Procurement Training & Resources

Yes, all cardholders are responsible for reviewing, reallocating, if necessary, reconciling and submitting their ProCard transactions. By submitting, card holders approve their expense reports. After submission, expense reports will be reviewed and approved by their supervisor, cost center manager and financial steward.

The cardholder’s transactions would be approved by their supervisor and financial stewards so for auditing purposes, this is sufficient.

No. Students will not have a Stratus Financials login.

Yes. A cardholder will be able to  reallocate to other cost centers but the financial stewards and cost center managers of those cost centers need to approve them. The current ProCard reallocation and reconciliation system is going away. There should be open communication with any financial stewards and cost center managers about transactions hitting their budgets.

Yes. Cardholders will still receive a monthly statement via US Bank. However, cardholders are no longer required to submit their signed monthly statement.

The preparation piece of the expense report can be delegated to an admin if desired, but as a Procurement Card holder, it is your responsibility to make sure the transactions are reviewed, correct, and expense reports are completed.

All expense reports are located the top of the expense module. You can also run a report for completed and pending expense reports.

There is an open Service Request with Oracle regarding this issue. If you notice that an expense report ultimately hit your default cost center when you’ve changed from your default to a different cost center, please email the Stratus Financials team with the details.

If cardholder’s are having issues navigating the Stratus, one-on-one training is available to cardholders on how to navigate the expense module and create, approve, and reject an expense report with ease.

Stratus utilizes HCM supervisor hierarchy and home cost center in each of the workflows.  If cardholders wish to change their default cost center, they must submit a request to stratusfinancialsteam AT_TOWSON. However, if there are any changes to the employees HR profiles (i.e. phone number, address, email), this will trigger the HR integration to run and reset the default.  If they notice that their cost center reverts back, another request is needed. Note-changes to the default cost center will only apply to expense items created after the default cost center was updated. This will not retroactively update any existing expense items.

Stratus was designed for all expenses (Travel, Reimbursement, and ProCard Transactions) to utilize the Expense Module. The location field is used for the Travel and Reimbursement Expense Reports, not ProCard Expense report. Cardholder will need to enter this information on the individual line.

Stratus was designed for the Procard transactions to be uploaded daily. Thus, the total number of transactions displayed in the Expense Module will vary. However, all transactions will be available until they are placed on an expense report.

Stratus was not designed to provide spending limits (monthly and single) and available balance. Cardholders will need to login into US Bank to obtain this information. If cardholder need their passwords reset or assistance with the page, they should email pcpa AT_TOWSON.

This is the system’s configuration. Cardholders are strongly encouraged to review each transaction on their expense report to ensure that the type and account numbers are correct.

At this time, this is not an option in Stratus. However, we have a project scheduled in 2023 to review all of the MCC codes and descriptions in Stratus.

TU employees can enter requisitions to purchase goods and services using Stratus. Requisitions can be entered directly into the system or selected through a “Shopping List” when a group of items are frequently purchased together. The Shopping List is helpful for repeat purchases. It allows you to group a list of items that are frequently purchased together and select from the list to create your purchase requisition.

Find your latest requisitions and view approval status using the “Recent Requisitions” or the “Manage Requisitions” search feature. You can click the "Pending Approval" link to review your requisition’s progress in the approval process. See the life cycle of purchase orders, receipts and invoices for a specific requisition using the “View Life Cycle” button.

The Procurement Office will post announcements about newly executed contracts, policy updates and other helpful information in Stratus’s “Purchasing News."

Yes. All purchase orders, goods or services will need to be received in Stratus and anyone within the department can complete the receiving within the system, not just Central Receiving. The receiving action signifies your approval to pay a purchase order invoice and replaces the signed code block from DocuSign.