Common Purchases and Restrictions

See a list of routine items you can buy with the Procurement Card and restricted purchases.

Office Hours

We provide office hours for individual questions every Wednesday from 9-10 a.m. Visit our office hours page. Scroll down to Procure to Pay & Travel and Expense and click the Zoom Link to the right.

Common Purchases

• Abstracts
• Advertisements
• Audiovisual supplies materials
• Books, CDs, DVDs
• Bottled water delivery
• Break room appliance & supplies
• Cell phone purchase with the service plan billed through ITS
  
  • The Procurement Card can also be used to purchase a UCSD business cell phone through an outside vendor; however, the service plan for the phone must be billed to UCSD.
• Certification fees
• Classroom supplies
• Cleaning supplies
• Cloud services
• Copy services
• Employee clothing/uniform
• Computer - desktop, laptop, peripheral (with the understanding this will remain UCSD property)
• Delivery fees
• Equipment < $4,999 without a signed agreement
• Film processing
• Food - Only with PRIOR approval from the Procurement Team for: Donor card holders, Human Subject Studies, Basic Needs Program, food purchased for resell, and food where ingredients are used as supplies.
• Gasoline for UC owned vehicles when it is not possible to refuel on campus
• Instructional supplies
• International purchases that do not have to be routed through U. S. Customs
• International purchase without duty papers
• Journals - print and online
• Laboratory supplies
• Magazines/Newspapers
• Marketing materials
• Memberships fees
• Newspaper delivery (including online)
• Office supplies
• Online or In Person training (When no additional travel expenses will be incurred (i.e., parking, mileage, meals, etc.)
• Periodicals
• Photographic prints, processing and supplies
• Plaques for recognizing employees or students (must have no monetary resale value)
• Printing services
• Promotional materials
• Professional or technical organization dues
• Publications
• Registration - conference or seminar without travel. When reconciling in Concur, confirm in the business purpose that no travel was or will be claimed by the attendee(s).
• Reprints
• Research supplies
• Shipping
• Software - off the shelf & digital, no signed license agreement
• Subscriptions for periodicals
• Teaching supplies
• Utilities - campus related, cannot be for individual use purposes

Restricted items

Certain items, regardless of their value,may not be purchased with a Procurement Card. The table below lists the most common items (and is not limited to) along with alternative ways to obtain them. Alternate payment methods do not reflect Procurement Card policy. Please refer to policies in place by each alternate payment method.

If your purchase requires a contract/service agreement, regardless the value, the Procurement Card cannot be used as the payment method. Services that require a third party to physcially come on to campus or a campus affiliated location/event, also regardless of the value, cannot go on the Procurement Card. 

Purchasing restricted items without prior review or approval from the Procurement Card team will result in a policy violation notated on the cardholder's profile. If a trend of buying restricted items is reflected on the cardholder's profile, this can result in loss of Procurement Card privileges. 

Allowable Exceptions

The Procurement Card team can provide certain exceptions with prior approval. To request an exception please submit a case within the UC San Diego Services & Support portal, with a descriptive business purpose and why the preferred method was not used or is not available.

• • Flower Arrangement: Décor for University function
  • Gasoline - UC vehicle
  • Postage - Off campus usage
  • Rentals - No contract required (Conference booths that do not include sponsorship, equipment, location space)
  • Software - Requiring signed license agreement
  • Items shipped to an off campus address 
    • With prior approval, Procurement card cardholder's can request to ship goods they have purchased on their P card, to an address other than campus. We have replaced the form we use and the new process will require to submit a request in Concur. Visit this KBA for how to submit a request to get approval to ship goods to an off campus address.  Once you have received approval from the Procurement Card Team, the cardholder may ship items to an off campus address. The turn around time to get this request reviewed by the Central Office is 72 hours.
    • When reconciling expenses, in the detailed business purpose for that expense, you must provide the alpha numeric Concur Request ID for every transaction in which goods are shipped to a home address.
    • Please note that if you are ordering items on your own Procurement Card on behalf of someone else and the items need to be shipped to that person's address, the request only needs to be submitted by the Procurement Card cardholder and NOT the person receiving the items. As a Cardholder, you will only need to submit one request for yourself in Concur, to be able to ship items to ANY off campus address.  
• For any exception made by the Procurement Card Team, you will need to reference your Concur Request ID or Services & Support ticket # in the business purpose of your expense when recocniling. You will reference the approval in Concur, every time you make a purchase that you received an exception for.