How to complete a p-card form

P-card forms are your way of recording what accounts a transaction should be charged to, and of explaining why the item was purchased. This form is then submitted to the transaction approvers so that the transaction can be reviewed before being approved or forwarded to another department.

You can create a p-card form in two ways:

If you are unfamiliar with the Card Manager’s Dashboard, make sure to review our quick guide on how to use it before proceeding with this tutorial.

Status: Shows you the status of your p-card form, such as No Documentation for an unfinished, unsubmitted form.

Communication Notes: Any conversation between you and the transaction approvers will show up here. If your form was returned for your review, this is also where you will find out why and what you need to do to fix it.

Transaction Nickname (Optional): Allows you to give a nickname to the form to be easier to find in case you want to search for it again later.

Related P-Card Transaction: This will default to the transaction you are filling the form out for; however, if you started by making a free-form p-card form independent of a transaction by clicking New P-Card form on the Card Manager’s dashboard, you can choose which transaction to link this form to using this drop down menu.

Doc. No.: short for “Document Number.” The identifying number for the transaction

Card Holder: The holder of the card the transaction was purchased with

Debit Amount: The final amount of the transaction

Document Date: The date the card was charged

Description: The bank statement description of the transaction, provided by the vendor

This field will auto-populate with the details of the transaction if you clicked on Go to P-Card Form. If you used the New P-Card form option, the transaction information will not auto-populate until you select a transaction:

To proceed with the rest of the form, choose all relevant choices from the following options:

If this box is checked, you will need to fill out the p-card form and submit special documentation. See How do I submit a form or check for a personal expense? for how to complete a p-card form in this situation.

A fraudulent charge is a special situation that doesn’t quite follow the flow of filling out a normal p-card form. If you need to check this box, see What do I do if there's a fraudulent expense on my card? on what to properly do in this situation.

Since these credits are separate transactions, they must be linked to the original charge in QuickBase after the original’s form has been submitted. By checking this box, you will be prompted to input the exact credit amount. If you forget to check this box, put the wrong amount, or forget to put in an amount, you will run into issues later when the credit comes in. See How to connect an international transaction fee or refund to its original charge for how to resolve if this happens.

Such transactions are nearly always accompanied by a separate, secondary charge equivalent to 1% of the cost of the original transaction (e.g., if what you bought was $60, the international transaction fee would be around $0.60). If you have purchased from a vendor based outside of the U.S, you should anticipate this fee and check this box. Since these charges are separate transactions, they must be linked to the original charge in QuickBase when they come in, after the original charge’s form has been submitted. See How to connect an international transaction fee or refund to its original charge for what to expect.

The account (also referred to as a cost object) is the account you are looking to charge. This often varies based on the department, the item purchased, and other things.

The G/L is used to broadly categorize the transaction and is necessary to allow MIT to properly review spending areas and manage the budget. See Commonly used GLs and Commonly confused GLs for lists to reference.

If you find you’re chosen GL falls on the list of things that shouldn’t be charged to a p-card, it’s technically already too late to make any changes as the purchase has already happened. If you see this, simply submit the documentation as normal, try to avoid it the next time, and don’t be too surprised if you get an email from us!

If you are purchasing on a research account, keep in mind that there are several specific, additional G/Ls that are unallowable for them, as well.

Most transactions will have only one line item, so you will only need to enter this information once.

However, if you’re transaction is split across multiple accounts or multiple GLs, you will need to repeat these steps until the total amount of all lines is equal to the Debit Amount listed in the Transaction Information section above:

If you need to make edits, click on the pencil icon beside each line:

To delete a line item, select the checkbox and click Delete.

All fields must be completed!

If 421000 or 421205 is used, the following fields will appear:

If the 421200 is used, the following field will appear after you click the reload button

If there was alcohol, include a line in the Account Info section specifically for the sum total of all alcohol charges that uses the alcohol GL 42105.

A justification is a brief but required statement explaining the benefit of the purchase.

Every procard form requires a justification. Any submitted without a justification will be returned as incomplete.

See All about justifications for your guide on how to write a great one!

If a research account is used, you’ll see an additional pop-up: the Names of person(s) transaction was purchased for field:

This field is for indicating who the items were purchased on behalf of (not who did the purchasing) in order for the finance team to determine if the person(s) receiving the benefit of the purchase have effort on the account(s) in question.

See Purchasing on a Research Cost Object for full details on what is counted as effort on a research account.

1. If you submitted a receipt, select whether or not tax was charged in the Was tax charged? dropdown menu.

MIT is a tax exempt institution in Massachusetts and 29 additional states. If tax was charged, and the purchase was over $75 or a business meeting, you will be asked to pursue a refund for the taxed amount. You can also submit MIT’s tax-exemption number (on the procard itself) or our tax-exempt certificates to a vendor before making a purchase to prevent going back to the vendor later.

If you are anticipating a refund on the taxed amount, return to the Transaction Information section of the form, check Anticipating Refund, and input the amount of the tax in the pop-up box.

2. Upload 1-3 receipts or other pieces of supporting documentation (such as a screenshot of a chat with the vendor) here.

You may leave a comment for the transaction approvers here, or leave a comment in response to one that was left for you.

Click Save and Keep Working to save your form as a draft to complete later, and Submit Form to submit your completed form for approval.

You can also find a list of your previously submitted forms by clicking See Submitted P-Card Forms on the Card Manager’s dashboard.