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Policy Statement & Purpose

Amazon Business is the preferred and recommended vendor for purchasing business items.

All Seattle Pacific University Amazon purchases must be made through SPU’s central Amazon Business account. Accordingly, this policy establishes guidelines and principles for fiscally responsible utilization of the SPU Amazon Business account.

SPU is responsible with managing its resources with fiscal prudence and in conjunction with legal and regulatory standards. This policy outlines permissible uses of related University funds and defines purchasing and approval measures for these expenditures.

Entities Affected by this Policy

All University Faculty and Staff.

Eligibility

Prospective account users are required to meet each of the following requirements:

• A full-time faculty or permanent staff member of Seattle Pacific University

• A United States resident

If you meet these eligibility requirements, then please follow this Account Registration Process.

User Roles and Permissions

User Roles:

• Administrators manage business accounts. For example, they can invite other users to join the business account, and manage shared payment methods, shipping addresses, and delivery preferences.

• Buyers (Requisitoners) place orders for the organization after they are assigned permissions by the Administrator.

• Finance users access, customize, and schedule Amazon Business reports.

• Tech users manage domain names, authentication methods, API keys, and IT system integrations such as purchasing systems, transaction data, and single sign-on.

• Approvers approve purchases in accordance with SPU Purchasing Authority Thresholds. If you are an approver, the orders that you make within your range of purchasing authority will go straight through.

Description of roles and related permissions:

• A person can have multiple user roles.

  • Example: Administrator, Buyer, and Approver

• Administrators assign permissions as part of the invitation process, and edit permissions in Business settings at any time.

• Administrators can add additional administrators to business accounts and groups.

• Administrators can remove other administrators from business accounts and groups.

Purchasing Methods

Account users must use the “Pay By Invoice - Provided by your organization” payment method. Any other method, such as using a P-Card, is prohibited. Finance will be conducting periodic audits to ensure that account users are paying with the correct method.

Authorized Purchases

The central SPU Amazon Business account must only be used for business expenditures that are in accordance with SPU purchasing policies (link business expense policy). The Amazon Business account may not be used for personal use. Finance will have access to all purchasing history made through the Amazon Business account, and will conduct periodic audits to ensure that expenditures are in alignment with SPU purchasing policies.

Prohibited and Restricted Purchases

There are several product categories that have been restricted or banned on the SPU Amazon Business account. Such items will contain a “Company Restricted” or “Company Banned” message.

The following categories have been banned on the SPU Amazon Business account:

• Alcohol products

• Tobacco products

• Weapons

The following categories have been restricted on the SPU Amazon Business account:

• Computers - All computer and computer-related purchases will be sent to the Computer and Information Systems (CIS) department for review and approval

• Furniture - All furniture purchases will be sent to the Facilities department for review and approval

• Gift Cards - For grant-related gift card purchases, please reach out to the Office of Sponsored Programs who can purchase on your behalf. For non-grant-related purchases, please reach out to Finance.

Group Administrators are strongly encouraged to frequently audit the groups that they are responsible for to ascertain all purchases made are in accordance with SPU purchasing policies. You are responsible for all purchases that are made under your name in the account.

Order Approvals

SPU faculty & staff members who have Purchasing Authority are designated as “approvers” within the Amazon Business account. These individuals will be prompted to “confirm” the orders of requisitioners who do not have purchasing authority (and are therefore not approvers) in their respective groups. These approval prompts will be sent via email and require the simple click of a yellow button. Orders that are not approved will be “locked” until they are approved and may expire if they are not approved within seven days.

For more information on the approval process (including example scenarios), please view this How to Approve an Order guide.

Account Security

The SPU Amazon Business account has been setup with Single-Sign-On (SSO). Only permanent faculty & staff members are eligible for SSO; all other prospective account users are not qualified to join the account. Each time you sign into the account, you may be redirected through SSO for authentication.

If you have any SSO-related issues, please reach out to the CIS department.

Returns

SPU does not process on-campus Amazon returns at this time. For the time being, all Amazon returns must be delivered to an Amazon Dropoff or UPS location. In order to return an order, you must complete the steps outlined in this How to Return an Order guide.

Contact Information

For inquiries related to the Amazon Business account, please email amazonbusiness@spu.edu