How does your team pay for stuff?

[BrendonD]

We spend a good bit of money, and although I am the one who orders parts I don't have a credit card strictly for Formula use, so everything gets ordered through our advisor who gets to it when he can. It's gonna be tight these next couple of weeks, so I'm looking to next year and seeing what we can do about our purchasing procedures.

What is your procedure?

[BrendonD]

We spend a good bit of money, and although I am the one who orders parts I don't have a credit card strictly for Formula use, so everything gets ordered through our advisor who gets to it when he can. It's gonna be tight these next couple of weeks, so I'm looking to next year and seeing what we can do about our purchasing procedures.

What is your procedure?

[BStoney]

We buy everything ourselves and then submit for reimbursement from the team funds, with the exception of some major ticket items if someone doesn't have a credit card with a high enough limit...basically, pretty simple.

[Steve Yao]

We maintain several accounts and fundraising sources. Whenever we get a check in hand we prefer to deposit into a business checking account we maintain at the on campus bank(US Bank in our case) with the faculty advisor, team captain, and team teasurer as signees. We get a credit/debit card thus allowing for quick purchasing.

Some of our sponsors have to see the check deposited with the UNiversity and thus goes into our departmental budget. As you know, to get that money out requires lots of paperwork and bureacracy. If you maintain good relations with the office staff they can usually get stuff turned around in less than a week.

Whether we use the checking account, submit a PO , or us personal funds and get reimbursed all depends on context. i.e. time, access, funds available, credit available, etc.

SO my one recommedation to you is to setup a checking account with your on-campus bank and have a few responsible people as signees along with your advisor(mainly to provide continuity when the previous signees graduate and flee across the country before adding the new officers to the account). Avoid turning your money over to the University no matter what they say. Once they have it, its theirs and they want detailed info on where its going before you can get at it.

[Jersey Tom]

University acquisition card (A-card) for most stuff. University purchase order (PO) for places that don't take credit card. Straight cash out of my own pocket for odds and ends, tools.. scrounge/steal things as necessary.

[flavorPacket]

we pay ourselves and get reimbursed. I'm out about 1300 right now, but others get close to 15-20k per year.

[Azim]

Our funds are split between two accounts - we have a checking account at the campus credit union with our advisor, captain and treasurer as signees and we have a university departmental account where we have whatever money the school decides to give us.

We try to use up the school funding as much as possible first simply because it's got the stickiest set of restrictions. Being a state university, we have to abide by horrible state contracts. Going to the local O'Reilly to get race equipment is always a fun exercise. Whenever possible, we have the ME department secretary purchase our stuff with her procurement card, failing which (if it's past office hours, or there's some retarded rule that won't allow us to use a uni card) a team member - usually me - has to purchase the item and make a reimbursement claim later.

The checking account is where cheques from our generous corporate sponsors are deposited, and is used for stuff that we can't pay for with our school funds (pizzas, out-of-contract items, etc.) and of course when those funds are all dried up.

[afroney]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by flavorPacket:
we pay ourselves and get reimbursed. I'm out about 1300 right now, but others get close to 15-20k per year. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Same Here... It often takes well over a month to get your money back from Campus Accounting. If you get it back at all...

We complained enough about the process, and the University will be giving us P-Cards this summer(Purchasing Cards that automatically deduct money from our account) All purchases will be approved post-purchase by our advisor and treasurer through the internet. Pretty nifty

[BrendonD]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by afroney:
Same Here... It often takes well over a month to get your money back from Campus Accounting. If you get it back at all...

We complained enough about the process, and the University will be giving us P-Cards this summer(Purchasing Cards that automatically deduct money from our account) All purchases will be approved post-purchase by our advisor and treasurer through the internet. Pretty nifty </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yeah, we'll be trying to get the head of the ME dept and the Dean of Engineering on our side to get one of those. It allows us to be more independent (which they're gonna hate) and allows us to keep track of our money more accurately.

I'm glad other schools have that setup, that gives us some ammo to go to the admins with.