Purchasing Card News – April 2022

Spread the Word!

This communication was distributed to the UW-Madison Purchasing Card Site Manager and Purchasing Card Cardholder lists. To ensure all users stay informed, please forward this message to other staff as appropriate. We appreciate your assistance!


Fiscal Year-End

We are preparing for our first fiscal year-end since the implementation of the Purchasing Card Module in the Shared Financial System (SFS). As you may be aware, this fiscal year-end will look a little different than previous years. To finalize Fiscal Year 2022, all purchasing card transactions must be fully approved – and within a short timeframe! See below for important dates and deadlines.

  • Saturday, June 25: UW System Administration will load the final file from U.S. Bank into SFS.  Cardholders may begin their final verifications.
  • Wednesday, June 29: Deadline to reconcile ALL purchasing card transactions by 2:00 PM. If not fully approved (verified by cardholder AND approved by site manager), processing will run to “system-close” the transactions.
  • Tuesday, July 5: UW System Administration will begin loading files from U.S. Bank into SFS for Fiscal Year 2023 processing.

Note: Transaction files will not be loaded into SFS between 06/26/2022 and 07/04/2022.  Purchases can still be made during this time, but will not post to the cardholders’ Reconcile Statement pages until 07/05/2022 or later, and will be processed as Fiscal Year 2023 transactions.

Beginning in early June, purchasing cardholders and site managers are encouraged to reconcile transactions in a very timely manner to reduce the number of transactions needed to be reconciled at the end of the month before the final deadline on June 29. While we may offer some leniency during fiscal year-end, “System-Closed” transactions will qualify as non-compliance beginning July 1, 2022, and be subject to the program’s warning and revocation process. Please plan accordingly to get as much done as possible.

Approvals Required for Single Purchase Limit Increases Greater Than $5,000

Occasionally, a cardholder may request a single purchase limit increase that exceeds the $5,000 best-judgment purchase limit for a one-time payment. In the past, the Purchasing Card Program Office required approval from the cardholder’s Divisional Business Office and a director of Purchasing Services prior to increasing the limit. Effective immediately, all UW System campuses are required to obtain additional approvals from the UW System Administration Purchasing Card Program Manager and the State of Wisconsin Department of Administration Purchasing Card Program Manager. Please continue to route requests to the Purchasing Card Program Office and a UW-Madison Purchasing Card Program Administrator will facilitate the approvals from Purchasing Services, UWSA and DOA. Please note approvals may take 1-3 days depending on recipient availability. Please plan accordingly and limit “emergency” requests if possible.

Purchasing Card Audit Findings

Since the implementation of the Purchasing Card Module of the Shared Financial System (SFS), our program’s top audit finding has been related to a lack of required supporting documentation, most commonly, missing Events or Official Functions pre-approval forms. If policy requires supporting documentation for a purchase (e.g., Events – Meal Payment Form for a business meal as required by UW-3039 – Business Meals), then that documentation must be electronically attached to the transaction in SFS by the cardholder during the reconciliation process. Site Managers must review the attachments thoroughly and request any missing supporting documentation prior to approval. If a document is not present during a post-payment audit, but provided upon request, it will still result in an audit finding and a subsequent compliance warning. SFS is the official system of record for all purchasing card supporting documentation. Documentation retained outside SFS is not accessible to our post-payment auditors and, therefore, must be attached electronically to the appropriate transaction in SFS to be fully compliant with purchasing card policy.

Questions?

If you have questions, please contact pcard@bussvc.wisc.edu.