Purchasing for Newly Appointed Faculty and Staff

Introduction

As the Director of Purchasing Services, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the University and give you a brief overview of the purchasing process at Penn. This document is designed to familiarize new Penn faculty and staff with the policies, procedures, services, and authorized buying methods that are to be used when ordering products and services from external suppliers.

This document also provides information on Penn's purchasing process, strategic purchasing objectives, policies and procedures applicable to acquiring products and services from external suppliers, internal organizations that you may come in contact with during the buying process, and the buying methods that make its easy for authorized faculty and staff to satisfy their purchasing requirements.

About the Buying Process at Penn

The University's BEN Buys Purchasing System and the Penn Marketplace facilitate a seamless and user friendly online "purchase-to-pay" environment for faculty and staff. BEN Buys, coupled with the Penn Marketplace, enables Penn to leverage its considerable buying power and capitalize on its investment in leading edge financial information management and purchasing technologies. Access to the BEN Buys Purchasing System is available to all authorized employees, including faculty, researchers, lab assistants, and administrative staff. An authorized system user can log on to a secure environment, browse-search-select items from a large number of the University's most commonly used preferred contract supplier online catalogs, process an order by creating a requisition, which gets routed, approved and turned into a purchase order electronically through the purchasing system workflow. The online purchasing system enables users to select items from Penn Marketplace suppliers, and create requisition lines for non-marketplace suppliers in a single shopping session. This one-stop-shopping environment dramatically reduces time and effort required to satisfy purchase requirements. During the process of creating a requisition, account and buyer validation takes place as well as automatic processing for funds checking (availability of funds), identification of hazardous materials and checks to ensure the appropriateness of equipment purchases to be charged to sponsored research.

The University's MasterCard Purchasing and Fleet Fuel Card Program is also available to authorized faculty and staff for the purchase of a limited number of designated products and services from external suppliers. The card program is an efficient buying tool for commodities listed in the BEN Financials Commodity Matrix.

Purchasing Related Information

Please take a few minutes to review the information available in the new employee orientation web links listed below.

Welcome to Penn and please do not hesitate to contact our organization for additional information on the purchasing process at Penn or assistance with any specific purchase requirement.

Sincerely,

Ralph Maier
Chief Procurement Officer

Relocating to Penn

About Penn: Information about the University of Pennsylvania. Division of Human Resources: Learn about the programs and services offer by the University's Human Resources organization. Penn Travel Office: The Penn Travel Office staff is available to assist new faculty and staff with travel arrangements to the Philadelphia area. Faculty & Staff Relocation Services: Purchasing Services, in conjunction with the Division of Human Resources, provides a comprehensive program for new University faculty and staff relocating to the Philadelphia area.

Key Purchasing Services Web Pages

About Purchasing Services: Learn about the Purchasing Services organization, staff members, customer relationship management initiatives, strategic purchasing objectives, core competencies, and key accomplishments. Breaking News: Purchasing related announcements issued by Purchasing Services. Buying Information: Learn about financial and purchasing related policies, buying tips, purchasing training seminars and information, contract and supplier information. Purchasing Forms Library: Purchasing related forms, University purchase order terms and conditions and credit information, and the Comptroller's Office related documents. Buying Tools: Learn about the University's approved buying methods and related training information. The Penn Marketplace: The University's industry leading eProcurement supplier marketplace which contains over 5M of the most commonly ordered products and services from over 100 of the University's preferred contract suppliers. Socially Responsible Purchasing: Learn about the University's commitment to socially responsible purchasing and related initiatives.

Purchasing Related Organizations

Office of the Comptroller: Includes the Accounting, Accounts Payable, Payroll, Tax, and Travel departments as well as information on Ben Financials, the University's financial management information system. Office of Research Services: Provides administrative support to researchers and staff for all sponsored project related business requirements. Financial Training Department: Provides members of the Penn community with programs focused on the University's financial processes, procedures and systems. Office of Environmental Health & Radiation Safety: The organization responsible for promoting health safety & environmental protection in teaching, research, health care and administrative activities, safety-related support services to the PENN community, and ensuring compliance with federal, state, and local regulations to achieve optimal control or reduction of hazards and exposures which are detrimental to people, property, and the environmental.