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Low Dollar Orders
- Divisional, School or College staff, with proper delegation, may place
orders $5,000 or less, using specific Low Dollar Order/External Requisition
forms (LDOs) or the Purchasing Card. Without delegation, authority to place
orders is $100 or less.
- Delegation is obtained through the
completion of the block titled "Requisitions -Low Dollar Order Delegation
$5,000 and below (ASM
3.2.11)" and completion of other required information and signatures on the
Authorized Signature Form. The blank
form is available at the
Downloadable BFS Forms site.
- The delegation is the responsibility of the signers of the Low Dollar
Order Delegation portion of the Authorized Signature Form. It is expected
that staff that have not signed the Authorized Signature Form may be
assigned duties in conjunction with the delegation. Additional staff may be
authorized to acquire and use a Purchasing Card within the organization's
delegation limits and in accordance with section
5.4.3 of this manual. Those staff are not required to sign the
Authorized Signature Form; but it is understood that the signers of the
Authorized Signature Form are responsible for compliance with the delegation
requirements and the actions of staff assigned to fulfill those
requirements.
- The Unit Business Representative will ensure that single points of contact
exist for the collection of records for audits of the delegation at those
organizations in which delegation is exercised at organizations within the
School, College or Division.
- Formal training is recommended for staff exercising delegation authority.
Such training includes, but is not limited to Low Dollar Order and other
training conducted by Business and Financial Services. Such training is
listed at the campus
Employee Development web site or provided on request. Staff exercising
delegation authority must, at minimum, be briefed in this Administrative
Services Manual section and those other sections referenced within this
section; and must understand and comply with University work rules as they
relate to procurement duties.
- Transactions are restricted by size, frequency and type.
- Individual purchases may not exceed $5,000 for delegated campus
organizations. For those organizations without delegation, the individual
purchase may not exceed $100.
- Serial contracting is forbidden. Serial contracting is defined as the
placement of multiple delegated purchases by the same departmental program
totaling more than $5,000 within any 30 day period, $12,000 within any 90
day period and $24,500 over a twelve month period to the same vendor. Campus organizations without delegation are
limited to purchases of $100 within any 30 day period to the same vendor.
Serial contracting is subject to the unauthorized purchasing process as
published in section
3.2.4 of this manual.
- Material Safety Data sheets must be requested for hazardous chemicals
listed in
OSHA Standards 29CFR, Part 1910, Subpart Z. Links to on-line data bases
of such data sheets are available at the
University Safety and Assurances web site.
- The purchase must be appropriate to the mission of the ordering
department.
- No blanket orders or maintenance contract orders may be established on a
LDO. Requisitions for all types of blanket orders and maintenance contracts
must be routed through Purchasing for order placement.
- All staff are cautioned to avoid conduct which is unfair to the vendor
community or is ethically unsound. Guidelines on proper conduct are
contained within section
3.3.15 of this manual and the State and System policies cited in that
manual section.
- The following procedures will be used in placing Low Dollar Orders
directly with vendors:
- If the order is issued by means of a Purchasing Card, follow the
procedures in the
Cardholder Manual and the
Purchase Check List. The vendor should be instructed to honor State,
System or Campus contract pricing, if such exists.
- If the order requires a new LDO form, the ordering department completes
the form in accordance with the instructions in section
3.2.1 of this manual, to include the
Purchase Check List.
- If the order is telephoned or faxed to the vendor, the LDO description
should include: "TELEPHONE ORDER PLACED WITH (full name of person
contacted and date) BY (initials of individual placing the order)-DO NOT
DUPLICATE" - or - "FAX ORDER TRANSMITTED TO (fax number) ON (date) BY
(initials of individual placing the order)-DO NOT DUPLICATE."
- If the order is telephoned to the vendor, it is recommended that a copy of the LDO
with the second page (Standard Terms and Conditions) be mailed to the vendor to document the order
in writing and convey the terms and conditions to the vendor. If the order
is telephoned to the vendor, be certain that the vendor understands that
the purchase order number must appear on the resulting invoice or that
invoice will be rejected.
- The original copy of the LDO is immediately routed to Accounting
Services with original signatures of approvers required by the department,
division, school or college.
- The ordering department is responsible for tracing delivery on product
or service not received and for product returns, replacements and credits
for items ordered on LDOs.
- Accounting and post-audit functions are performed on LDOs.
- Accounting Services reviews LDOs for appropriateness, approvals and
funding; and enters the requisition data on the Financial System. LDOs
lacking proper approvals are returned to the ordering department.
- Purchasing reviews the LDO for proper vendor selection and to collect
data for reporting purposes. No formal purchase order is produced; nor is a
copy of the LDO returned to the ordering department unless circumstances,
such as error in preparation, warrant it.
- Audits are performed of LDOs by Internal Audit, Purchasing and Accounts
Payable to correct improper application of LDO procedures.
- Call Purchasing for guidance or send a requisition through the normal
approval channels of Accounting Services and Purchasing for order processing
if you are uncertain about proper procedure or do not want to process the
order yourself.
Questions regarding Low Dollar Order procedures should be directed to
Purchasing
(x4304).
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