BearBuy
BearBuy is the UCSF campus eprocurement system. There are BearBuy training materials that will help you use BearBuy to place orders with suppliers and pay invoices, understand roles, and additional shopping resources.
BearBuy should be your first destination for purchasing and extra effort given to locate necessary items or services within the system. Lack of planning for lead time with a BearBuy cart is not a justification to utilize the P-card or MyExpense. Any purchases on grant funding should be routed to the Research Finance Analyst as an ad hoc approver. The Division Manager is the BearBuy cart approvers. The Division Manager is the only approver for meeting/entertainment expenses. Please allow 1-2 business days for review.
CME Funding (2023-2024)
For this fiscal year, a tiered stipend will be provided for academic related activities as follows:
Instructor |
$1,800 |
Assistant |
$1,800 |
Associate |
$1,200 |
Full |
$800 |
The Chart of Accounts for CME funding is as follows:
SpeedType: Leave Blank
Campus: SFCMP
Department: 138384
Fund: 5014
Project: 2011629
Function: 45
Activity Period: NA
FlexField: Leave Blank
Keep in mind the following key information:
- The primary use of these funds should be to support academic development and dissemination (for example, conference registration, license renewal, professional organization membership, and books/materials) If you’re unsure whether a particular expense would be appropriate, please get prior approval from the Division Manager before you purchase the item.
- Unused CME funds do not roll over into the next year.
- Funds are prorated based on your appointment percentage.
DHM will provide up to a total of $1,000 of additional funding to support you in presenting your academic work at conferences (oral presentation, invited talk, or workshop) and/or for professional development opportunities in which a faculty member is selected through a competitive process.
This benefit is limited to one conference or professional development opportunity per faculty member per year while we have sufficient funds.
Before submitting expenses for reimbursement, please provide documentation of your accepted presentation/workshop or professional development participation selection to the Division Manager for review.
Meeting/Entertainment, Traval, and Gift Policies
The School of Medicine has provided two "quick guides" that summarize the expcetional expenses policies, linked below:
- Travel and Entertainment Exceptional Expenses Summary as of 05/23/2022
- Meeting and Entertainment Exceptional Expenses Summary as of 11/09/2022
Further, the UCSF Supply Chain Management provides a thorough set of policies related to Meeting and Entertainment Expenses that outline allowable/unallowabled expenses, pre/post-planning info, exceptional expense information, funding source restrictions, and approval information. Before planning a meeting or other entertainment activities, contact the Division Manager.
Of note, the current meal maximums (as of 12/06/2022) are as follows:
Breakfast - $31
Lunch - $54
Dinner - $94
Light Refreshment - $22
These amounts include the cost of food and beverages, labor, sales tax, service and delivery charges. The cost of room rental, room set-up fees, media rental and decorations, etc., are not included in the per-person costs unless these costs cannot be separated by the vendor.
MyExpense
MyExpense is the UCSF campus automated reimbursement system for employee travel and non-travel, and guest travel expenses. MyExpense is available through MyAccess.
MyExpense should be the last choice when purchasing items for work since it is primarily intended for travel related reimbursement. There are exceptional reasons to use MyExpense for reimbursement requests that are outside of travel; however, exceptions should be obtained from the Division Manager prior to making the purchase. The Administrative Officer provides initial reviews and approval for all MyExpense requests, then routes to the Division Manager for final approval.
Some helpful tips when submitting MyExpense reports:
- Redact all personal information (home address, personal email), except for name, from receipts before attaching to expense report.
- If expense report is not related to travel, include a clear justification for purchase in the report header and include additional comments to provide context to purchase.
- If personal information is on the invoice/receipt (home address etc), please black it out.
- If the last 4 digits of the cc payment are on the receipt, or the last line shows a $0.00 balance, you will NOT need to submit a credit card receipt. If neither is on the receipt, you’ll need to submit a statement or online snapshot that shows the cc charge. Please remember to black out all information on the statement such as other purchases, balance information, home address, etc.
- All UCSF-issued computers can get Adobe Pro installed for free. This will allow quick and easy redaction on pdfs. If you do not have Adobe Pro, please call ITFS (415-514-4100) and they will help you with the download.
Procurement Card (P-Card)
To order items that are not available in BearBuy, please submit your requset through the P-Card Request Form to initiate the process. Reasons to use the P-Card may include conference registration fees, professional organization membership fees, software license fees, manuscript fees, and books/training materials. Before using the p-card, if the vendor accepts PO numbers, the vendor needs to be added to BearBuy, then the purchase made through BearBuy.
Allowable Purchases:
- Books
- Computer accessories
- Conference Registrations/Membership dues
- FedEx and courier services
- Flowers not exceeding $75
- Gift Card (see amazon business page) or Gift Certificate (non-cash negotiable, see G-41-G42 policy restrictions),
- Internet or online payment mechanisms such as E-Bay, Amazon, and PayPal (where payee can be identified)
- Meeting and Entertainment (M&E):
- On campus catering, please use America To Go Portal (ATG)
- Departments are required to complete the M&E Expense Form
- Mobile phone and pager charges
- Recruitment ads and searches without terms and conditions
- Service awards, sympathy and/or retirement gifts (see G-41 and G-42 policy restrictions)
- Services
- Subscriptions (non-contract and agreement related)
- Publications
- Supplies and materials
- Training materials
- Water, coffee and tea
Not Allowable/Restricted Purchases (these items cannot be purchased using the UCSF P-Card):
- Animals and live tissue culture
- Any purchase that does not comply with University and Federal purchasing policy
- Any purchase or services requiring a signed contract or click agreement with terms and conditions
- BearBuy catalog items and contracted agreement vendors
- Business travel related expenses for employees, students, candidates and guests
- Supply Chain Management Restricted purchases including but not limited to gases
- HIPAA-related and foreign orders
- Capitalized equipment or inventorial equipment
- Computers/laptops (coordinate with department assigned SCM buyers)
- Consulting or contract employee services
- Charitable donations
- Memberships for warehouse clubs, such as Costco
- Ethyl alcohol (except denatured), narcotics, dangerous drugs, or other controlled substances
- Firearms, ammunition, explosives, radioactive or other hazardous materials
- Furniture (see One Workplace in BearBuy)
- Facility and real estate rentals/leases
- Goods or services from an employee or near relative of an employee of the University
- Limo and other forms of transportation services
- No partial payment on existing purchase orders
- Medical equipment and lab supplies (see BearBuy)
- On-site construction
- Parking
- Personal charges
- Precious metals
- Purchases with large or system wide agreement vendors such as Fisher Scientific, VWR and Office Max (see BearBuy for full list)
- Software, cloud computing, desktop software and web hosting (see Buying Software page)
- Split purchases over single-purchase limit of $4999
- Digital payment services such as CashApp and Vemmo
- Vehicle, rideshare and car rental services
For more information and policies related to the P-card program, visit the UCSF Procurement Card website. Individual purchases made on a credit card, intended for MyExpense reimbursement, must not overlap with the allowable items for purchase with a P-card.
Supply Chain Management Procurement Training Resources
Procurement 101 is a series of training pages created by Supply Chain Management (SCM) that take you through some of the guidelines, policies and useful references you need to purchase goods and services at UCSF. This is a great resource to get started with purchasing.