Planning for Large Purchases

How to plan for large purchases and why it's important to plan early and communicate with your Research Coordinator.

Always submit a web procurement form 'green form'  before contracting out for services including but not limited to:  journal publication charges, data flights and conferences*. Obviously you will need to get an estimate, but some vendors will do the work based on your verbal agreement/email and then bill.

The PI can and must authorize the work based on scientific necessity and the needs of the project, but the PI does not have authority to authorize the campus procurement approval, only the Chair or his designated signers can do according to campus policy.  This approval verifies that campus procedures and policies were followed. The PI should never authorized work and services and wait for work to be completed before contacting the department to process payment. This causes serious problems, especially if the work is for more than $5,000.

The department does not have final authority to purchase goods or services greater than $5,000. This approval must come from the Procurement Department. The only exception is vendors that have master contracts with campus, like Dell.

For purchases over $5,000, we must submit suitable sole source justification to explain why the listed vendor is the only vendor who can provide the good or service. Without this, by law campus must put the order out to bid. Campus gets understandably upset when they are told the goods or services have already been received and the law has already been broken.

It is important to realize that even though the goods or services are budgeted in your grant proposal (and/or your NASA program manager tells you to use a specific vendor), we still must go through this process.  However, if they are budgeted and the vendor is specifically mentioned in the budget and budget justification, this is considered sufficient for sole sourcing the purchase.  Please make sure you let your research coordinator know if this is the case. While the order still has to go through the procurement department, a sole source is very straight forward as long as it is done before the goods are received.

*Conferences are sometimes considered “travel” and handled by the BSOS Smart Center through a TAR instead of Procurement. Contact your Research Coordinator if you are planning to organize a conference to determine the best method to proceed.