GOVERNMENT 

PURCHASE CARDS

Opportunities Exist to 

Leverage Buying 

Power

Report to Congressional Requesters

May 2016

GAO-16-526

United States Government Accountability Office
 

United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-16-526, a report to 

congressional requesters

May 2016

GOVERNMENT PURCHASE CARDS

Opportunities Exist to Leverage Buying Power 

Why GAO Did This Study

The purchase card program was 

designed to streamline relatively small 

dollar value acquisitions of goods and 

services. In fiscal year 2015, the 

government spent approximately $19 

billion using purchase cards. 

GAO was asked to review whether

agencies are effectively leveraging

their buying power when using 

purchase cards. This report assesses 

the extent to which selected (1) 

agencies analyze purchase card data 

to identify opportunities to leverage 

buying power agency-wide and (2) 

purchase cardholders seek 

opportunities to achieve cost savings 

when using purchase cards. 

GAO analyzed data from the three 

banks that work with the six selected 

agencies—selected in part on varying 

levels of purchase card spend 

volume—to manage their purchase 

card programs. GAO evaluated 

policies, reviewed strategic sourcing 

efforts related to purchase cards, and 

interviewed officials. GAO also 

interviewed officials from the General 

Services Administration who manage 

the government’s purchase card 

contracts, and interviewed selected 

cardholders at the two agencies with 

the highest purchase card spend.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that Energy analyze 

purchase card data and DOD ensure 

its components do the same. GAO also 

recommends that each agency 

develop guidance to encourage local 

officials to examine purchase card 

spend patterns and share this 

information. Four agencies concurred, 

Interior partially concurred, and EPA 

did not comment.

What GAO Found

The agencies in GAO’s review—the Departments of Defense (DOD), Veterans 

Affairs (VA), the Interior (Interior), Homeland Security, and Energy (Energy), and 

the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—have made varied use of purchase 

card data, and additional opportunities exist to negotiate discounts and leverage 

buying power. As the chart below shows, spending with government purchase 

cards represents billions of dollars each year.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance that prescribes policies 

for agencies on how to manage their purchase card programs (1) requires

agency officials to incorporate purchase card data into strategic sourcing analysis 

and (2) recommends that agencies review and analyze purchase card spending 

patterns for opportunities to negotiate discounts, improve buying processes, and 

leverage buying power. All the agencies in GAO’s review incorporated purchase 

card data into overall spend analysis to support strategic sourcing efforts as 

required by OMB, but officials noted challenges that impede review of purchase 

card data. For example, purchase card data do not always include enough 

specificity to identify particular commodities to target for savings. Despite these 

challenges, four of the six agencies GAO reviewed took additional steps to 

independently analyze purchase card spending patterns as recommended by 

OMB. Two agencies—EPA and Interior—identified opportunities for savings 

through such analysis, demonstrating that savings can be found. However, 

Energy and certain DOD components, such as the Air Force and Navy, did not 

perform analysis of purchase card spending. Without more focused efforts, these 

agencies may be missing opportunities to find cost savings. 

GAO also found instances where regional VA offices were successful in 

identifying opportunities for local or agency-wide savings on items procured with 

purchase cards. For example, one office recognized an opportunity for savings 

when purchasing wheelchair ramps for disabled veterans, resulting in savings of 

$1.1 million and faster delivery. Federal internal controls state that management 

should communicate the necessary information to achieve objectives. Given the 

examples GAO found, developing guidance and sharing information may help 

agencies identify opportunities to leverage buying power with purchase cards. 

View GAO-16-526. For more information, 

contact Marie A. Mak at 202-512-4841, or 

makm@gao.gov
Page i GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

Letter 1

Background 4

Four Agencies Took Steps to Identify Cost Savings through 

Analysis of Purchase Card Data; Two Agencies Could Do More 9

More Sharing of Information on Local Initiatives and Informing 

Cardholders of Cost Saving Opportunities Needed to Create 

Purchase Card Spend Savings 14

Conclusions 17

Recommendations for Executive Action 18

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 18

Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 21

Appendix II Comments from the Department of Defense 24

Appendix III Comments from the Department of Energy 26

Appendix IV Comments from the Department of Homeland Security 28

Appendix V Comments from the Department of the Interior 30

Appendix VI Comments from the Department of Veterans Affairs 31

Appendix VII GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 33

\ 

Tables 

Table 1: Number of Fiscal Year 2015 Purchase Card Transactions 

below the Micro-purchase Threshold for Selected 

Agencies 5

Contents
Page ii GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

Table 2: Selected Agency Fiscal Year 2015 Percentage of 

Purchase Card Spend to Total Spend 10

Figure

Figure 1: Government-wide Purchase Card Spending, Fiscal 

Years 2010-2015, in Billions 5

Abbreviations

BPA Blanket Purchase Agreement

DHS Department of Homeland Security

DLA Defense Logistics Agency

DOD Department of Defense

Energy Department of Energy

EPA Environmental Protection Agency

FAR Federal Acquisition Regulation

FSSI Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative

Interior Department of the Interior

GSA General Services Administration

OMB Office of Management and Budget

VA Department of Veterans Affairs

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Page 1 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

