Category Archives: Strategic Sourcing – Payment Services

Procure to Pay Services

A message from the Business Services AVP Kathleen Prunty:

Contracts & Procurement Services and Accounts Payable are now Procure to Pay Services.

As announced in What’s Up? this Fall, these two finance units have been reorganized and combined to provide services across the purchasing and payment functions. This change will enable strategies to enhance service to campus departments, reduce price or contract discrepancies, increase savings and cost avoidance, and streamline the purchase to pay (P2P) functions. Last year, efforts from these two units resulted in cost savings of more than $4 million dollars to the campus. This year the team is focused on increasing those benefits and targeting current workflows to enable more efficiencies.

With this combined P2P unit, I am pleased to announce two new appointments:

Sara Bonakdar as the Director of Strategic Sourcing. The Strategic Sourcing role will manage contracts, procurement, and payment processes for our organization in which the procedures, methods, and sources are constantly re-evaluated to optimize value to our organization. Sara’s extensive experience in sourcing, contracts and overall operations make her a great fit for this leadership position.

Kim Gamblin as Associate Director of Purchasing and Payments. The Purchasing and Payments role will align the efforts of the purchasing staff and payments staff to improve service, efficiencies, and savings for the university. Kim has been an essential part of SJSU Accounts Payable for many years. Her expertise in vendor management, payments, and technology will be instrumental in positioning the unit for success. The addition of the SJSU Buyers to her role will allow greater insight and improvements within the P2P cycle.

These new roles reflect the growing changes in the industry and emphasis on Procure to Pay, driving our focus toward better serving our customers. The CSU is actively pursuing P2P opportunities via the 23C Procurement Report and P2P Technology Roadmap. Sara and Kim together will be instrumental in the successful attainment of our savings goals and adoption of new solutions in collaborative procurement efforts. Please join me in congratulating Sara and Kim in their new positions and the challenges ahead.

Changes to the ProCard/GoCard Application Process

We are excited to announce some changes to the ProCard and GoCard Application process that should make requesting a card and updating your information much more intuitive!

In order to simplify the application process, we have combined the ProCard and GoCard application forms so that you can request both cards with a single form.  You will be prompted to provide chartfield and spending limit information for one or both cards, based on whether you select ProCard, GoCard, or ProCard & GoCard.  Once you submit the application form, it will route to your approving official for review and signature.

We have also created a new ProCard/GoCard Update Request form that lets you notify Accounts Payable about changes to your name, approving official, default chartfields, and spending limits.  You can also use this form when you transfer to a new department or need to close an account.  This new ProCard/GoCard Update Request Form will require less information than the application form and will help you navigate changes in your office or your job.  This request form will also route to your approving official for review and signature.

You can access the new ProCard/GoCard forms on our website, via the DocuSign application, or by clicking on the following links:

ProCard/GoCard Application

ProCard/GoCard Update Request

Accounts Payable Wants Your Feedback

To employees who are responsible for purchasing goods/services or financial management in their department:

Accounts Payable is reviewing their processes to determine where they can maximize efficiency. One of the processes under review is their policy on paying invoices associated to blanket order or service order purchase orders (PO).  The current practice is to request departments to review and approve an invoice before payment is made to a supplier. If no response is received after a certain time, then the invoice is automatically paid as allowed in our Negative Confirmation Policy. Accounts Payable would like to revise the policy so that invoice payments against blanket order and service order PO’s can be made without receiving a formal approval from department.

To better serve you, we would like your feedback on the invoice approval process by having you complete our quick survey. Responses will be collected through Friday, September 20. Thank you for your cooperation.

Survey link- https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe6QazMoG9yr19IyZvOpCbyNPowlzOiHbTrPG7zjGYCPMW7_w/viewform