UT's procurement card program, which gives VISA credit cards to university staff to purchase supplies, has a medium level of fraud, regulatory violations and waste, according to a recent university-wide risk assessment.

The system allows for UT's financial functions to flow smoothly, allowing one large credit card bill to be sent to the university rather than having numerous invoices from various vendors.

"So far we have been pretty successful with procurement cards, though we have had a few people do the wrong things with them," Mark Paganelli, executive director of UT's Audit and Consulting Services, said. "The program received a medium level of fraud, but that doesn't take into account controls that mitigate procurement card transactions.

 "We block certain vendors, so that the card can't be used in certain transactions," Paganelli said. These vendors include hotels or airfare, which are generally used for personal leisure. Using such controls helps eliminate non-legitimate transactions, essentially helping to reduce fraud, he said.

"UT spends about 2 million dollars a month," he said. "In fact, we had 9,500 transactions last August. That would have been 9,500 different checks being cut to different vendors. With this system, one bill is cut to the university."

Other advantages of the program include reducing costs associated with processing invoices, generating checks, mailing costs and producing a more efficient payment system to vendors.