Purchasing Card (P Card) changes

There are some Purchasing Card (P-card) changes being introduced aimed at increasing the uptake of card holder review and approver rates. The results of these changes are hoped to improve the quality of transactional data, provide a one storage solution to keep all your VAT and invoice receipts.

The main changes that will affect your role are:

Updated guidance on intranet pages and training to help you better navigate to find the right help and advice you need.
It will be compulsory for approvers and card holders to complete the e-learning course every year. This is necessary to keep the key messages of the P-card process at the forefront of people’s minds and to ensure that card transactions are in line with policy permissions.
New approvers will need to complete the e-learning upon system access being granted to ensure they understand their responsibilities and duties.
The VAT code field in the card system is now mandatory so you must address the VAT element against each transaction line.
The email notifications sent to card holders and approvers are being improved to make them more useful and informative.
We will be setting up face-to-face meetings with anyone not following the correct process, to resolve any issues and provide guidance.
For schools it is important you understand what can be purchased on the card and where it cannot be used.

Access to the Purchasing Card e-learning module for schools can be found here

Please read the following card holder responsibilities and make sure you are taking these steps:

Ensure you review your monthly card transactions and upload all receipts before the monthly deadline.

A significant number of people are not reviewing their card transactions every month. We MUST improve this figure and ensure that if you use a P-card you MUST review your transactions monthly, if you don’t your card will be blocked
You need to agree a window for your approver to review and approve transactions.
The cutoff date for submitting P-card reviews is the 15th of each month but you can do this sooner if you want to
The card processing cycle runs from the 29th of the previous month to the 15th of the current month, so there’s a wide window for monthly reviews to be completed.
Reviews don’t have to be done in one go, they can be done in part and saved throughout this period, which is helpful if you have a high number of P-card transactions to review and makes it easier for your approver to meet their monthly deadline.

Card holder checks.

You must make sure you have approval in line with your team arrangements to purchase before you use your P-card.
Make sure you are only making purchases that are in line with what is permitted within the policy and if in doubt always check the guidance.
Make sure each transaction has the correct VAT code assigned and upload ALL VAT receipts and invoices against the appropriate spend line in the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) (SDOL) system.
Every month, check there is no expenditure on your card that you don’t recognise.
Assign the correct g/l code and include a meaningful description against each transaction line.
If you are unsure about how to carry out any of these card holder tasks review the full guidance on the IBC pages by searching for: ‘Monthly management of purchasing card (p-card) account’, you can also use webchat from that page if you need more support.

Approvers must check all P-card transactions.

You should be checking all card transaction for the following:

VAT receipts and invoices have been uploaded.
You should also be checking and viewing the uploaded images against each line.
The correct VAT code has been assigned to each line.
Spend has been preapproved in line with local arrangements.
Transactions are in line with what you would except as activity in your service area,
There are no fraudulent or suspicious transactions.
Card holders have correctly reviewed each transaction line, and a meaningful description has been assigned.

Important update for Schools: Please ensure that the card given is ONLY used for purchases that are allowed by the policy.

The P-card MUST NOT be used for purchases for staff gifts, leaving presents, food and alcohol for staff events. If you wish to purchase these sorts of items, you must use your own payment card and NOT the one issued by the council.

If card holders don’t submit their card reviews on time or approvers do not approve them, this is escalated to your head of service and the P-card is at risk of being blocked.

Guidance about access and using the p-card system can be found on the IBC guidance pages by searching for ‘Monthly management of purchasing card (p-card) account’.

Please take some time to discuss your p-card arrangements with your approver and make sure you have an agreed way of working so you can complete the monthly review and approval tasks.