College Contracts for Office-Supply Purchases

Penn College now will save money and time when buying office supplies (including printer cartridges), thanks to an agreement with OfficeMax A Boise Company (formerly Boise Office Solutions).

College employees no longer need to "shop around" for many of their most often-needed supplies and can take advantage of significant cost savings on over 12,000 items that appear in the OfficeMax catalog.

The competitive bid process was conducted by a Big Ten purchasing consortium and subsequently extended to all members of E&I (Educational and Institutional Cooperative Service). Supply orders will be placed using the College's online Purchase Requisition system, and the orders will be filled by OfficeMax and delivered to the College on the Monday, Wednesday or Friday immediately following the order date.

To gain maximum benefit from this arrangement, employees are expected to use this new contract for all their office supply requirements. There are two methods of finding and ordering any items needed:

1. For your convenience, a "core list" of over 280 of the most frequently ordered supplies and printer cartridges has been downloaded to the AS400 requisition system. When initiating a requisition, entering "F14 Office Supplies" will display the instructions for listing and selecting the core-list items. A completed purchase requisition will be created automatically when you have finished entering quantities next to any items required.

2. Items not on the core list can be located by accessing a special OfficeMax/Penn College Web site . You will see the applicable user ID and password when you access the office-supply section of the requisition system on the AS400. The user ID and password are not to be shared with non-College employees. This search-only Web site will contain the balance of the 12,000 OfficeMax catalog items. Your selections from these items will need to be added manually to the purchase requisition. Actual discounted pricing will be shown for all items on the Web site. NOTE:Please contact the Purchasing Office should your requirements include furniture or office machines.

Please contact the Purchasing Office if you order office products and have not received a "2004 OfficeMax/Boise Catalog," or as you have questions or need assistance with this new program.