Business Services Department training (highlights) REVISED

Topics Travel P-Cards Check Requests Approved Vendors Contracts Fingerprinting Fundraisers

Travel Highlights New travel/reconciliation form has been created. Please use the new form. Reimbursement Request must have completed the approval routing and be received electronically in TEAMS to the Business Office within 30 business days after return from trip or traveler will forfeit their right for reimbursement. This is especially important at fiscal year end of the fund. Higher meal daily rates have been established for both staff and students. Please have staff that are traveling to familiarize themselves with Chapter 15 in the Business Services Handbook, which is dedicated to travel.

Staff travel meal rates Staff Meals- $46 daily rate. Itemized receipts are still required. Meal rates are $8 for breakfast, $12 for lunch, $26 for dinner. These amounts are to be deducted from daily rate if provided at hotel/conference. Meal amounts may be combined for a more expensive meal (skip breakfast and spend $20 for lunch). Meals will not be reimbursed if they are not reasonable. For example, for a conference that ends at 2:00 pm in Austin, breakfast and lunch reimbursement would be approved, but a dinner reimbursement would be denied.

Student travel meal rates Student Meals – If staff pays for meals, a receipt is required. If staff uses a P-card to pay for meals, a receipt is required. If money is given to the students, then each child needs to sign for the funds that they receive and the receipts are not required. $30 daily rate. Meal rates are $7 breakfast, $9 for lunch, $14 for dinner. For staff that travel with the students, they also receive the student meal rate.

Other staff travel info No meals for day trips. An overnight stay is required in order to receive meal reimbursement. Travelers must carpool together. Refusal to carpool will result in non-reimbursement of mileage. If all parties agree to drive separately, the mileage and parking can be divided accordingly amongst the travelers. All travel costs associated with deviations from the required travel plans, such as pre or post personal days shall be paid by the traveler. Please advise your staff that many hotels require that a traveler’s personal credit card be on file for incidentals. Many young teachers do not have credit cards.

Travel advance/reimbursement requests Travel advance/reimbursement requests must be submitted in TEAMS with all approvals obtained and all documents attached by 5pm each Tuesday for the Thursday check run. We recommend that all travel advances be obtained in the form of a check to avoid any possible direct deposit delays with the financial institution. All reimbursements should be in the form of direct deposit.

P-CARDS PO must encumber funds to P-Card in advance of purchase. You cannot give out your p-card to someone else to use like you can with HEB or Sam’s Club. You must use approved vendors only. You will be personally responsible for any sales tax if you fail to use the tax exempt form. P-cards are not to be used when a PO could have been used. There are dollar limit and daily/monthly transaction restrictions on these cards.

Check requests Must be submitted with all approvals obtained and all documents attached by 5pm each Tuesday for Thursday’s check run. Please use the Thursday date as the “as needed by” date. If you use Friday’s date, the check will not print until the following week.

Approved vendors Must be used for all purchases. These vendors are obtained through a bidding process from either a Waco ISD bid or a purchasing coop. We cannot just “add” a vendor to the approved vendor list. They must go through the bidding process. Approved vendors can be found on FirstClass. We always ask for help when we issue a new bid, so please participate in the process and help us to obtain the vendors that you want. Please remember that we can’t force a vendor to respond. We can invite them, but they still need to sign and return the bid form by the deadline.

How to find approved vendors and add them to your firstclass desktop Go to FirstClass Click on Conferences Click on Admin Central Click on the words Approved Vendor (but don’t open it) Go to the task bar and click on “Add to Desktop”

Contracts and contract routing 3 new forms. Please use the new forms and not the old forms. Please don’t just send straight to Business Services, route to your appropriate cabinet person for approval signature first. P.O.s still need to be obtained prior to purchase. Contractual Agreement Transmittal Form – for use with vendor’s contracts (2 pages). Contracts without transmittal form will be returned. Professional Services (Consultant) Contract Packet – for professionals and consultants such as diagnosticians, staff development, etc. (7 pages) General Contracted Services Agreement Packet – for non- professional services such as judges, cheerleading camp instructors, musical accompaniment, seamstress services, school performances, etc. (6 pages)

Contracts and contract routing (cont.) Forms must be routed to the appropriate cabinet member for approval signature Vendors with direct contact with students must be fingerprinted before services are rendered. I do verify this and will not sign off on a contract until I can verify this. Services cannot be performed until the contract has been approved and returned and a purchase order has been issued. Contracts over $50,000 may have to go to the Board for approval

Fingerprinting Vendors with direct contact with students must be fingerprinted. I may need their birthday or TDL# to find them in the DPS system to verify their eligibility. The new contractor forms have a place for their birthdate. This is needed for people who will have direct contact with students such as camp coaches, voice coaches, etc. It is not necessary for judges, band accompaniment, performers for school performances etc. We require all contractors that could “roam the halls” such as repairmen to be fingerprinted also.

Requisitions Only use approved vendors (found on First Class) Do not place order until receipt of purchase order This is regardless of funding source. It doesn’t matter if it is a fundraiser, or if you have a contract. You need the PO also. Purchasing goods/services first and obtaining a PO afterwards is against district procedure.

Fundraisers Fundraiser Approval Forms –Make sure one is done in advance of every fundraiser. Outside fundraisers- an approved fundraiser vendor must be used. A copy of the fundraiser approval form needs to be sent to the Business Services Accountant and be approved by the Business Services Dept. prior to the fundraiser. The approved form will be ed back to the Principal, Sec/Bookkeeper and sponsor. The form needs to identify if it is one of your tax free sales.

Fundraisers (cont.) Must use the newly revised fundraising permission request form completely (don’t use an old one) Do not conduct the fundraiser until you receive the approved form back via . Once the fundraising permission request has been approved, your account will be front loaded with the funds so that a PO may be issued. This will be done by the Budget Dept. P.O.s are required prior to ordering the items for resale.

Fundraisers (continued) Any fundraisers that involve the sale of food are routed to the CNS office for consideration/approval to ensure that child nutrition guidelines are not being violated Be careful on sales tax. The campus is allowed 2 tax- free sales day as well as each bona-fide student group (865 groups qualify for these tax free days, but not 461 groups). T-shirts are always taxable even if you sell them at cost and don’t make a profit. The Student Activity Handbook has examples of taxable sales and non-taxable sales.

Fundraisers (continued) When teachers collect funds from students, they need to issue them a receipt. Record the student collections on the Tabulation of Monies Collected Form and then transfer that information into your Daily Deposit Summary. The Daily Deposit Summary needs to be completed by the sponsor and submitted to the secretary or bookkeeper, who then in turn, submits it to the Revenue Specialist when the deposit is made. The Tabulations of Money Collected Form should be used to record collections from students. The totals on this form should match the Daily Deposit Summary and should be submitted with the Daily Deposit Summary.

Fundraisers (continued) The Fundraising Recap must be used and submitted to the Revenue Specialist after completion of the fundraiser. This form will be audited to ensure that you received credit for all of your deposited funds. If you made more than you thought you would, additional funds will be added to your account after the recap is audited. If you made less than you thought you would, funds will be taken away.

Thank you very much! Please refer to the Business Services Handbook for more detailed information. Please also refer to the Administrative Guidelines for additional information. Sherry Trotts, C.P.A., CTSBO Director of Business Services (ext. 2155)