Unallowable Procurement Card Purchases and Practices

Unallowable Purchases

The following is a list of items that may not be purchased with the procurement card.

  1. Controlled substances
  2. Gasoline Purchases for personal vehicles
  3. Living Animals
  4. Maintenance or lease agreements
  5. Meals and incidentals when using the per diem method
  6. Personal expenses
  7. Purchases exceeding $500 at all Washington University campus bookstores require a purchase order.
  8. Radioactive or hazardous materials (including disposal of)
  9. Rounding up for a charity at retail stores
  10. Donations to a charity or foundation (on the cardholder’s behalf)

Unallowable Procurement Card Practices

  1. Cardholders cannot share their card or account number with another employee.
  2. Purchases should generally be shipped to Washington University business addresses. With departmental approval, certain exceptions are allowable.  Such exceptions include office supplies, toner, books, and other items which may need to be shipped directly to a partially or fully remote employee in order to accommodate the University’s business needs.  In addition, presentation and promotional items may be shipped from the vendor to the conference or event location. Preferred suppliers provide value in price and service and should be your first choice. List of preferred suppliers can be found on Resource Management website.
  3. Procurement card transactions cannot be split or parsed into two or more smaller ones to avoid per-transaction dollar restrictions.
  4. Procurement cards cannot be used to circumvent the competitive bidding process. Single transaction limits over $24,500 will require the approval of the Purchasing Department and the Controller’s Office.
  5. Procurement cards cannot be used to purchase items in a manner that is inconsistent with any procedures put into place by Purchasing Services.
  6. Procurement card purchases may not be linked to personal rebate websites/programs (ex: Ebates, Ibotta, Swagbucks, etc.)