Purchasing Process

This section applies to student organizations that receive money from the Student Activities Fund. If a student organization receives money from a department, this section is not applicable. 

To know if your organization receives money from the SAF a budget request is needed. If your organization does not submit a budget request, this section is not applicable. 

Student organizations can request and receive funding from the Student Activity Fund (SAF) by submitting a request on LUCommunity during the allocation cycles. Once your Budget Request is approved, your organization can submit a purchase request. Budget requests are reviewed and approved by the Allocation's Committee.

Below are the different types of purchase requests your RSO can submit. 

Regardless of the purchasing method, requests must be submitted via a Purchase Request form. All purchase requests, besides contracts, are due no later than 14 days prior to the event. CSE does not operate with checkbooks and/or cash, and the currency of all purchases/reimbursements must be in US dollars. 

Purchase Request (Food, Supply, Credit Card) – This form is used to arrange pre-event purchases. Payment requests must be submitted at least 14 days before the date of purchase. All items requested via a credit card payment request must be obtainable via phone or online. CSE will not go to a store or vendor to make purchases.

• The date of purchase is often before the actual event date. The organizations must factor in order size, tax exemption, and shipping time when deciding when to submit their payment request.
• Only businesses found on the CSE Preferred Vendor List will be approved for CSE credit card use. If using a non-preferred vendor, Reimbursement is the only payment option unless noted in the Vendor List. 

Reimbursement Request –CSE does not encourage reimbursement and will process them sparingly. The Director of the Center must approve all reimbursement requests for Student Engagement before they can be processed.

Please submit all reimbursement requests 14 regular days before the event, to provide enough time for processing.

This form is used to reimburse students for any approved expenses incurred on behalf of their organization. An executive board member can submit one form per student, not per expense. Please note that Loyola does not reimburse sales tax; reimbursements may take up to 6 weeks to process.

Paying for Parking Passes for Vendors -Student organizations should not purchase their own parking passes. Please submit a purchase request 14 days prior to the event to receive a parking pass.

All parking-related expenses will be taken from the Revenue, SAF, or SUF accounts. If the Student Organization does not have funds within this account, a parking pass purchase request will not be approved. If parking tickets are purchased without a purchase request being submitted, the passes will be automatically removed from the Student Organization's revenue. If the Student Organization does not have revenue funds, they are responsible for fundraising to pay for these passes.