Fara Fasat Posted July 7, 2021 Report Share Posted July 7, 2021 The Government Commercial Purchase Card (P-card) can be used to make micro-purchases (see FAR 13.201 and 13.301). Presumably this means that a government P-card holder can make purchases from a seller online site or portal, as long as the purchase is authorized . Some of these sites require a user to set up an account before making a purchase. Question: can a government buyer set up an account in order to make a purchase from a seller site? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtolli Posted July 7, 2021 Report Share Posted July 7, 2021 Speaking from a DoD standpoint, I don't know of anything the prohibits it. One concern might be if the cardholder had to agree to certain terms and conditions as part of signing up for an account. In actuality it has been very rare in my experience in the GCPC program that a vendor will not take orders over the phone. Also, most of what my cardholders purchase are either from mandatory sources (UNICOR, AbilityOne) of from existing Government contracts (GSA or Army CHESS), so they rarely buy stuff from a commercial vendor, but it does happen. The only restriction that I am aware of in regards to setting up accounts is with Third Party Payment services (e.g. PayPal). Cardholders are prohibited from setting up accounts for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fara Fasat Posted July 7, 2021 Author Report Share Posted July 7, 2021 Thanks. By the way, in anticipation of the inevitable "have you read ...", I did review the DoD Government Charge Card Guidebook, and other materials at https://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/pdi/pc/index.html . Nothing seemed to answer this question, although if someone can point to any relevant information I would be glad to review it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Witty_Username Posted July 8, 2021 Report Share Posted July 8, 2021 22 hours ago, jtolli said: most of what my cardholders purchase are [...] from existing Government contracts (GSA or Army CHESS) Not to hijack the thread, but on a semi-related note apparently DPC is saying as of March that to order from an existing Government contract a cardholder needs to be designated "by name" by the contracting officer who awarded the contract (source: https://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/pdi/pc/docs/SmartPay3/Ref B - JAM GPC Role Descriptions_3-23-21.docx). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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