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MUSC breaks ground in purchase card use Editor's note: The following article was published in the Visa Exchange Summer 2005 issue and is intended to keep government employees informed.   Visa's Purchasing Card Program Optimization initiative is a powerful way to improve the effectiveness of procurement programs by identifying opportunities to increase the use of purchasing cards within an organization. Several federal agencies are currently maximizing their programs with the initiative, which has recently become available to states and public universities as well. The first university to implement these tools, MUSC, is already seeing outstanding results.   Motivated by a round of budget reductions, MUSC first instituted its purchasing card program with Bank of America in 1998, training and certifying 1,197 cardholders. By using purchasing cards for routine purchases, MUSC currently saves more than $69 per transaction and has realized total savings to date of $22.8 million.   “We've made great strides, but it's important to us to continue to save as much as possible,” said Susie Edwards, director of budget and purchasing. “Our issuer, Bank of America, gave us a compelling outline of what Program Optimization could help us achieve. Visa's Program Optimization gives us access to Visa's Benefits Calculator (a Procure-To-Pay consulting tool) that will allow us to measure the success of our program.”   “MUSC is a real leader when it comes to cost savings,” said Henry Siler, vice president, Bank of America. “Susie and her team continue to make their purchase card program a model for other organizations to follow.”   MUSC began its program optimization process in April 2005. Visa's initial analysis of its accounts payable files revealed the university conducts 30,000 transactions annually, totaling $6.8 million with Visa vendors.   Edwards' team developed an action plan to identify what they call “quick hit opportunities” to gain the most value from the project: Identify departments with purchases that qualify for purchasing card payments. Identify categories of expenses currently not allowable for purchasing cards under internal policies. Revisit those policies. Develop a communication plan to notify purchasing card users of potential cost savings and usage.   Although she's putting her team on a timeline to address all three action items by December, Edwards said it's amazing how much the optimization process has already revealed about their new card program—even at this early stage.   “Visa's Program Optimization has sorted and organized our data in ways that give us a new, transparent look at how our organization operates,” Edwards said.   Sharon Ford, purchasing card administrator agrees.  “Many of our research areas are growing very quickly and don't realize they need to equip their new staff with the cards. Now that we've identified this problem, we can quickly educate the new staff and provide them with cards.”   “At conferences where we network, like Bank of America's User's Conference for South Carolina, Sharon and I get approached by all kinds of colleagues curious about our progress with program optimization,” Edwards said. “We have lots of phone numbers—everyone wants us to keep them informed of our results. Many state organizations are learning from our experience.”    Friday, Oct. 7, 2005 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778.