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Equipment Management Compliance

Last Updated: October 10, 2023 11:36:51 AM PDT
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Learn about the responsibilities of equipment management.

The purpose of Equipment Management is to manage and control property that are considered UC San Diego Equipment.  "Equipment" are all items meeting the following criteria, and must be tracked by the Campus Asset Management System (CAMS) and through UCSD’s financial system:

  • Are non-expendable
  • Stand alone
  • Have a normal useful life of one year or more
  • Qualify as tangible personal property (can be appraised for value)

Note: Firearms, government property, certain "theft-sensitive" items, and UCSD vehicles registered with the DMV must be recorded and tracked as inventorial equipment, regardless of cost.

Equipment Management serves an important function at UC San Diego because the University must not only record the inventory value of equipment (including depreciation) located at UC San Diego, but also report expenditures for equipment to federal, state, and private funding agencies.  It must also make records of equipment transactions available to UCSD's auditing agencies.

University of California Policy BFB-BUS-29 on Management and Control of University Equipment establishes procedures for the management and control of inventorial equipment.  For more information on equipment management including ways to acquire and dispose equipment, please visit UC San Diego’s Equipment Management page.

Campus Asset Management System (CAMS)

UC San Diego manages equipment through the Campus Asset Management System (CAMS) to track inventorial equipment and run reports electronically. 

The official records of inventorial equipment are maintained by CAMS.  All Government-furnished or University-acquired inventorial equipment purchased by direct charge to a Government award is recorded in CAMS as well.

Types of UC San Diego Equipment

  1. Inventorial equipment has an acquisition cost of $5,000 or more and must be tracked as property through CAMS and through UC San Diego’s financial system. All equipment items are either owned by or in the custody of UC San Diego, and must be non-expendable (cannot be used up), stand alone, have a normal useful life of more than one year, and qualify as tangible personal property.
  2. Non-Inventorial equipment/property has an acquisition cost less than $4,999 and must be tracked through the financial system, or the Elective Module (Non-inventorial) in the CAMS.

Responsibilities

The Principal Investigator and the head of the department are ultimately responsible for the care, maintenance, financial records, physical inventory, disposal, and control of equipment.  A department's property administrator takes care of the actual identification and tracking of inventorial equipment within the department.

Personal use of property

Per BFB-BUS-29 Management and Control of University Equipment, employees shall not use University property or property in the care and custody of the University for personal purposes without preapproval by the Chancellor or Laboratory Director.

 

For more information, contact: Equipment Management, or Office of Contracts and Grants Administration, (858) 534-3330.