2011 Award Recipient

Payment Card

Department of State

In 2008, the Department of State implemented the Department of State Payment Card as a supplemental program under its GSA SmartPay® Purchase Card Program.  The Payment Card is a non-point of sale product, used for recurring supplies and services, such as courier services, domestic and overseas utilities, copier and general purpose paper needs and telecommunications.

Enhancing Value and Delivering Impact to Agency

The immediate goal was to decrease the quantity of paper invoices and processing times, reduce payment delinquencies, and streamline payment processes for recurring products and services.  Payment Card features include restricting use to specific recurring products or services and maximizing use of online vendor payments.
Since implementation, the Department of State avoided more than $12.8 million in paper invoice transactions.  Payment Cards have also allowed international end users to meet short payment credit terms, as required by some overseas utility vendors.  This has eliminated late payment and delinquencies, resulting in substantial increase in user and vendor satisfaction.

Payment Cards have also allowed end users to maximize use of vendor online systems.  Available information has significantly improved the ability of Department of State end users to manage Embassy properties, monitor trends, identify high energy users, reasons for high energy usage, and take immediate remedial actions.

Implementation Support

The GSA SmartPay contract bank has supported the implementation of the Department of State Payment Card program by making ongoing custom and static reports available through the bank's electronic acceptance system website.  The bank also helped monitor Payment Card transactions and provided specific Payment Card training in Department of State-sponsored training workshops.