ANU Purchase Cards

Published in the Research School of Physics Event Horizon
Vol46 Issue1 11–15 January 2021

The revised documents align to the requirements of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA Act) and make the responsibilities of Purchase Cardholders and Purchase Card Approvers more explicit.

A summary of the key changes is as follows:
• The new Policy and Procedure expands on the purpose of the Purchase Card.
• The financial responsibilities of Purchase Cardholders have been made explicit, and reference section 20A of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA Act) which requires all expenditure to be efficient, effective, economical and ethical. Cardholder responsibilities include, but are not limited to ensuring:
  o Compliance with laws, regulations and policies;
  o All expenditure has a valid business purpose;
  o A current financial delegation is in place and expenditure is within the limits of that delegation;
  o Acquittal of the previous month’s Purchase Card transactions within ten (10) business days after each           month end; and
  o Purchase Card transactions have been approved within fifteen (15) business days after each month end.
• The new Policy and Procedure articulates F&BS’ responsibility in reviewing and monitoring the use of Purchase Cards and ensuring compliance with Policy, Procedure and other associated documents.

Purchase Card Guidelines providing detailed information on allowable and non-allowable transactions have been prepared. These, along with further details on using an ANU Purchase Card can be found online here.
 If you have any questions regarding the any of these documents or the information online, please contact Financial Shared Services on 6125 4777 or via financial.shared.services@anu.edu.au.