New/Prospective Cardholders
As with any financial instrument, you should be aware of UMass Boston’s policies and restrictions prior to obtaining and using the card. The Purchasing Card is to be used only for purchases related to University business and to purchase allowable commodities (allowable/restricted link) UMass Boston prefers users to utilize the ePro Marketplace in PeopleSoft to place orders with participating vendors. Use of the card for personal purchases is strictly prohibited and subject to disciplinary actions.
Who is eligible to receive a Procard
A UMass Boston employee (faculty, benefited staff, or graduate assistant) who routinely purchase for the University can be designated by their department to receive a Procard. Final determination is made by the Procurement Department.
Acquiring a Procard
The cardholder is required to read the Procard Manual and adhere to all Procard policies and procedures. Individuals must complete the application form, attend a formal Procard Training Session, and sign a Cardholder Agreement Form before they can receive their card. Once the completed application is submitted with all the proper fields correctly entered and the proper authorizing signatures, the applicant will recieve their card from from the Procard Administrator at the mandatory Procard training session. The standard application process time is about three weeks. (Application for Procard)
Record Keeping Requirements
You are required to keep a Procard Purchase Log of all purchases, obtain and keep original itemized receipts, fill out necessary forms, and to reconcile your statement on a monthly basis.
How to determine the card(s) for you
Please feel free to contact the Procard Administrator, Eden Medaglia, to discuss which card(s) would be best suited for your purchasing needs: eden.medaglia@umb.edu or 7-5063
We offer 3 types of Procards: Non-Grant, Direct Grant, Indirect Grant (Grant Reallocation)
*Non-Grant: This card is for a designated person to make departmental non-grant funded purchases. This card may be set up 2 different ways, Direct or Indirect.
Non-Grant direct card set-up; Transactions will post to the specified department fund. The advantage of this set-up is no re-allocation to a different funding source is needed; therefore reducing your work load. This is the default set-up for Procards.
Non-Grant Indirect card set-up: This allows a cardholder or a Business Manager to reallocate to a different departmental funding source within 30 days of the transaction date. This card set-up requires attending another separate training session on reallocations.
*Direct Grant: This card is for the Principle Investigator or other authorized person to purchase approved commodities to a designated grant. Transactions may not be reallocated to a different funding source.
*Indirect Grant (Grant Reallocation): This card is for an individual who needs to purchase supplies for multiple Principle Investigators (PI’s) and for multiple grants. The card will default to a non-grant funded source and is the responsibility of the cardholder or a designee to re-allocate the charge within 30 days of the transaction date to the appropriate grant. This card requires attending another separate training session on reallocations and submission of all grants requesting access to reallocate to (
Add Accounts for Procard Reallocation ).
*If you are purchasing for a grant, there may be other purchasing restrictions specific to the grant not listed here. It is your responsibility to know your funding limitations and restrictions, whether grant or non-grant funded.
How It Works
When you make a purchase, in person, by phone or over the Internet, the vendor requests a purchase authorization at the point of sale. The MasterCard system validates the transaction against pre-set limits established by UMass Boston. Transactions are instantaneously approved or declined based on the following authorization criteria:
• Number of transactions allowed Per Month and Per Day;
• Single-Transaction dollar limit (STL), including shipping costs, not to exceed your limit;
• Billing cycle spending limit;
• Approved commodity type (for example, conference registrations are allowed while travel expenses are not allowed).
MasterCard pays the vendor and invoices the University. These transactions are loaded into the PeopleSoft finance system and can be viewed by authorized finance users. They can also be viewed from the JP Morgan payment.net website (https://www3.paymentnet.com/Login.asp).
Procard Limits
If not specified, the "default" limit is used
| Limit | Flexible? * | Default / Max Default |
| # Trans per day | Y | 5 |
| # Trans per month | Y | 25 |
| $ per transaction (STL) | Y | $700 / $1000 |
| $ per billing cycle | Y | $3500 / $5000 |
* Temporary limit increases can be made with approval from Procard Administrator and supervisor. Permanent limit increases above the Max Default are flexible only after an audit and are granted on a case by case basis.