Rice Classifieds offers a new, easier property-disposal process

Rice Classifieds offers a new, easier property-disposal process

BY ARIE WILSON
Rice News staff

The Rice Classifieds is replacing the Greensheet, Rice’s longstanding property-disposal system.  

The Web-based Rice Classifieds is designed to promote the transfer, purchase or disposal of items owned by the university. It can be accessed at <http://classifieds.rice.edu>. Login with NetID and password is required.

Daniel Fu, business process consultant in the Office of the Vice President for Administration, said the Greensheet was originally designed to manage risk and control the inventory movement to off-campus for items at the end of use.  

”However, over time the property-disposal process was asked to also redistribute valuable property within the university, ensure compliance with research accounting rules, extract residual value of property and account for disposed property within our financial systems,” Fu said. ”Unfortunately, the old Greensheet process was unable to successfully meet these additional goals.”

In the fall of 2006 a committee identified several issues with the process and workflow of the Greensheet that created a barrier for potential Greensheet users.  The Greensheet software itself was outdated and included a particularly dated end-user interface.  The Greensheet process occurred only four times a year.  

”This meant that departments submitting items to the Greensheet needed to find storage space to keep their old items up to three months — sometimes even longer,” Fu said.

Though the Greensheet generated about $8,800 during its last year of operation, the total time and effort in labor costs for running the Greensheet far exceeded the revenue, Fu said.

”By using better technology, the Rice Classifieds Web site is faster and easier to use, meets the goals of the property-disposal policy and utilizes less staff time and effort,” Fu said. ”The advantages of the newly designed Rice Classifieds Web site include items posted in real time, appropriate compliance and accounting measures handled behind the scenes and little necessary training.”

Items scheduled to be transferred, sold or disposed of must have prior approval by the department head before they are posted on the Rice Classifieds system. If the item was purchased with research funds, the listing department and Accounting Office must both confirm that the item is available for transfer, sale or disposal.

Previously used pieces of lab equipment — such as research equipment, glassware, measurement tools and refrigerators — must be evaluated by the Office of Environmental Health and Safety to confirm the appropriate method of transfer, sale or disposal.

The department posts the item for two weeks to the Rice community. This is identified as an ”on-campus listing.” The department will then receive bids on a first-come, first-served basis and determine whether to accept or reject individual bids.

At the end of the two-week period, the listing is moved to an ”off-campus listing” for two additional weeks. This sale is for non-Rice use.

Again, the department will receive bids on a first-come, first-served basis and decide to accept or reject them. During this time, the item can still be listed for interdepartmental transfers as well.

At the end of the second two-week period, the item can be disposed of in any manner the department sees fit. If a offer is accepted, the selling department will provide the purchaser with an invoice with all the pertinent item identification and account codes.

The purchaser is responsible for transmitting funds to the Rice cashier, who will in turn transfer funds to the appropriate Rice account and provide the purchaser with a stamped receipt. The receipt is then shown to the selling department, and the item is transferred to the new owner.

Feedback is always welcome, Fu said, and users may report problems or provide feedback by sending an e-mail to <riceclassifieds@rice.edu>.