Purchasing Card Advisory Committee May 8th Meeting

Sixteen (16) committee members along with representatives from Purchasing Services, Travel & Card Services, and Office of Audit, Compliance and Privacy attended the initial meeting of the purchasing card program advisory committee.

The meeting was an opportunity for each committee member to discuss issues or concerns they have with the current card program and new opportunities they would like the management team to pursue.

Business Issues

Committee members identified the following issues that could positively impact their use of the purchasing card:

• Enhance the training program and add information on how to effectively utilize PaymentNet to manage cardholders and card activity.
• Create online forms for requesting changes to monthly spend and transaction limits.
• Highlight future changes to policies and other documents when communicating the changes to the campus.
• Provide better visibility into real time monthly transaction and spend balances.
• Clarify use of purchasing card for various types of gift cards.
• Clarify the process for disputing sales tax.
• Access to more line item detail on the Transaction Detail Screen.
• Enhance the Commodity Matrix to better define card use.

Card Usage Opportunities

Committee members identified the following as opportunities to expand the use and value of the purchasing card program:

• Expand use of card for travel for specific travel and entertainment categories.
• Expand the use of the card program for catering requirements.
• Identify another source for alcohol purchases.
• Modify program restrictions to allow for bulk purchases of SEPTA tokens.

Next Committee Meeting

A formal action plan with specific deliverables and projected timelines will be distributed to all committee members prior to the next meeting which will be held in late July 2008.