the  icon on the invoice summary tab. Click on Download to open.

• Invoice Line Item: On the invoice summary tab, in the line item section (scroll to the bottom), click on “Details” (as highlighted below) then click on Download.

Federal regulations govern the use of federal funds (grants, contracts, cooperative agreements) and the selection of air carriers for foreign travel. Foreign flag air carriers may not be used solely on the basis of costs.

It is advisable for all BU employees who engage in foreign travel on federal funds to be very familiar with the Fly America Act and its regulations.  Information about it can be found here.

An honorarium is a payment to an individual in recognition of a special or distinguished service for which propriety precludes setting a fixed price: activities like a lecture, participation in a workshop or seminar, speaking engagement, or appraisal of a manuscript for professional publication. Both employees and non-employees are eligible to receive honorarium payments, however, Boston University employees must be paid through the payroll system.

More information about eligibility, required documentation, and common oversights to avoid can be found here.