How to use the Open Project Purchasing

Link here

Steps for McCuller Lab Member

1. Click the Green Create Button or the Green "+" button

2. Select the type of purchase:

If this item has been/will be PCarded, select Purchase-PCard

If this item is a quote to be approved by Lee and sent to Caltech purchasing, select Purchase-Quote

If this item has been requested on Techmart, select Purchase-Techmart

If this item has been purchased from on campus, like the VWR Stockroom or a Machine Shop, also select Purchase-Techmart

3. Change the blue "New" button to the relevant status, which will usually be the following:

If the item(s) has/have been purchased by the PCard and not yet arrived, select "PO"

If the item(s) has/have been purchased by the PCard and arrived (like for the lab lunch or on campus purchases), select "Recieved"

4. Describe the purchase items in the descirption. This should be a general description if the items will be described in a receipt or quote down below

5. Accountable: the singular "Person who is in charge of the item being completed. (Will get notifications)". This is you

6. Assignee: "Person who is in charge of next step. (Will get notifications)". This is Lee for a quote and Stephanie otherwise

7. Contacts: this is you and whoever else should be actively involved in the order, including tracking and receipts

8. Priority (for Purchase-Quote and should exist for Purchase-Techmart): establishes how much Lee and Caltech should rush the order. If you can't advance on something that is time sensitive, do "high" or "urgent"

Purchasing/Details

9. Vendor: write out the vendor, as specifically as possible and including other common names if relevant

10. Purchase Type: leave as Materials & Services unless it's over $5,000, in which case Equipment could be relevant. You can mostly ignore this

11. Date: enter the date the order was placed and the date you expect the last item arrives. This lets us know when to expect an item and when to follow up

12. Total Cost: enter the total cost, including tax and shipping. If one or both of these is missing but will be applied, leave a note in the description

13. Budget Suggestion: suggest which budget the items will be on, depending on which experiment they are for or if it is for the whole lab

14. CA Reduced Tax: applicable for certain orders worth more than $2,000. Can save around half of CA sales tax. Fill out this form that Lee will need to sign, and see this for more info

15. Competitive Form: applicable for orders worth more than $10,000. You need to justify to Caltech that you're buying the cheapest option or explain why you're going with another option (like it's better). You will need at least one other quote. See this form

Tracking Fields

Recieved: check when you recieve all the items, redundant with changing "PO" to "recieved"

Inspected: check when you inspect an item. More important for custom and/or expensive parts. This tells Lee and the lab administrator that it is ok to pay.

Req#: To be filled once the order is created in Techmart. (Not needed for Pcard purchases). You can fill this out after sending Lee Techmart requests.

PO#: To be filled once the order is made into a PO in Techmart. (Not for pcard). You can fill this out after Lee approves and order on Techmart.

Inv#: Invoice number once it is created in techmart. Not needed for Pcard purchases. So far, not really needed

Follow Up and Costs:

Ignore

Attachments:

Upload quotes for Purchase-Quotes and receipts for Purchase-PCard. Also upload CA Reduced Tax form and/or Competitive Form. You can upload other files here as needed.

Final Step:

For a Purchase-Quote, especially if it's urgent, hit the "Lob to Lee" button on top of the webpage.

What to do as items come in

Change "PO" to Recieved or Recieved-Partial, check "Recieved" and "Inspected" as relevant

Purchasing Rules to save us Money

CA Reduced Tax: applicable for certain orders worth more than $2,000. Can save around half of CA sales tax. Fill out this form that Lee will need to sign, and see this for more info

Equipment: for certain items over $5,000, the items can be declared "Equipment" and avoid the lab paying overhead. If this is the case, it can make sense to increase purchases that would be between $3,000 and $4,999 to over $5,000.

Steps for Lab Administrator(s)

The Open Project's roll is to help us create and track purchases. We can't fully interface with Techmart, so your job here is to take the Purchase-Quotes and get them a Req# and PO#. Once these are created for an order, please enter them into the Open Project so that we can also track them. The Open Project is also so that we don't have to deal with Concur. Receipts for PCard purchases will be uploaded here.