Cabinet Office has issued guidance on the use of procurement cards as a means of accelerating payments to suppliers to support and improve cashflow. The guidance has been developed in recognition of the increased pressure that the COVID-19 outbreak has placed on finance teams and the increased importance on maintaining cashflow to suppliers.
Procurement Policy Note (PPN) 03/20 is applicable to central government departments, their executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies (referred to as in scope organisations). The PPN is advisory only for councils.
The guidance advises in scope organisations to do the following:
- Increase the single transaction limit to £20,000 for key card-holders
- Raise the monthly limit on spending with procurement cards to £100,000 for key card holders.
- Ensure an appropriate number of staff have the authority to use these cards.
- Open all relevant categories of spend to enable these cards to be used more widely.
The PPN highlights a number of benefits that can be achieved by using procurement cards:
- Access to management information to ensure financial control policies are being adhered to.
- Help ensure payment is made to suppliers as swiftly as possible.
- Using a procurement card for one-off approved transactions can save time and money by removing the need for a purchase order to be produced, and for a new supplier to be set up on finance systems.
- Adds resilience across the organisation during the current crisis (for example, the organisations inability to raise new purchase orders due to staff shortage to pay existing suppliers).
- The NAO has estimated that using cards typically saves around 35% in transaction costs or £5 per transaction compared with traditional methods.
If you are a public sector organisation interested in using NEPO505 Prepaid Card Accounts please
visit the solution webpage and get in touch using the enquiry form.