How does your team make purchases?

[wilsonmw04]

Ask if your school will allow blanket PO's
I simply write 5-6 PO's for the season for my vendors and I use them as lines of credit with them. (AndyMark is VERY good with this). I have them written right after Thanksgiving so they are back to me before Winter Break. I email the vendors a copy of the PO requesting they keep them on file for my team this season and off we go. Some Vendors have to be reminded each time that there is a PO on file, but there has never been an issue with a vendor refusing to use this method.

[Libby K]

While things like registration or travel reservations (on a more open timeline) are done with PO's or by sponsors granting directly to our FIRST account, almost everything we need right this second is done on personal credit cards and reimbursed later (which the school is painfully slow at).

I definitely don't recommend it, but it's what we do to make it work. It's absolutely agonizing for a group of mentors with lives, families, college bills, etc - to look at the purchase we want to make and decide whose credit card is going to take the hit... thankfully we get in back in the end. The waiting period just isn't super fun.

Silver lining positivity: It makes us think hard about what we need & how badly we need it!

[BrendanB]

For the most part our team has made purchases on personal credit cards/cash which was previously reimbursed by the school (painfully slow) and over this summer we moved to 4-H which has given us financial control so we've moved a good portion of our finances to an account we control. We are still making purchases on personal credit cards however reimbursement can take place at one of our meetings as long as our treasurer is given a heads up.

For our time sensitive robot build parts we used the above for our first few seasons however we have been very fortunate to have a generous local sponsor who handles our part orders instead of giving us a check. This is something you could approach a current sponsor if they would consider doing or ask if they would donate Visa/American Express gift cards which gives you direct access to donations you could use for spending on time sensitive parts. If you've had a strong relationship with a sponsor they might consider helping you out if you explain that your 6 weeks would be more productive if you weren't spending days waiting for orders to arrive because of the hassle in getting orders sent out.

[Marcow]

Originally Posted by Libby K

While things like registration or travel reservations (on a more open timeline) are done with PO's or by sponsors granting directly to our FIRST account, almost everything we need right this second is done on personal credit cards and reimbursed later (which the school is painfully slow at).

Same here, we use a mix of credit cards and on hand cash from fundraiser that we just don't deposit into our account for when we have to run out and get something.