spending via invoices and purchase orders

spending money from your subs account via invoices and purchase orders

Invoices

To pay an external company for their product or the use of their facilities/venue, the general rule is to use an invoice. For example, if you are paying for a venue or placing an order for items such as hoodies, you would pay the company via an invoice

An invoice is a bill for what you have purchased. It will contain the products or services you are buying, the total cost of the order and the bank and contact details of the company you are buying from. Usually invoices are paid in advance, however it depends on the company. Some companies are happy if invoices are paid after the goods or services have been delivered.

To read how to pay for something via an invoice, see the steps below.

 

Process to pay for something via an invoice

• Contact the company you want to purchase from and request an invoice (a bill) for what you want to purchase.Once you have received the invoice, review it and make sure you are happy with the costs they are charging you.
• When you are happy with the invoice, one of your three signatories (President, Treasurer or Secretary) should send an email to [email protected] with the invoice attached. You should CC the other two signatories in your email. The email needs to give authorisation to pay the invoice. For example:
  • Email subject line: Dance Squad + £230 + Hoodies
  • Email body: As [committee position] of [club or society name] I authorise payment of the attached invoice for £230 to [company] for our hoodies. ·
• One of the other two signatories should then use the reply all function and reply to the email saying 'I (committee positon e.g. secretary) authorise the payment of this invoice.
• Once [email protected] has received two committee authorisations, the invoice will be paid within in 7 – 10 days. If this is not enough time, you can pay the invoice yourself using personal funds and raise a claim on the app to get reimbursed. For information on raising and approving claims, please see here.
• We only require two approval emails, so once we have received two signatory authorisations via email, we will pay the invoice. For example, if the president sends in the intitial email, and the secretary responds saying they approve the payment of this invoice, we will action the payment of the invoice without authorisation from the treasurer. This helps speed up the process and ensure everyone gets paid quickly.

Purchase Orders

A purchase order is effectively the step before an invoice. It is an authorisation that you'll pay for something. Some businesses – mostly the UEA's print services and UEA Sportspark require a purchase order before they will do the order. If you can get an invoice, you have already skipped this step so make sure you always ask for an invoice first. 

To read how to pay for something via a purchase order, see the steps below.

 

Process to pay for something via a purchase order

 

• Unlike an invoice, where a company raises the invoice and sends it to you, your club and society raises a purchase order and sends it to a company. To raise a purchase order, one of your three signatories (President, Treasurer or Secretary) should send an email to [email protected] requesting a purchase order to be raised. You should CC the other two signatories in your email. The email needs to provide specific details regarding what you want to buy and give authorisation to raise the purcahse order. For example:
  • Email subject line: Games Society  – Purchase Order for UEA Printing?
  • Email body: As [committee position] of [club or society name] I authorise the raising or a purchase order for 100 glossy posters from [company name].  ?

• One of the two signatories should then use the reply all function and reply to the email saying 'I [committee positon] authorise this purchase order to be raised.
• Once [email protected] has received two committee authorisations via email, the purchase order will be raised and sent to the company in question. 
• After the purchase order has been sent and products or services have been delivered, the company will then send an invoice to [email protected] with the Purchase Order number attached to it. [email protected] will then be in contact with the signatories (President, Treasurer and Secretary) of your society to pay the invoice. You will then need to follow the steps above detailing how to pay an invoice.