Purchasing Guide

Please do not use the below to submit reimbursements. The Purchasing Guide is only to request a new purchase. To submit reimbursement requests, please go here

All purchases made with University funds should be ordered through the CS department. We have departmental accounts with institutional discounts and tax exemption (where available) at many of the popular retailers, including but not limited to Amazon Prime, Best Buy, Apple, Dell, Target, Barnes & Noble, B&H, Home Depot, and Staples, and will happily create new ones if needed.

We will help you liaise with your project managers and ensure all orders are in compliance with current University and IRS policy. We work with vendors on competitive pricing, price matching, returns, replacements or refunds as applicable.  

Please send requests via email to purchasing@cs.columbia.edu. Our dedicated purchasing team will respond within 1 business day. In your message, be sure to include:

1. Quotes and/or links to the items you would like to order – sales quotes expire within 14-30 days of issue (even if no date is specified) due to fluctuations in price, and shipping speeds are often impacted by COVID-related delays and/or natural disasters and extreme weather events, so be sure to submit requests timely.
2. Clear Business Purpose – required for all purchases.
3. Charging Project – Please clarify the business purpose as it relates to the work/research being funded (required for all charges on sponsored projects).
4. Shipping Address – For tax exemption and security purposes, all orders are shipped to the department.  

Note: If you are forwarding a message from another ticketing system (such as a quote from CRF), a new email with a different subject line must be created in order to generate a different ticket number in the purchasing system. Otherwise it will not be seen by the purchasing team.

You can find the CU preferred vendors list here, or you can be in touch for assistance in finding a UwPA vendor. 

Faculty seeking teaching support should use the Teaching Academic Support Form.