{"id":224,"date":"2025-08-21T21:37:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T21:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-business-services\/when-to-use-a-purchase-order\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T14:17:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T14:17:39","slug":"when-to-use-a-purchase-order","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/business-services\/policies\/when-to-use-a-purchase-order\/","title":{"rendered":"When to use a Purchase Order"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Purchase orders are not required by the college but may be used for major purchases.\u00a0The use of purchase orders creates an additional level of safety for the college, departments and employees in regards to liability, negotiating and leveraging with the vendor.\u00a0 If a you would like to issue a purchase order, or a vendor requires a purchase order, email <a href=\"mailto:accountspayable@macalester.edu\">accountspayable@macalester.edu<\/a> with the vendor&#8217;s quote, Worktags, and proof of approval by a college employee authorized to spend from that budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Major Purchase Examples<\/strong> &#8211; <em>(Consider using a Purchase Order)<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Vehicles<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Building projects<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Services under contract<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Electrical and mechanical equipment<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><strong>Non-Major Purchase Examples<\/strong><\/strong> &#8211; <em>(Consider using a Pcard)<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Office supplies<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Conference fees<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Food and catering<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Instruction\/lab supplies<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Minor equipment<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Travel expenses: air, hotel, taxi, meals<\/li>\n<\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Purchase orders are not required by the college but may be used for major purchases.\u00a0The use of purchase orders creates an additional level of safety for the college, departments and employees in regards to liability, negotiating and leveraging with the vendor.\u00a0 If a you would like to issue a purchase order, or a vendor requires [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":215,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-224","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/business-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/business-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/business-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/business-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/business-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/business-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12521,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/business-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/224\/revisions\/12521"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/business-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/business-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}