The purpose of this change is to allow departments to streamline their sourcing obligations at the beginning of the contracting process, rather than during the requisition phase.

This change also aligns with feedback we received from the community during the Business Process Roundtables conducted over the last year.  

Individuals involved in purchasing goods or services on behalf of the University are responsible for complying with the policy and  procedures for obtaining bids/quotes and providing appropriate justification for the supplier selection.

What is Changing

The BCM Contract Request Form will now include  one new question: “Is the contract value $25,000 or above”? If the answer is “Yes”, the requester will be asked to attest that the University’s Competitive Bid/Quote Requirements and Sole Source Purchases Policy has been reviewed and complied with.  

Once the Contract Request Form is completed and submitted by the requester, the request will make its way through the normal contract review process. 

Why This Change is Being Made

By adding this additional question and attestation on the BCM intake form, it integrates the University’s required competitive sourcing policy up-front in the contract review process for contracts processed through BCM.

Immediate Next Steps

Leading up to this update, please be sure to review any incomplete contract requests that you may have started to work on but that have not been submitted (request status: Incomplete). If you no longer need the request, please delete it.   

To delete an incomplete contract request:

• Click on the contracts icon on the left side menu, then Requests, My Contract Requests
• Click the Actions button on any incomplete request that you wish to delete and then choose “Delete”.

(Please note that in order to delete incomplete requests, they must be labeled as “Incomplete”. Items that are “Returned” or “Rejected” can not be deleted.)

At this time, we also ask that you check for and resolve any requests that have been returned to you and that are awaiting your further action. You can see these on the Dashboard in the My Contract Requests box. 

As always, Strategic Procurement & Contracts is available to assist in identifying suppliers to use in the competitive bid process at any spending level and to assist with bid processes.

We appreciate your patience and understanding during this update period. 

Please contact contractmanagerpurchasing@brown.edu with BCM questions or Purchasing@brown.edu with questions about the University’s competitive sourcing policies and procedures.