Purchasing on Research Foundation Accounts

SMALL PURCHASES (less than $5,000)

There are several methods to use for making small purchases that are allowed by your sponsor regulations, allocable to the project being charged and covered by sufficient funds in your account:

• Telephone orders - contact the supplier to place the order asking that the invoice be sent to:
  
  Texas A&M Research Foundation
  Account No. _________________
  400 Harvey Mitchell Parkway South, Suite 100
  College Station, TX 77845
  
  
• JP Morgan Chase Procurement Card
• Other Credit Cards
• Personal Funds or personal credit card may be used to purchase items and reimbursement requested using RF Reimbursement Form.

PURCHASE ORDERS

All purchases of $5,000 or more that involve the purchase of equipment, supplies, services, rentals, hotel facility rental, maintenance agreements and publication of articles must be submitted to your Project Administrator using an order requisition form prior to commitment. Upon approval by your Project Administrator, the Purchasing Office will issue a purchase order to the supplier.

Exceptions to the order requisition requirement are:

• Inter-campus purchases from a member of The Texas A&M University System
• Joint purchases between members of The Texas A&M University System and the Research Foundation.

Purchase orders are usually issued within three days from receipt of the order requisition. If an immediate need must be met, please contact the Purchasing Office for assistance.

Competitive bids or similar are required on purchases of single items of $5,000 or more and purchases of any number of the same item whose aggregate cost is $5,000 or more. Written bids may be obtained by the project staff or by the Purchasing Office using specifications provided by the project on the order requisition. Justification is required when the lowest bidder is not selected to receive the order.

Exceptions to the competitive bid requirement are:

• Only one source of supply is known (written justification required).
• An item is available through a Texas A&M University contract, TAMU Supplier Mall, or an E&I Coop contract.
• The services to be performed are of a technical or professional nature by an individual instead of a company (Ex: individual consultants).
• Providing bidders with adequate specifications, plans, or other sufficiently detailed descriptions of the required material or services is impossible (Ex: architect, engineer or R&D services).

Written quotes from the suppliers are required on the above exceptions.

The suppliers should be allowed seven to ten working days to prepare and submit their bids. If your project has an emergency need for an item that must be bid, the Research Foundation Purchasing Office will obtain rush bids or you may use the Emergency Telephone Bid Procedures.

If there is an emergency need for the purchase of equipment or materials that require bids, use this as a guide for obtaining telephone bids:

• Bids must be requested from at least three suppliers.
• Each supplier should be supplied with the same specifications, and the best price should be requested. Negotiations are not allowable at this stage of the purchase.
• Record the bid from each supplier on the Record of Telephone Bid Request form.
• Select the vendor based on the low bid. If a vendor other than the low bidder is selected, a written justification is required.
• Attach the Record of Telephone Bid Request for each supplier to an order requisition and forward to your Project Administrator.
• If the order must be placed immediately, contact your Project Administrator and fax him/her all the paperwork for processing.

SHARED PURCHASES BETWEEN SYSTEM MEMBERS

When the cost of a purchase is shared between your Research Foundation account and another TAMUS member account (TAMU, TEES, Texas AgriLife, etc.), each member must be notified so that funds can be reserved for the expense. Normally, the purchase order for a shared purchase will be processed through the other system members Purchasing Office with prior approval from the Research Foundation Project Administrator.

Federal agencies are required by law to utilize not only small and small disadvantaged businesses as much as possible, but also to use veteran owned and service disabled veteran owned, woman owned and HUB Zone businesses, as much as possible. This requirement is passed on to contractors and subcontractors. Therefore, the Research Foundation is required to include subcontracting plans for the above groups in contracts over $550,000 and in all EPA grants. These subcontracting plans show "goals" which are estimated percentages of the budget that can be placed with these socioeconomic business groups. Reports are filed periodically during the year with the sponsors indicating progress made in meeting the subcontracting goals.