P&SS Frequently Asked Questions

State-Appropriated Funds - Means money appropriated by the State of Texas Legislature through the General Appropriations Act. These funds are designated in the university’s chart of accounts by a fund number that begins with “1.”

• These funds are distributed through the Texas Comptroller. As the state's cashier, the Comptroller's office receives, records, disburses, allocates, manages, and reports all the state's appropriated payments.
• The Comptroller’s office is prohibited from issuing a payment to a person or business reported as having a state debt. Because of this requirement, state agencies must use the warrant hold check procedures of the Comptroller’s office to ensure compliance.

• For vendors who are setup to receive payment via check, this process can add up to an additional three weeks or longer to receive payment. 
• TXST recommends all vendors be setup via direct deposit to reduce this timeline.

• Is the quote/bid under $15K and contains no terms and conditions or references a link to a website where terms and conditions can be located? 
  • If the answer is yes, proceed with creating a requisition, the department can sign if signature is requested. 
  • If the answer is no, the department will need to create a Contract Request. 
• Is the quote/bid over $15K or contain terms and conditions or a link to terms and conditions?
  • If the answer is yes, the department will need to create a Contract Request.

Attachment Z is a document that contains Texas State University required terms and conditions (T&C) clauses. This document is incorporated when using a vendors bid/quote with terms and conditions or utilizing a vendor’s contract/agreement. T&C clauses are important because they protect the University and limit legal liability. To be enforceable, the University must prove that a vendor accepted a specific version of the agreement at a specific time, thus why Attachment Z is incorporated, and the vendor is required to sign and date the document. 

• A document to outline a procurement as either Proprietary for Sole Source or Competitive. This form is not used to “justify” why the department wants a specific vendor/good/service. 
• A proprietary purchase is one where the specifications or conditions of the proposed purchase are proprietary to one vendor and do not permit an equivalent product or service to be supplied. The term “proprietary” refers to a product or service that has a distinctive feature or characteristic which is not shared or provided by competing or similar products or services. Proprietary purchases include products or services manufactured or offered under exclusive rights of ownership, including rights under patent, copyright, or trade secret law. Proprietary purchases, by definition, preclude competition because an attribute of the purchase limits consideration to only one product or supplier In today’s robust marketplace, it is unusual for only one product or one vendor to be capable of addressing an agency’s business need. Because Texas procurement law promotes the use of competitive bidding for purchases, proprietary purchases are subject to enhanced scrutiny.

• Sole Source: The specified product or service is only available for purchase through a single vendor e.g., manufacturer, publisher, service provider.
• Competitive: The specified product or service is available for purchase through more than one vendor e.g., dealers, distributors, resellers, authorized service providers. 
  • Examples of competitive proprietary purchases include brand-specific replacement parts for equipment available through multiple OEM-authorized dealers and software that a software publisher makes available to the public through various resellers.

This is an action completed by the department to get their quote/bid or Contract/Agreement into the TSUS Marketplace Contracting System, which is the repository of record for the University.  A Contract Specialist will review the procurement method (if greater than $15K), and/or review/negotiate terms and conditions. 

• Vendor Name (is the vendor setup in PaymentWorks and in SAP?)
• Term: Start Date and End Date
• Contract not to exceed amount for the entire term of the contract/agreement.
• Statement/Scope of Work (SOW) – A detailed description of the goods and/or services that your department will receive or provide.
  • SOW should include key deliverables and timeline. A key deliverable is something that's produced as the result of a certain process. These deliverables can be the end products or final deliverables of a project, or you may complete them as smaller deliverables throughout the duration of the project.
• Payment structure – How will payment be issued, one time, multiple, or based on key deliverables. 
  • Prepayment – If a prepayment is required, anything over $1,000 requires the approval of the Director of Procurement & Strategic Sourcing. 
    • Contract - Contract Specialist in the P&SS Office will route to the Director for approval and attach in the Contract. The department will need to pull this document from the contract and attach it in the requisition so that Accounts Payable can issue payment. 

Contract Not to Exceed Amount: Is defined as “the dollar amount that TXST will be obligated to pay pursuant to the contract/agreement and all executed amendments . This is the total dollar amount contracted from the start date through the end date. 

An amendment is a formal change to document a mutually agreed-upon change to a preexisting contract/agreement. Amendments can add, remove, change, provide a correction or clarification, or update parts of the contract/agreement. An amendment leaves your original agreement substantially intact. Depending on your needs, an amendment can change the length or term of a contract if it contained renewal language, the fees or price for a service or product, and parties' duties and liabilities.

An amendment is needed when you need to make substantial change(s) to the terms of a contract/agreement, such as clarifying details, addressing new needs, or changing prices.

• $0-$14,999
  • Competitive quotes are encouraged but not required. A department may solicit a quotation from a single source and issue a purchase order at the department’s discretion.
• $15,000-$50,000
  • Co-op, State or Piggyback Contracts can be used as justification
  • Informal Bid - Solicit a minimum of three bids, with at least two being a Texas Certified HUB supplier from vendors on the Comptrollers Centralized Master Bidders List (CMBL). You may include additional vendors not on the CMBL. For assistance in searching the CMBL, please contact the HUB Specialist at HUB@txstate.edu.
  • Proprietary Justification or Emergency Purchase form may be used if appropriate. Will require approval from the P&SS Office.
• $50,000.01 and Greater
  • Co-op, State or Piggyback Contracts can be used as justification
  • Formal Solicitation - Formal solicitation by the P&SS Office, or delegated department. If uncertain, consult with the P&SS Office to determine the appropriate procurement method.
  • Proprietary Justification or Emergency Purchase form may be used if appropriate and will require approval from the P&SS Office.

• SAP T-Code XK03 can be used to search registered vendors. (Search By: Business Name, address, contact information, etc.)
• If you are in search of a HUB please reach out to the HUB Specialist at hub@txstate.edu

We do not currently have a master vendor list. The Marketplace does display some vendors.

Yes, please reach out to the Procurement Card Specialist at p_card@txstate.edu for additional information.

To change a Purchase Order's amount please email purchasing@txstate.edu requesting the increase or decrease.

• Send an email to purchasing@txstate.edu requesting the closure. 
• If you are asking for a partial closure, please be sure to include the line item numbers that you would like closed.

You need to fill out an FS-06 Form when you are requesting to use an individual as a vendor instead of a Business LLC.

When this happens please save what appears on the screen when the search is done. This verifies due diligence was completed, as we cannot control when the websites are unavailable.