Purchasing Supplies & Materials

Purchasing via Requisition

Blank requisition forms, including instructions for completing, can be found on Procurement's site. Use the form labeled "Request for Commodities/Supplies & Services."

This form must be submitted to your grant manager first. Your grant manager will ensure the purchase is allowable under the terms of the grant and within your budget. If so, it will be approved and forwarded to the appropriate purchasing office. Any requisition referencing a grant account without a grant manager's authorization will not be processed.

Purchasing Via Reimbursement

Alternatively, you can purchase supplies and materials on your own, and submit your original receipt for reimbursement. Use the State of Maryland Expense Account Form available on Accounts Payable's website.

This form must be submitted to your grant manager first. Your grant manager will ensure the purchase is allowable under the terms of the grant and within your budget. If so, it will be approved and forwarded to Accounts Payable for reimbursement. You should receive reimbursement via direct deposit, within two-four weeks. Any expense account referencing a grant account without a grant manager's authorization will not be processed.

Please note: requesting reimbursement contains personal risk, as the purchase may not be allowable under your grant, or there may not be enough funds available. When possible, use the requisition form (above) and purchasing offices available to you.

Grant-Specific Purchasing Policies

Threshold for Purchases

Until 7/1/2016: Each purchase (including shipping) must be under a threshold of $5,000. Any single purchase over $5,000 is subject to sole-source justification.

After 7/1/2016: Each purchase (including shipping) must be under a threshold of $3,000. Any single purchase over $3,000 is subject to sole-source justification.

Purchase Approvals:

When you submit your purchase requests to your grant manager, they are checking for several things:

Allowability: For each grant, purchases are either allowable, meaning they can be charged directly to the grant, or they are unallowable, meaning they cannot be charged to the grant. Federal guidelines on cost-standards give us basic guidelines on allowability, and your grant may contain additional rules. Some grants, for instance, allow the purchase of food and some do not.

Allocability: Each purchase charged directly to a grant must benefit that grant alone. Ink, toner, and paper, for instance, is almost never allocable to a specific grant, because it's difficult to prove that the supplies were used solely by that grant, and not for other departmental or standard office uses. However, if part of your grant requires the creation of binders for participants, you may be able to charge the toner and paper to the grant, if you can show they were used only for the binders specific to that grant. When submitting purchase requisitions, you may receive a response from your grant manager asking how the purchase benefits the grant. Your response (generally a few sentences is sufficient) is filed with the requisition in the grant records, so that during an audit, we can show that the costs charged to the grant were truly allocable to that grant.

Reasonableness: Federal guidelines require a purchase be in accordance with what a reasonable person would pay for a similar purchase or service.

SU Policies: Finally, remember that SU and USM policies on procurement are still applicable to all grants issued to SU, and must be adhered to.

Receiving Purchases

All purchases should be sent to Central Receiving. Support Services will deliver to your campus location (specified on the requisition form) on their schedule. More information can be found on Support Services website.