Acquisition Card – Quick Reference Guide

  You may buy with the Acquisition Card:

  • All goods, services and printing up to the transaction and monthly limits on your card (in most cases, up to $10,000 including taxes per transaction).

Cardholders must use the Standing Offers (SOs) and Supply Arrangements (SAs) established by Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) as a first option to meet their procurement needs, as per the list of ten commodities for which these tools are mandatory. This list is established by the Treasury Board Secretariat. If an SO exists, employees must buy from a vendor included on the SO and quote the Standing Offer number to ensure that the Crown receives the pricing and benefits of the Standing Offer.

  You may not use the Acquisition Card:

  • USB keys and other portable memory devices, computers, laptops, tablets, printers, monitors, software, and IT services such as cloud services – for all of these, be sure to follow the iService instructions
  • Any travel related expenses
  • Any vehicle operating and maintenance expenses
  • Cash advances (these are not operational requirements)
  • Personal purchases (these are not operational requirements)
  • Interdepartmental transactions (e.g., an ILA and/or MOU except for CORCAN
  • transactions with Other Government Departments (OGDs)
  • transactions with former public servants
  • Any tuition fee expenditure
  • Acquisitions where either contractual clauses or a statement of work (SOW) applies are required (e.g. purchases that involve creating new Intellectual Property or require Security Clearances or Privacy Protections)

If you have any doubts before proceeding with your purchase CONTACT US via the purchasing portal email. (Don't wait until you have the invoice!)

 Required practices:

  • Do not share your card. Only the person whose name appears on the card (the "cardholder") is authorized to use it. The funds centre manager may wish to name back-up employee(s) and follow the procedure to obtain separate cards for these individuals.
  • Keep all receipts, as per the Financial Administration Act (FAA) and the Directive on Delegation of Spending and Financial Authorities.
  • Keep the card and its number in a safe, locked place at all times, at the office.
  • All Acquisition Card purchases must respect government and departmental legislation, regulations and policies, including limits to delegated authority and the card limits.
  • Use the card whenever possible. Send a myEMS Purchase Requisition less than $10,000 (including all taxes) only in the case where a policy exception applies (see "No!" above and section 6.1 of the Acquisition Card Policy).
  • Transactions must be in accordance with the Delegation of Authorities for the Department. Some transactions (e.g. hospitality) require pre-approval forms signed before you complete the transaction.
  • The funds centre manager must provide the cardholder with written expenditure authorization (s.32, FAA), stating the types of purchases or payments the cardholder can make using the card.
  • It is not permitted by federal policies to break a single invoice, transaction or purchase into multiple transactions.
  • The cardholder must NOT register the acquisition card with PayPal. The use of third-party-payment merchants/mechanisms like PayPal are considered high-risk transactions. If it is necessary to procure using a third-party-payment merchant, we can ONLY use PayPal if the merchant is absolutely trusted and the use of the third-party-payment merchant was unavoidable (cardholder has documentation showing that no other vendor accepting the card could provide the good or service).

  Need help or more information?