Purchasing
Center staff are happy to assist with any purchases needed to support your work.
Purchasing Items
When requesting the purchase of an item, please provide a link for the item(s) you need and indicate whether you would like to pick up the item at our offices on campus or if you would like to have it shipped to your home address. If the latter, please provide your home address. Center staff can purchase items from a variety of vendors, as long as the vendor in question provides the lowest cost and no conflict of interest exists. Many larger vendors (including Amazon, Office Depot, Steelcase, etc.) have special purchasing agreements with the University.
Purchasing Services / Independent Contractors
If you would like to pay for an independent contractor or other service, please use the form below to request the establishment of a purchasing order. Independent contractors (such as a teacher leader or other partner) are individuals who will be performing work for your site on an ongoing basis for an extended period of time. This process or can often take 2-4 weeks, and use of the service or contractor in question cannot begin until the purchase order is in place.
Request establishment of a purchase order for an independent contractor
One-time Payments to Individuals
If you would like to pay an individual for a one-time presentation or participation in an event (such as an honorarium), please use the following form:
Request payment for an individual
If you are unsure whether to pay an individual through the independent contractor process or the one-time payment process, please contact Jeremy Till.
Purchasing Computing Equipment, Software, and IT Services
Due to the need to mitigate cybersecurity risks, ALL purchases of computing equipment, software, and IT services need to be initiated by contacting Letters & Science IT (email: lshelp@ucdavis.edu). Please note that "computing equipment" includes peripherals such as monitors, hard drives, printers, etc., and "software and IT services" includes online subscription-based services such as DropBox, Grammarly, AirTable, etc. In some cases, IT will refer such purchases back to the Center Staff for completion after completing the required risk assessment. However, all purchases still need to be initiated by contacting IT.
Reimbursements for Professional Expenses
Paying professional expenses (i.e. any work-related expense that is not travel or entertainment) out-of-pocket is never the best practice, and all purchases should be made through Center staff as described above. The only exception is memberships that require logging into a staff member's personal account in order to enter payment information; in these cases, we ask that staff pay the membership cost out-of-pocket and request reimbursement, but only after obtaining permission from your Director. If you incur an out-of-pocket professional expense, please submit receipts no later than 15 days after purchase date.
There is a $499 limit on professional expense reimbursement.