Background
The University provides a Purchasing Card as a method of payment to suppliers for goods and services. This allows a named individual (cardholder) can make purchases on behalf of the University without the need to raise a purchase order (PO).
The purpose of using a Purchasing Card is to save transaction costs, reduce paperwork, and administrative time involved in ordering and invoicing low-value, high-income goods and services.
Policy Overview
The Purchasing Card policy applies to all University staff and subsidiary companies who have a card, and all approvers of transactions made on those cards. The policy highlights two key principles:
- Value for money - The University is a charity and receives public funds, and has an obligation to the OfS to deliver value for money from those funds
- No personal gain - Cardholders must make decisions in the best interest of the University, and without any prospect of personal gain. It is the cardholder's responsibility to act reasonably and with honesty, integrity when purchasing on behalf of the University.
All Purchasing Card transactions are imported into the University's finance system (Unit 4), and cardholders are expected to process them in a timely manner. Budget holders should then approve transactions, ensuring that the evidence provided is sufficient to support the transaction, and applied to the correct cost centre/project code.
Spending Limits
An initial monthly limit will be agreed as part of any application, this is usually no more that £5,000.
Each card has a single transaction financial limit, usually up to a maximum of £2,500, including VAT and any handling charges such as delivery
Cardholders can not request a supplier to accept multiple part-payments against one or multiple cards to overcome this limit
A request to amend transaction limits can be made by sending a completed amendment to cardholder limit form to purchasingcards@hud.ac.uk
Who to Contact
If you have any questions relating to Purchasing Cards please contact purchasingcards@hud.ac.uk and someone from the team will get in touch.