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Governemnt Procurement Cards (GPC)

last updated: 5th August 2011

A procurement, or purchasing, card is used like a credit card and is suited to low value transactions. It differs from your personal credit card in a number of ways:

  • the card can be blocked so that it cannot be used for specific types of expenditure such as hospitality or fuel
     
  • it will have an individual transaction limit, for example, £500 meaning that it may only be used for individual purchase transactions up to the stated level
     
  • it will have a monthly transaction limit, for example, £5,000 meaning that it may only be used for transactions totalling that amount during the monthly period
     
  • the monthly bill must be settled at the end of the accounting period ie there is no extended credit period as with a conventional credit card
     
  • the monthly bill must be reconciled against the card’s transaction log to ensure that all charges are correct
     

The decision to introduce and use a procurement card will rest at institutional rather than departmental level, thus, if you are located in a department and do not have a procurement card you should contact your Head of Procurement, in the first instance.

When implementing, or indeed using, a procurement card the following issues should be considered:

Detailed guidance on the use of the Government Procurement Card is available here and can act as a framework upon which to develop your own institution’s Procurement Card Guidelines. In addition the OGCbs website http://www.purchasingcard.info/ has a lot of useful information on GPC including a benchmarking section that can be used to produce a business case for GPC and information on the free eSolutions software. eSolutions helps to automate the Reconciliation and jornaling process thus saving time and removing errors. In addition if you click here we have a guide available that covers the functionality available with this valuable tool.

Several Case Studies based on actual college implementations of GPC have been developed as guidance and points of contact for other colleges, select below.

An important step for any college is to gain approval for the use of GPC by the Senior Management Team. To assist with this process here are some example buisiness cases:

OGC bs have set up a Government Merchant Acquiring (GMA) service that offers Public Sector organisations the ability to accept credit and debit card payments from both businesses and the general public.

The service can be used to accept payment for a wide range of over the counter and Internet/telephone payments including rent, the community charge, business taxation,speeding fines, planning, licence, car parking and toll fees.

The GMA Framework enables all UK Public Sector organisations to benefit from a pre-negotiated Framework that has been fully tendered through the OJEU process and offers a faster, more secure and easier way to receive payment for goods and services.

Organisations signing up to this Framework will have access to the latest banking technologies and services and will benefit from preferential rates for processing card payments and hiring terminals, low set up/management fees and improved cash flow. Click hear for the GMA rates

If you require further assistance or have any questions on GPC then please contact:

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