Purchasing

University Guidelines and Policies

There are many potential methods to procure goods and services at Ohio State. The Office of Business and finance maintains "How to Choose a Procurement Method," a decision tree to help you determine the correct procurement method.

On the Administrative Resource Center, you'll find the Procuring Goods and Services job aid, which informs users of standard methods used to procure goods and services and is designed in order of priority consideration.

All employees involved in the use of university funds are responsible for compliance with all relevant university guidelines and policies:

Notes on Specific Purchases

All purchases, including business meals and alcohol purchases, must include a business purpose justifying the necessity of the expenditure. Purchases involving food and beverage must also include a list of attendees.  Food may be purchased for the following events:

  • Student-focused events (recruiting, etc.)
  • Events that include non-OSU guests (conferences, business meals, etc.)
  • Employee celebratory/recognition events (limit of 2 per year)
  • New hire welcome receptions
  • Recognition of Service events (retirement/departure)
  • Training events

BuckeyeBuy Catering Marketplace

The Catering Marketplace is a multi-supplier catalog of drop-off and full-service caterers and event equipment rental suppliers. Menus, discounts and service details are available when submitting an order. See Catering Marketplace for a preview of the site and the Catering Marketplace User Guide.

Catering order requirements:

  • List of Attendees - please remember to attach information regarding attendees. If it is a public event, please attach a flyer or announcement.  If an invite list is unavailable at the time of the order, please add a comment that a list will be kept locally for audit purposes. For all orders, please comment if any department/college/university leaders could potentially attend so we can secure the appropriate approval.
  • Memo to Supplier – please include your contact info, the date of the event, as well as the event location.
  • Area Worktags – when adding the funding source worktags, please add an Area worktag (AR1440 - events exclusive to OSU attendees or AR1442 - if anyone attending is external to OSU) in the “Additional Worktags” field.

If you are planning to pay an individual, whether it be to pay an employee, pay an honorarium, pay for a service, etc., please submit your request at least three weeks in advance of work beginning.  This gives us sufficient time to process required forms, submit agreements/contracts for legal review or process any required hiring forms.

To figure out what kind of paperwork will be required, consult the Independent Contractor Agreement Workflow Process [pdf].

Required Documentation for Payments to Independent Contractors:

By Vendor:

By Ohio State employee making request:

File
Independent Contractor Agreement with Copyright Language (opens in a new window)33.93 KB
File
Independent Contractor Amendment Form (opens in a new window)22.75 KB
File
Non-Employee Work Documentation (opens in a new window)104.5 KB

 

Payments to employees: requests to compensate employees for work performed outside of their assigned duties should be emailed to the department's HR Associate for processing.  If approved, the payment will be included in the employee's paycheck the following month.

Faculty should apply for Arts and Humanities Support for Research Grants to fund these services.  If a faculty member obtains funds from the College or another unit to cover permission fees on the condition that the department match the award, the matching funds will be expensed from the faculty member's research fund.

All requests for department shipping and mailing supplies (i.e. labels & envelopes) go through our front desk staff.  Please remember the mail is for use of departmental business only and UPS should be reserved only for exceptional circumstances (where extra security or speed is essential). Any items requiring UPS shipping must be approved by Wayne and will be charged to the individual's research fund balance.

The purchase of books and digital media published by an academic press, or other material relevant to your research, is permissible from the annual travel allowance, up to $250 per year.  

Business cards can be ordered through Uniprint. UniPrint is updating its process following the Workday transition. Ordering process information will be published soon. The cost of having business cards printed will be charged to the individual's research fund.

Regarding Braille business cards, unfortunately UniPrint is not equipped for this.  Once you receive your single-sided business cards from UniPrint, we can send them to a vendor to be brailled.  The university's ADA Coordinator's Office suggests Access USA.

PCard Guidance

Using the PCard is strongly encouraged, as opposed to personal funds, when procuring items on behalf of the university. PCards are used to support university purchasing and payable processes and subject to the limits of the university’s PCard and Expenditures policies. Common purchases made with the PCard include books for research, gift cards for participants in workshops or research activities, conference registration, food for events, and various items from Amazon. 

It is against university PCard policy to pay individuals, to pay sales or use tax, and to save the PCard number (hard copy or electronically) 

  • Guidance for paying individuals can be found on our Paying People webpage.
  • The university does not pay sales tax or use tax in Ohio and certain other states as outlined on the Business and Finance Sales and Use Taxes webpage.

