Taking Charge of Cards

To prevent purchase card abuse, some agencies are implementing best practices included in a recent General Accounting Office guide (GAO-03-679). They include:

• Supervise cardholders: At some Defense agencies, the ratio of cardholders to supervisors who approved their charges was 700-to-1. Civilian agencies had ratios of 100-to-1. GAO recommends a 7-to-1 ratio, which Homeland Security adopted. Education has a 2-to-1 ratio, and HUD's is 3-to-1.
• Block use at questionable vendors: The credit card industry maintains standard codes to categorize merchants. Working with their banks, agencies can block card use at questionable vendors, such as pawnshops or strip clubs. Homeland Security has blocks on nearly 30 merchant categories and has a list of 40 more that it recommends agencies block on their own. Education has blocked almost 300 merchants.
• Train cardholders: Agencies should conduct annual refresher training for all cardholders and supervisors. The agency should certify and record which employees and managers took-and passed-the training.
• Require up-to-date records: Employees should keep complete records to verify purchases.