Direct expenditures are payments made against a department’s account for those expenses that do not require a purchase order AND when a procurement card is not accepted by the vendor.
Please see the list of eligible items and restrictions below PRIOR to committing your department to a purchase or submitting a Direct Expenditure Form (DEF) to Accounts Payable.
Please ALWAYS use your department procard as the first option to pay for these items. It is more cost effective and quicker to use a procard than it is to process a physical check. Only when a vendor does not accept a credit card payment should a department turn to payment via a DEF.
Eligible direct expense items include:
- Subscriptions
- Memberships
- Permits/license fees
- Software upgrades
- Accreditation
- Room rentals (on campus only)
- Royalties (music)
- Freight bill/shipping charges (outbound)
- Physicals/medical services (HR & Athletics use only; service must be provided off campus)
- Contractor deposit refunds (CPDC & Facilities use only)
- Extended Education tour arrangement
- Insurance (Athletics and CEL use only)
- Game guarantees (Athletics only)
- Game officials (Athletics - payments to organizations only)
- Postage -
- requires preapproval of Purchasing
- no invoice required, but dept should retain receipt for their records
- Personal reimbursements -
- the campus does not encourage employees to pay out of pocket for goods; procurement cards, purchase orders, and petty cash are the appropriate methods of purchase
- personal reimbursements under $50 must be processed through petty cash (please see Student Financial Services website for guidelines, restrictions, and form)
- personal reimbursement DEF payment requests must be submitted with signed
Generic Invoice, original itemized receipts of items purchased, and a completed Unauthorized Purchase Explanation/Certification form
- no food – personal reimbursements for food purchases must be submitted via a Hospitality form and meet University Hospitality Policy requirements
- Non-travel related participant fee -
- includes workshops, seminars, conferences for which no physical travel will occur and no other expense will be claimed by the attending individual
Payments to new vendors may be delayed or denied until a properly completed
If a document (e.g. order form, application, etc.) needs to be sent with the check, two copies of the document must be included with the signed original of the DEF. It is the responsibility of the ordering department to accurately complete and/or update order forms/applications as one copy will be mailed with payment to the vendor address shown on the document.
All invoices/order forms/applications must identify the University as the bill to party, the University address as the delivery address, and reference the contact name/department responsible for placing the order. It is the sole responsibility of the requesting department to ensure all information necessary for proper delivery of items is provided the vendor on the order form.
Any problem resolution regarding the order is the requesting department's responsibility.
Unapproved, non-qualifying, or incomplete DEF requests will be returned unprocessed to the originating department along with an explanation of why the expenditure was denied.