Suppliers (Doing Business With UMass)

The Unified Procurement Services Team (UPST) is the centralized procurement and accounts payable function within the University of Massachusetts (UMass) system. As the procurement function that support UMass as it continues to maintain its position as the top public university in New England, our priority is to cultivate and maintain supplier relationships that help us meet our commitment of ‘better, faster and cheaper’ to our constituents. We believe that the quality of our supplier base and relationships have a direct impact on the quality of good and services offered to our constituents across all our campuses. In addition, we are guided by the "best-value" policy, which specifically states: "The University shall obtain all goods and services covered by this policy at the best overall value to the University as is consistent with the quantity, quality, durability, availability, serviceability, and other factors affecting service and use as required by the using department of the University."

To learn more about our supplier program, we encourage you to review our FAQ page or complete and submit this request form.

The Unified Procurement Services Team (UPST) will like to alert our supplier community of an ongoing fraudulent scheme targeted at suppliers of higher education institutions across the country, including the UMass System. We encourage all our suppliers to reach out to UPST to verify any purchase order request that the supplier may believe is suspicious.

Fraudulent purchase order emails may have one or more of these common characteristics:

• involves fraudulent/fake purchase orders, or fake requests for quotes, that claim to originate from the UMass System.
• use legitimate UMass addresses when placing the order, but change the ship-to address after placing the order to a non-UMass address.
• spoof of a UMass email account. The UMass System email address ends with a .edu and never a .net, .org, or .com.
• impersonation of a UMass employee that holds purchasing authority, by using a defunct email address.
• messages that include an attachment designed to look like a UMass purchase order, may include a logo or other graphic, and a signature that may look legitimate

While we cannot prevent this illegal activity, we want to promote awareness and communicate the necessity of verifying requests.

Note the following when transacting with the UMass System:

• Only UPST’s procurement team is authorized to issue a purchase order on behalf of the UMass system. 
• UPST’s procurement team utilized an e-procurement platform to issue Purchase Orders. PO’s issued from UMass will come from Buyways@umassp.edu
• If you receive a purchase order by email, please alert your staff to hover over the address to ensure that it was sent from this address Buyways@umassp.edu and from a person listed on the UPST staff page.

If you believe you have received a fraudulent email that appears to be from the UMass System, you should forward it to our procurement team at upst@umassp.edu or call us at 774-545-UPST (8778) to authenticate before fulfilling the order or responding to that email.

The UMass System values its relationship and partnership with our supplier community. We keep escalating these fraudulent activities to the appropriate authorities when we are made aware of it and support ongoing investigations as needed. 

We recently launched our UMass Supplier Portal! This portal streamlines the communication between UMass stakeholders and our supplier base. This portal is accessible through our eProcurement system, BuyWays, and is on an invite-only basis presently. Please be on the look-out for an email from (UMass) UPST to register your organization with UMass, as it is mandatory to register to continue to do business with the system. For additional details on this program, send an email to upst@umassp.edu.

• Become a UMass Supplier

The UPST is driving the expansion of the UMass Supplier Diversity Program. Our goal is to ensure alignment of our supplier diversity activities with the overall University of Massachusetts System diversity goals. As UMass has the most diverse public university in all of New England as part of its system, our goal is to ensure that our supplier base is a reflection of this.

Payment Terms

The University typically offers early payments in exchange for an agreed upon discount. The standard payment window is 45 days. 

Payment Status

The University processes disbursements on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If it has been longer than 30 days since an invoice was submitted with a valid Purchase Order number or if you believe the payment is late based on the terms of the agreement, submit an inquiry form.

• Purchase Order Terms & Conditions

• Sourcing Director User Guide for Suppliers Job Aid