What do you need to do before a purchase?
Complete a PO form for anything you would place an order for like stationery, events, training, IT equipment, stamps, office furniture. PO's are not required for things like travel and utilities. PO form needs to be authorised by your line manager and then sent to me for a PO number before the item can be ordered. Also, need permission from the credit card holder to use the credit card for the item.
What can you purchase?
Follow the expenses policy:
-
- No alcohol is to be bought.
- There are upper limit guidance for what should be spent on meals/accommodation:
| SUBSISTENCE | UPPER LIMIT GUIDANCE |
| Breakfast (with drinks) | £7.50 |
| Lunch (with drinks) | £10.00 |
| Dinner (with drinks) | £20.00 |
|
Overnight Accommodation Inner London Outside of London |
£150 per night £110 per night |
-
- Staff birthday and leaving gifts and cards should be funded collectively and not paid for on the credit card – includes new staff gifts too.
- Basic supplies for the office can be bought (tea, instant coffee, milk and sugar, cleaning materials). Things like biscuits, filter coffee should just be bought by those using them and not be paid for on the credit card.
What evidence do you need of the purchase?
As soon as you have made the purchase:
- Make sure you get the receipt to the person who completes the credit card return form for that credit card with information about what it is for and who it is for.
- For resources for families, please include a family ID.
- Please state what region you are making the purchase for if the credit card is used over more than one region, or if the credit card has used to make a purchase in a different region to the card holder's region. For example, if a South credit card is used to make purchases for Wales, this should be flagged to the person completing the credit card return so they can include that information on the form.
Receipts
For a paper receipt make sure it’s a clear image with the place the item was bought, items, date and amount shown clearly.
For electronic receipts i.e. emails or Amazon, please don’t take a picture or screen shot of it.
- Emails – print these to PDF (File>Print select Print to PDF as the printer and then Print it). Check the PDF that it includes the date, where the item was bought, what the item is and the amount before uploading to the database.
- Amazon – download and upload the invoice from Amazon. You can find this under Your orders>Manage and track your orders.
It is helpful to have receipts sent as one PDF in date order, this can be made here.
How to complete the credit card return?
At the start of every month in the "credit-card-statements" channel on Slack, the credit card statement for the previous month will be posted i.e. in the beginning of February we will post the statement for January. Once the statement is posted, please find the statement for your credit card on it and complete the credit card return sheet (see attached document below) and upload that and the relevant receipts in the thread of the statement on the credit card channel.
The best way to approach filling in the credit card return is to take each line on the statement and put it in the return form and then check the total on the credit card return form matches that on the statement for your card. For the expense type, there is a description of each one on the second sheet on the credit card return form.
If an item is refunded on a credit card return, then put a "-" in front so for a £10 refund put -10 as the amount. For the code, put the same code as if it had been purchased so for a train refund put the code as Travel and Subsistence (6130).
At the bottom of the credit card return form that there is a "Authorised by" section, please send the return to your line manager or the card holder (if completed on their behalf) to authorise it before uploading it to the credit card channel with the relevant receipts.