New OneCard will streamline paying for travel and purchases

By MARTY LEVINE

Late this month, the new OneCard expenses payment card should arrive for the 6,000 Pitt employees who use Pitt’s Travel Card and/or its P-card (procurement card) — replacing both.

“I’m so excited to get this out,” said Stephanie Ford-Jones, director of Payment Processing and Compliance. “People have wanted this for a long time.”

The P-card has long been used for purchases that cannot be done through PantherExpress, such as those from smaller suppliers who don’t accept purchase orders. The Travel Card was created to handle travel expenses and business entertainment expenses such as conference lunches — or even an emergency expense on the road to replace a mouse battery before a conference presentation or a broken piece of athletic equipment before a game.

“Because we have a lot of employees who have both cards, this is going to take a lot of the guesswork out of which card to use,” said Ford-Jones.

With the P-card and the Travel Card, Pitt employees have to reconcile expenses and make sure they are charged to the proper departmental, grant or other account, using two different expense programs, PRISM or Concur. The new OneCard is a University-paid credit card that will only need to be reconciled through one program, Concur, to which receipts can be uploaded.

Don’t worry — airline and hotel perk programs can still be used through the new card, letting you accumulate the miles and points.

OneCard still offers the travel accident, baggage delay and car rental insurance the current Travel Card offers, but a new insurance program has been added: hotel burglary insurance.

There are many other benefits to the new OneCard — see the Purchase, Pay and Travel website for details.

Ford-Jones cautions that the full University policy for the OneCard is now being written, so that, in the meantime, the current rules for the Travel Card and P-card still apply. “I think people are really going to like this,” she said. “It’s new but it’s familiar. And I think it’s going to make for a seamless transition.”

Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.

 

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