Associate Purchasing Agent

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Job Summary

Under general supervision from the Purchasing Supervisor, the Associate Purchasing Agent supports the facilities material management program through purchase of non-stock materials in compliance with Caltech's purchasing processes.

Responsibilities include processing non-stock material requests, sourcing parts, preparing purchase orders, processing returns and investigating purchasing errors from cradle to grave.

Duties include, working with the integrated work management computer system (AiM), the campus material and service request system (Techmart) and the institute's financial data base (Oracle). Tracking deliverables and problem-solving on receipt discrepancies and process returns on time.

The position regularly interacts with vendors/suppliers, internal customers, and functional peer groups such as Procurement, Stockroom, Facilities Finance, and Accounts Payable.

Essential Job Duties

• Responsible for following all safety procedures and maintaining a safe and secure work environment.
• Establish and maintain professional vendor relationships.
• Review material requests, vendor quotes and place orders with the best provider that can meet quantity and delivery requirements of field/shop requestors. Continually communicate delivery variances back to requestor.
• Prepare competitive and non-competitive procurement justifications.
• Prioritize and expedite materials purchases as required.
• Follow up and partner with field staff to ensure ordered goods meet end-user needs and quality specifications; research, as needed, supplier cross-referenced part numbers and secure alternate suppliers/manufacturers that can provide equivalent substitutes that meet or exceed part specifications.
• Verify receipt of materials and reconcile material requests, purchase orders, invoices, and packing slips.
• Coordinate returns with the shops and vendors. Obtain return authorization and ship item and forward credit memo to AP.
• Reconcile Pcard in Concur Solution and submit Expense Report for approval.
• Maintain fluency in all software systems including eProcurement (Jaggaer), integrated work management (AiM), and enterprise resource planning (Oracle).
• Review and develop working knowledgeable on purchasing-related trends and best practices.
• Perform financial analyses. Demonstrated math proficiency sufficient to calculate billing totals, ratios, and percentages.
• Ability to work on computer applications, including Microsoft Suite sufficient to generate standard and ad-hoc reports from available data, and ability to apply this knowledge to other databases.
• Ability to collaborate and communicate professionally and effectively with Accounts Payable to resolve problems as quickly as possible.
• Adhere to all Caltech purchasing policies and procedures.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Basic Qualifications

• Associate degree plus 4 years of related experience, or 6 years of related work experience in lieu of a degree.
• Demonstrated experience and proficiency in eProcurement systems, database tools and Microsoft Office applications.
• Proficient in Microsoft Suite, particularly MS Excel. Be able to manipulate date, time, text, and arrays.
• Knowledge of cell formatting, charts and graphs creation, Pivot tables and reporting, VLOOKUP and XLOOKUP.
• Exceptional customer service skills and ability to meet high performance expectations.
• Ability to follow standard processes while solving both routine and complex problems.
• Excellent organization skills and ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously and prioritize daily job requirements.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Able to create and maintain collaborative relationships within the department and campus community.
• Ability to communicate professionally and effectively with Accounts Payable to resolve problems as quickly as possible.
• Ability to work in an office setting with occasional exposure to industrial operations (temperatures, noise, etc.).

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university.
• 2 years' purchasing experience in higher education or government.
• 2 years' experience with AIM software or a similar integrated workplace management system.
• 2 years' experience with SciQuest/Techmart purchasing & purchase order creation.
• Purchasing or procurement related professional certificates or memberships.

Required Documents

• Resume.