Establish and Manage Petty Cash

UMass Chan academic departments may hold petty cash to compensate their human research subjects. Petty cash may be disbursed as gift cards or cash. Please contact UMass Chan Procurement department to inquire about Petty Cash gift cards. The Bursar's Office is where departments replenish Petty Cash in cash form, after such Petty Cash Account is approved and established.

Steps to establish, manage and audit cash-based Petty Cash accounts:

• New department requests, please reach out to the Bursar's Office for additional information.
  • Grant & Restricted must be approved by Grant Accounting
  • Unrestricted & Non-grant must be approved by the Controller
  • ForHealth Consulting must be approved by the ForHealth Consulting Controller
•  Petty Cash is reviewed and approved by Grant Accounting, the Controller or the ForHealth Consulting Controller.  The approved package with original signatures is sent via inter-office mail to the Bursar's Office.
•  Bursar's Office reviews the Petty Cash package and determines the replenishment limit.
•  Bursar's Office notifies the department to pick up the initial cash funds and educates the department on how to replenish the funds and the responsibilities of managing the Petty Cash.
•  The department is audited on site by the Bursar's Office at least once a year on their cash at hand, receipts, records, and procedures. Petty Cash account in violation of its original intent and/or account management guidelines is subject to suspension or account closure.
• Coming soon!  Useful documents and forms.

In addition to replenishing cash-based Petty Cash accounts, the Bursar's Office can also reimburse a UMass Chan employee $5-$20 a day for emergency expenditures paid by the employee for his/her department.

To receive a reimbursement, the documents listed below should be submitted to the Bursar's Office:

• Petty Cash Voucher form - completed and signed by the department administrator or department personnel with authority to expense from the account requested for reimbursement. 
  
  • An individual cannot authorize their own reimbursement.
    
• Original sales receipt showing the date, location, description and amount of the items purchased.
  
  • All requests for food purchases made from a grant must include pre-approval from the grant accountant.  The Petty Cash Voucher form must include the grant staff signature as approval.
    
• Employee presents badge which must match the payee named on the Petty Cash Voucher form.
  
• An employee cannot be reimbursed from a state account or reimbursed for the following expenses: travel, phone, magazine subscriptions or membership dues.