Purchase Requests

All purchases must be in accordance with policies and procedures set forth by the University.

When requesting a purchase, please provide the following information:

  1. Provide a direct link, list specifications of the item, or description of the purchase. If you have a quote, please provide it.
  2. Provide a short business justification.
  3. Please confirm which account you would like to charge.
  4. All tangible orders will be shipped to the office. If you would like any purchases shipped to your home address, please provide your full mailing address and phone number.
  5. If the request is for a service payment, please indicate where the services will be performed (e.g. city, state, country).
  6. If the payment request is with a new vendor, please put us in touch with the vendor.
After-the-Fact Purchases:

We want to avoid these types of purchases wherever possible. If an individual or company submits an invoice to us, did not provide a quote first, and was not setup as a UCLA vendor, this would be considered an after-the-fact purchase. The form must be completed and signed by the Dean/Chancellor, to be submitted with the purchase request to Purchasing.

Vendors:

All vendors must be registered in PaymentWorks (UCLA’s Vendor Management system), in order to receive PO’s and payments in Bruinbuy Plus (UCLA’s Purchasing system). Please consult with the fund manager if you are not sure if the vendor you are using is registered. If this is a new vendor, please put us in touch with the vendor.

    • Vendor registration must be requested prior to the commencement of service or before a purchase is made.
    • New vendor registration requests typically take three to six weeks to be approved, from the date the vendor submits their registration.
Many Ways to Buy:

There are several ways departments can purchase goods and services. This includes use of various approved purchasing methods such as:

    • Agreements & Blankets (BruinBuy Plus Catalog/Vendor Agreement List). Most commonly used vendors in this category are: Amazon Business, Office Depot, B&H Photo, ASUCLA, CDW-G, and Gorilla Marketing.
      • Office Depot: Campus Purchasing has changed the Login Name and Password to the non-BruinBuy users Office Depot browse site. New login name-UCBROWSE1a (case sensitive) & password-BROWSE4u (case sensitive) https://business.officedepot.com/. The browse-only login credentials will suspend after 3 failed attempts.
      • Amazon Business: Amazon Business will allow departments to shop using UCLA’s muli-user business account. The benefits related to using Amazon Business are:
        • Unlimited Free 2-Day Shipping on ALL qualified orders
        • Business pricing and quantity discounts on millions of items
        • Business Customer Service Team
        • Departments may purchase a tangible item for employee service or safety awards to be in compliance with IRS requirements
        • Department members can be invited to the account as “window shoppers” to create shopping carts for review, approval and purchase
        • Requests for reimbursements associated with personal credit cards for Amazon purchases should be avoided
        • Shoppers will be warned on the description page if the item they are buying violates policy
        • Improved data collection and reporting capabilities
    • Purchase Orders/LVO’s
    • Procurement Cards (P-Cards)
      • A list of common expense types allowed on the department P-Card can be found here.
      • A list of common expense types not allowed on the department P-Card can be found here.
Common Purchase Types

Honorarium & Guest Lecture Payments: Please contact the department fund manager and program coordinator to request an honorarium or guest lecture payment for an event or class. When requesting these types of payments, please indicate where the services will be performed (e.g. city, state, country).

  • Honorarium payments are payments that are not expected, but rather are payments that are sent as a thank you gift. Please put us in contact with the individual to initiate the honorarium process. This is the more common of the two.
  • Guest Lecture payments are payments that where the guest lecture is providing a service and payment is expected. This requires a different process and requires a quote/PO to be in place prior to the commencement of service. Please put us in contact with the individual to initiate the guest lecture fee process.

Please note: All service payments to foreign payees (non-U.S. citizens/non-permanent residents) who perform work within the U.S. are required to complete the Glacier process online. We must first determine if the payee is eligible to receive payment. If the payee is a foreign non-U.S. citizens/non-permanent residents, and they perform their service remotely from abroad, Glacier is not required.

Furniture: Per policy, furniture purchases are not reimbursable. All furniture for campus and home office use must be purchased through the department and UCLA’s approved vendors (Vendor Agreements List).

Gift Cards: Per policy, gift and gifts cards are not a reimbursable expense. Gift cards can be purchased directly by the department for the purposes listed below. Please request gift cards with the department Staff (UCLA’s preferred gift card catalog). The department typically only issue e-code gifts cards (Amazon e-codes are simplest). The limit for gift cards is $500 per individual, per calendar year. For other types of gifts (e.g. for visiting dignitary or scholar, donors, etc). please contact department staff.

  • A student or volunteer – for participation in a research study, completion of a survey or questionnaire, or for participation in another University-sponsored event.
  • A student – to recognize a meritorious academic achievement.

Mail & Shipping Requests: Per policy, mail and shipping expenses are not reimbursable. Any business-related mail or shipment requests should be requested with the department staff. Personal purchase of postage is not allowed.

Professional Membership Fees & Professional Subscriptions: We can purchase professional memberships/subscriptions directly with our department P-Cards. Please work with our office to pay for any professional memberships you would like to charge directly to your research funds to your research funds. To charge foreign memberships/subscriptions directly to your research funds, please reach out to the fund manager to find the best procurement method for the vendor and UCLA.

Purchases over $1,000: Please work with our office to place the order instead of seeking reimbursement. Per UCLA policy, reimbursements over $1,000 per item require exception approval from our AP office and approval is not guaranteed.

Software & Computer Equipment: Per policy, software and equipment purchases are not reimbursable. All software orders must be purchased directly by the department. We must complete the Third-Party Risk Management & Procurement process for all software purchases. The approval process typically takes a month or more, so please reach out to the fund manager for software purchase requests as soon as possible. The fund manager and DTA will assist with the required forms. Please see here for a list of readily available software, that can be purchased through UCLA Software Central.

UCLA Business Cards/Stationary: Per policy, UCLA business cards/stationary must be purchased by the department staff through UCLA approved vendors. Business cards orders may be places through UCLA Mail and Document Services or Castle Press.