Faculty being paid on grants
Be sure to communicate with your Grant Specialist regarding any funding for summer research or additional projects that you are budgeted for. Your grant specialist has sent or will be sending you an email requesting confirmation of summer funds. If you believe you have any funds for any additional work, please communicate with your Grant Specialist as soon as possible, especially if you have not already been contacted.
Purchasing
Toner: Overall the University has found it is better to buy the higher capacity toner cartridges to get the most bang for our buck. We encourage you to look at multiple vendors and not always the same ones, as prices do change significantly over time between vendors.
Purchasing items: All purchases should be made through department contacts and not directly. The department administrative team will order books, supplies, etc. on their p-card or through eSHOP. This saves the department money by eliminating paying sales tax and often provides a cheaper price. Only in rare cases should an employee buy an item directly and request reimbursement from the University. If you do submit an item for reimbursement, see notes below in travel on submitting receipts.
Packing slips: The person ordering an item should receive and check to make sure everything they ordered is received. The requester/approver should be different than the person ordering.
P-card
Amazon sales tax information for P-Card will be coming to ESHOP soon. Until then, Amazon has begun to collect sales tax in Nebraska effective January 1, 2017. As a non-profit organization, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln is exempt from sales tax. Cardholders with an Amazon account must update the tax exempt status on their account in order to not be charged sales tax. Directions to apply for tax exempt status are attached and can be also found in Sapphire under Business Forms>UNL>Procurement>Purchasing Card. https://sapphire.nebraska.edu/gm/folder-1.11.10819?mode=EU
Additionally, in compliance with UNL’s Campus Specific Provisions for P-Card Policy, a cardholder is expected to maintain separate business and personal accounts with online vendors such as Amazon.com. If you have not already created a separate Amazon account for P-Card purchases, you can do so at Amazon.com. Your campus address and university email address should be used when creating the University account.
Employee reimbursements
Travel: New policies are still in process. Until they are released, please follow current UNL policies for travel, including submitting pre-trip authorizations. Please see https://cehs.unl.edu/cehs/cehs-business-center/#tab6 or contact Nell Inselman at nell@unl.edu or 472-9890.
Supervisors/ESS time approvers
If you are hiring, please work with the Business Center BEFORE you offer a position. For temp/student employees, please complete the Temporary Employment Request Form. Permanent staff hires please work with Tammie Herrington for ALL steps of the process. We are required by federal law to check all employees before they start work to ensure they have legal status to work in the US. If we don’t know of these hires we cannot do this check, therefore, for those that do not have the proper paperwork submitted before a person starts work, the supervisor will be required to sign the I-9 form certifying the documents submitted for the I-9.
Please ensure you are approving time before you leave for vacation or delegating in Firefly before you leave. It is not possible to delegate to someone else verbally or by email.
Electronic leave and time
Hourly employees only: Holiday pay must be entered through ESS Time with the wage type: HOL. If you are not sure if you are eligible for holiday pay, please contact Carrie Brownyard at cbrownyard@unl.edu or 402-472-8674, for assistance.
All leave eligible employees: Remember as a 12 month employee you are required to submit leave any time you are not working during your normal work schedule. If you need leave for jury, administrative or military please contact the HR team otherwise all other leave should be submitted through Firefly.
Contracts and legal assistance
UNL defines a contract as anything that requires a UNL signature and has language we are agreeing to abide by. Quotes are not contracts, unless legal language is included. Contracts can be for a revenue, expense, or $0. We encourage when working with vendors on a purchase to ask if a Purchase Order can be used rather than an actual contract. If the vendor requires a contract, the contract must be sent to Jenny Gilmore (jgilmore@unl.edu) and Dori Smidt (dsmidt2@unl.edu) for review. If you have any questions or need a copy of a standard UNL agreement, please let them know as well.
Colleges at UNL are not allowed to contact the NU legal offices directly. If you have a legal issue, please send it to Dori Smidt (dsmidt2@unl.edu).
Originally published May 22, 2018 -
Submit an Item