Workday does not enter the PCard process until after the purchase is made. At this point you will be reassigned the PCard transaction and will be required to expense the transaction with the required documents/receipt; see "Returning the PCard and Expensing the transaction" below.

Both India McDougald and Wayne Lovely manage PCards for the Department of English. To checkout one of the departments PCards you will need to complete the Dept of English PCard Request Form. This form is to request the use of the Department PCard for business related expenses. Your request will take approximately 10 business days to be reviewed/approved; please plan ahead. 

Note: Once your PCard request form has been approved, you will then be contacted via email to schedule a day and time to sign out the PCard. The PCard manager has the authority to deny usage of the PCard if necessary. 

Note: If this PCard request is related to a travel expense, you must have an approved Spend Authorization (SA) in Workday before checking out the PCard. If you have not yet submitted your Spend Authorization, please wait to submit a PCard request form until this step is complete. After the Spend Authorization has been submitted, please add the SA# to the PCard form upon submission.  If you are attending the conference virtually, a Spend Authorization is not required. You can proceed with submitting a Dept of English PCard Form.  

To complete the PCard Request Form, the following information is generally required: 

  • A detailed business purpose should be written so an individual unfamiliar with the department’s operations can understand why the transaction occurred and how it benefits the mission of the University. Some examples of good business purposes: 
    • “Conference registration for [your name] to attend the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference to present on a panel about [research topic] and network with other scholars.  [Your name] will also be meeting with other collaborators on [grant project] to discuss the project’s current results and possible next steps.” 
    • “Four $25 Target gift cards were sent to participants of the ENGL 3004 usability ‘Message Test.’  The winners were chosen at random from the list of those who responded.  Recipients are William Shakespeare, Nikolai Gogol, Franz Kafka, and Mary Shelley.” 
    • “[Book title] is needed for my research on the history of the book.  This book discusses the impact of the printing press and how it has shaped the distribution of the written word today.” 
  • The estimated cost of the item(s).
  • Funding source.
    • You don’t need to know your specific Worktags – “research fund,” “GAHDT grant,” “Undergraduate Studies Fund,” or “Kitty Locker Fund” is usually sufficient
  • A URL to the item or source where the item can be purchased.
    • This is essential because english.fiscal@osu.edu will need to review any potential purchases for Terms and Conditions.  If applicable, these require review and approval by the Business Service Center before the purchase can be made. 

Purchasing Gift Cards using Contracted Suppliers

  • Following a recent contract bid for gift cards and incentives, there are now two official suppliers, Virtual Incentives and Tango. These contracts are available for university-wide use for digital and physical gift cards. Contract information can be found on the appropriate contract book pages.
  • Virtual Incentives should be the primary supplier of gift cards due to an 8% contract discount on virtual gift cards. This includes priority over direct orders from brands such as Amazon. Any Amazon gift cards should be ordered from Virtual Incentives, not Amazon, in order to receive the discount. Users can select from many different brands and products, including Virtual Visa and Amazon.   

Product Type/Brand(s)

See Virtual Incentives' product catalog for availability. Almost any gift card can be purchased; some common choices are:

  • GiftCard PASS (most used) - curate a selection of brands including any eGift Cards, Virtual Visa & Physical Visa and let the recipient choose
  • Virtual & Physical Visa
  • eGift Cards - Amazon, Target, Walmart, Kroger and hundreds more
  • Physical Gift Cards - 50+ Brands such as Amazon, Target, Walmart. Bulk Fulfillment only

Information needed for PCard Request Form

  • Product Type/Brand(s) — see above
  • Project Details
    • Number of total payments
    • Start and end dates
  • Funding/Invoice Amount
    • English.Fiscal@osu.edu will request an invoice from Virtual Incentives for the amount you will fund. This request will account for the 8% discount virtual rewards, and/or any fulfillment/shipping fees for physical rewards.
    • Virtual Incentives has a Hosted Catalog with a single $1 line item. Add quantity of dollars needed to match your invoice.
  • All gift card purchases must include either a list of recipients or an IRB#. 
  • Please return the PCard promptly (within 2 business days) after making the purchase. 
  • The PCard Manager will reassign you the credit card transaction so that you can expense it in Workday. This process is nearly identical to a travel reimbursement. 
  • When you expense the credit card transaction in Workday, you will upload a copy of the credit card receipt, as well as any other supporting documentation you have (e.g. list of attendees, flyer, etc.). If you have a physical copy of the receipt, please give it to the PCard Manager in case it needs to be rescanned later.