How Do I . . . Use a Purchasing Agreement

Use this step-by-step guide to process purchases/payments against campus and departmental blanket agreements in DaFIS. Click on each step to get detailed instructions for that step. Each step must be completed before beginning the next step.

Refer to the Procedures section of the Requisition online reference manual for instructions on processing Revenue and No Cost agreements.

Note: Some university agreements are now available in UCD Buy. There is no dollar limit when purchasing from vendors in UCD Buy.

Note: The Purchasing Card can be used to purchase items against agreements, but the dollar limit for single-day purchases from a vendor is $4999, regardless of the dollar limit on the actual agreement.

Steps What's Involved Person Responsible

1 Determine if agreement exists for use by organization

Run Agreement Lookup (34) in Decision Support.
Prompt when using certain commodity codes on purchasing documents will alert user.
Subscribe to Purchasing list to stay up-to-date on status of frequently-used university agreements.
Departmental Purchasing User

2 a. If Agreement exists

Complete a Departmental Purchase Order (DPO), citing the agreement # in the Agreement # field on the DPO
For ongoing service, such as bottled water service, setting up one DPO for a year vs processing a DPO for each month
Departmental Purchasing User

b. If Agreement does not exist for your organization

If agreement exists, but is not currently available to your department, contact Purchasing.
If no agreement exists, complete the appropriate purchasing document for the item or service you wish to purchase.

3 Pay for items

Process a VI against the DPO you processed.
Departmental Accounts Payable User

4 Renew agreements as necessary

Campuswide purchasing agreements are often extended automatically by Purchasing.
Complete a Change Purchase Order/Business Agreement (CO) document for renewing a blanket agreement set up specifically for your department.
Departmental Purchasing User