i-Buy
Helping You Help Yourself!
Alissa Wilkinson
It's Monday morning, and you, an NYU faculty or staff member, need a new digital camera to use in an upcoming academic research trip. You also need a new stapler, as well as a desk chair for your office. You could take several trips to electronics, office, and furniture stores to locate the things you need. Or, if you're trying to save money and time, you might spend hours calling each store, finding out what's in stock and which store has the best price. If you're feeling technically savvy, you might visit each store's website and order the products, then use AP Workflow to request reimbursement.
Does that sound like a lot of work to you? Would you like to buy all these supplies in one shopping session on the Internet, receive NYU prices, easily submit the Purchase Requisition for the items, and save money and time?
NYU Purchasing Services has the solution: a web-based tool called i-Buy. i-Buy was introduced in early 2007 as a one-stop online shop for University faculty and staff to quickly and easily purchase supplies for their work at NYU. i-Buy integrates with Purchasing Services' e-Requisition system to make submitting purchases for approval fast and easy. (For more information on i-Buy, visit the article in the Spring/Summer 2007 edition of Connect, www.nyu.edu/its/pubs/connect/spring07/monahan_ibuy.html.)
In one visit to the i-Buy website, you can shop for many different products from NYU's key suppliers -- office and laboratory supplies, furniture, multimedia products, computers, and much more. You simply log into the i-Buy site, choose your items, and place them in your shopping cart. When you've collected all the items you wish to purchase, simply review your cart, then click "Submit."
Besides the ease and convenience of shopping for many different types of supplies online, i-Buy helps to eliminate many of the paper forms that can be required when purchasing through NYU, including Procurement Card Orders, Blanket Orders, Small Dollar Orders, and Individual Personal Reimbursements, and there are no minimum or maximum dollar limits for your purchase (except those set by your department). You also receive the products you've purchased much sooner, since once the purchase has been approved through your department's workflow, the Purchase Order is immediately transmitted to the supplier, who ships the items to your office.
NYU Purchasing Services frequently adds new vendors to the i-Buy system to provide the best shopping experience possible to NYU faculty and staff. Want to find out more? Visit the NYU Purchasing Services website (www.nyu.edu/purchasing.services) and check out the i-Buy tutorials. You can also view the i-Buy animated tour, hosted by i-Buy's friendly "spokesperson," Bob -- just go to the Purchasing Services website and click on "Introducing i-Buy Bob." Let i-Buy help you help yourself!