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Inventorial Equipment Overview and Guidelines

Summary: Learn what you need to know before acquiring or disposing of inventorial equipment.

Definition: "Inventorial Equipment" refers to items that must be tracked through UCSC's property and financial systems. These items are either owned by or in the custody of UCSC, and have the following features:

• Have an acquisition value of $5000 or more
• Are non-expendable
• Can stand alone
• Have a normal useful life of one year or more
• Qualify as tangible personal property (can be appraised for value)

Firearms, vehicles and vessels must be recorded and tracked, regardless of cost.

See also Examples of Inventorial and Non-inventorial Equipment.

Determining Equipment Value

• Determine the value of equipment to be purchased by deducting cash discounts (other than trade-in discounts.)
• Include tax, installation and US customs charges.
• Freight is included in the value of inventorial equipment, but freight costs may not be used to determine whether equipment is inventorial. If the total minus freight costs is over $5000, it is an inventorial item.
• All supplies ordered on the same PO as an item of inventorial equipment (including software) are considered the initial complement of supplies and are added to the value of that equipment. If ordered on a separate PO they are not added to the value and a supplies account number must be used.

Value example: A new computer is ordered ($5100 = inventorial equipment). The same PO includes a printer ($600 = attachment) with a replacement cartridge ($75=supplies) and a zip drive ($120 = attachment) with five zip disks ($60 = supplies). All items on the PO are added to the equipment value.

Attachments - also known as Components

• To be considered inventorial, the value of an attachment must have the following features:
  • be $5000 or greater, OR
  • have any value and be purchased on the same PO as the inventorial equipment that it complements.
• The UC Property Number of the specific piece of equipment being enhanced by the addition of an attachment must be referenced in the requisition.
• The value of the attachment will be added to the value of the equipment.
• For attachments valued at $5000 or more, and purchased on a separate PO, use account number 007000.
• For attachments purchased on the same PO as the equipment, use account number 007110.
  Attachments or parts of a system ordered on the same PO as the main unit of equipment, regardless of price, are added to the value of that equipment.

Fabrications

A fabrication, also called a "fab," is an item manufactured from component parts and from parts machined or constructed from scratch in any one of UCSC's onsite shops. When the completed item has a value of $5000 or more, can stand alone, and has a useful life of one year or more, it is considered a piece of inventorial equipment.

Trade-ins

• When a PO involves a trade-in of a piece of inventorial equipment, ALL items on the PO that are affected by the trade-in must be coded with the account code 007130.
• The buyer must enter the "after-discount" price of the new item in the price field of the PO.
• The line item text needs to include the following information:
• full, pre-discounted value of the equipment
• the amount of the trade-in discount
• the UC Property Number of the equipment being traded

 

DOs and DON'Ts for Purchasing Inventorial Equipment

• DO always purchase inventorial equipment on a "regular" Banner purchase order.
• DO NOT purchase inventorial equipment on a unit blanket purchase order.
• DO NOT purchase inventorial equipment on a PA form.
• DO NOT purchase inventorial equipment on a Purchasing Card.
• DO NOT purchase inventorial equipment on a personal credit card.
• DO NOT purchase inventorial equipment through the direct pay process.
• DO NOT allow individuals to purchase inventorial equipment with the intention of being reimbursed.
• DO always use commodity level accounting to purchase inventorial equipment.
• DO NOT use document level accounting to purchase inventorial equipment.
• DO assign an inventorial account code to equipment costing less than $5000 when the contract or grant sets an inventorial dollar limit of less than $5000.
• DO notify Equipment Management in the text field that the award sets a lower dollar limit.