Small Purchase Card Procurement Policy

SPCC Policy for Longwood University

The use of the small purchase card streamlines Longwood University's procurement procedures for procuring and paying for small dollar goods and services (under $5,000). Procurements up to $5,000 shall be set-aside exclusively for DMBE-certified small businesses, if one is available. The goal of the Commonwealth is that 40% of its purchases be made from small businesses. The use of the Purchasing Card reduces the volume of invoices processed by Accounts Payable by consolidating payment invoices into one monthly payment to the charge card vendor, in this case, Bank of America VISA. The payment will be paid monthly by a clearing account directly to Bank of America VISA. The reconciliation of the individual cardholder monthly accounts will be done within the month following the payment. The card shall not be used to circumvent procurement guidelines. The card should be registered for use in eVA for vendors who have agreed to accept credit card payments.

The Purchasing Card program enables the Administrator to access and generate a variety of reports. It also provides the opportunity for cardholders to view their monthly charges and access their monthly statements through Bank of America's Works Application. The Works system enables the Administrator access to a variety of information from which to manage all cardholder accounts. The Administrator not only has access to cardholder information, SWAM reporting information, total expenditure information, but is able to perform such tasks as processing application requests for new cards, changing monthly spending limits, addresses, etc.

Longwood University (Materiel Management and Accounts Payable) schedules training sessions for cardholder applicants. Cards are not distributed to cardholders until they attend the mandatory cardholder training. Power Point presentations, as well as hand outs, are distributed to each cardholder and the cardholder agreement form is signed and kept on file with the Administrator. All cardholders may attend the training as many times as needed. The Administrator, back-up Administrator, cardholders, and cardholders' supervisors are required to complete on-line training annually, as mandated by DOA.
Longwood University has set limits of $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 or $5,000 per transaction depending on the department's need. There is a $10,000 monthly limit set for each card. The monthly limit can be increased with the submitted request form and approval by the cardholder's supervisor. The Administrator also signs off on these requests. It may be permanent or on a temporary basis. A cardholder may not, under any circumstances, authorize splitting of charges in order to circumvent a charge in excess of the transaction limit set by the University. The card shall not be used for cash advances, personal charges, or business travel expenses, such as, hotel accommodations, food, car rental, gas/oil. These are restricted on the card and may only be removed on a case-by-case basis, as requested by the cardholder's supervisor.

Cardholders are not permitted to email, fax or enter their card number on the internet unless they are using a secure website that is indicated as such with ‘https' included in the URL. The cardholder must call the vendor with card information or the vendor contacts the cardholder to obtain the credit card information. Cardholders are not permitted to share cards.

Longwood University has been given permission from DOA to use the card for airline/rail ticket purchases. The ticket purchases shall not exceed the card limits. Accounts Payable regulations regarding travel must also be adhered to, such as travel permission, itineraries, etc.

Longwood University's policy is to issue cards only to those employees who have procurement responsibilities included in their job description. The state application form is used to request a card. The cardholder and the cardholder's supervisor are required to sign the Employee Agreement Form after the training is completed. All SPCC forms can be accessed from the Materiel Management website.

The Materiel Management Office, Accounts Payable, Internal Audit, DOA, and DGS review the purchasing card program. Materiel Management and Accounts Payable perform monthly audits and infractions are cited to the individual cardholders and their supervisor.

The second offense of any of the following: not using mandatory contract, not obtaining a release from the mandatory contract, not soliciting a SWaM vendor, and split ordering will result in a thirty day card suspension. The cardholder and supervisor will be required to take mandatory training before being reissued their card. Any additional offense within a six month period will result in the card being suspended for sixty days. The cardholder and supervisor will be required to retake the mandatory training before being reissued their card. Any additional offenses will result in permanent revocation of card privileges for the individual who is in violation.

A cardholder's supervisor may request a deactivation of the card for internal departmental reasons they are having with a cardholder. This may be done by the department seizing the card, the department head sending the Program Administrator an email with the cardholder's name and time period the card will be deactivated. Materiel Management will then deactivate the card for that time period.