441 G St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20548

May 19, 2016

The Honorable Ron Johnson

Chairman

The Honorable Thomas R. Carper

Ranking Member

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

United States Senate

The Honorable Claire McCaskill

Ranking Member

Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations

Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs

United States Senate

The Honorable Charles E. Grassley

United States Senate

The government purchase card program was created as a way for 

agencies to streamline the federal acquisition process by providing a lowcost, efficient vehicle for obtaining goods and services directly from 

vendors. In fiscal year 2015, federal agencies used purchase cards to 

procure nearly $19 billion of a wide variety of goods such as office 

supplies and general contractor services. The majority of purchase card 

transactions are for purchases that fall under the micro-purchase dollar 

threshold, currently set at $3,500. Although the General Services 

Administration (GSA) maintains contracts with the banks that issue the 

purchase cards and captures government-wide transaction data, 

individual agencies decide which bank to use to support its purchase card 

requirements and are responsible for monitoring the actions of their 

cardholders as well as issuing agency-specific policies and procedures on 

the appropriate use of purchase cards. However, we, as well as agencies’ 

Inspectors General, have found that purchase card programs may be 

vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse because they lack sufficient 

Letter
Page 2 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

internal controls.1 Further, we found in 2004 that agencies generally had 

not identified and taken advantage of opportunities to obtain more 

favorable prices on purchase card buys.2 Rather than leveraging the 

government’s vast volume of purchases—or buying power—to obtain 

savings or discounts when making small purchases, we found 

cardholders often paid higher prices than necessary. 

Since our 2004 report, the federal government has taken steps to better 

manage purchase card programs and has begun to focus more on 

strategic sourcing, which includes a thorough analysis of an 

organization’s spending to support efforts to more effectively acquire 

goods and services.3 In 2009, the Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB)—responsible for government-wide policy on purchase card use—

issued a revision to its circular on purchase card program management 

stating, among other things, that agencies must include purchase card 

data when performing analysis as part of strategic sourcing initiatives. 

More recently, Congress enacted the Government Charge Card Abuse 

Prevention Act of 2012, which, among other things, requires agencies’ 

Inspectors General to perform analysis or audits, as necessary, of 

purchase card transactions to identify categories of purchases in order to 

aggregate purchases and obtain lower prices.4 Further, from a broader 

perspective, OMB issued guidance in 2005 requiring agencies to focus 

 

1

GAO, Governmentwide Purchase Cards: Actions Needed to Strengthen Internal Controls 

to Reduce Fraudulent, Improper, and Abusive Purchases, GAO-08-333 (Washington, 

D.C.: Mar. 14, 2008). U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Inspector General, Internal 

Controls for Purchase Card Transactions Need to Be Strengthened, Final Report No. OIG13-025-A, (Washington, D.C.: May 2, 2013), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office 

of Inspector General, Ineffective Oversight of Purchase Cards Results in Inappropriate 

Purchases at EPA, Report No. 14-P-0128 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 4, 2014), and Treasury 

Inspector General for Tax Administration, The Purchase Card Program Lacks Consistent 

Oversight to Identify and Address Inappropriate Use, 2013-10-056, (Washington, D.C.: 

June 20, 2013).

2

GAO, Contract Management: Agencies Can Achieve Significant Savings on Purchase 

Card Buys, GAO-04-430 (Washington, D.C.: Mar.12, 2004). 

3

The Office of Management and Budget’s Circular A-123, Appendix B revised, defines

strategic sourcing as the “collaborative and structured process of critically analyzing an 

organization’s spending and using this information to make business decisions about 

acquiring commodities and services more effectively and efficiently.”

4

Pub. L. No. 112-194, § 2. Our research identified only one report from the EPA Office of 

Inspector General that addressed this subject. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 

Office of Inspector General, Ineffective Oversight of Purchase Cards Results in 

Inappropriate Purchases at EPA, Report No. 14-P-0128 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 4, 2014).
Page 3 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

more on strategic sourcing and initiated a government-wide strategic 

sourcing program for commonly purchased goods and services that 

aggregates requirements and streamlines processes in order to leverage 

spending to the maximum extent possible.5

 

Congress requested that we review whether government agencies are 

effectively leveraging buying power to achieve cost savings when 

procuring goods and services using purchase cards. This report 

addresses the extent to which selected (1) agencies analyze purchase 

card data to identify opportunities to leverage buying power agency-wide

and (2) purchase cardholders seek opportunities to achieve cost savings 

when using purchase cards. 

To examine the extent to which agencies are performing analysis to 

identify ways to better leverage their buying power, we selected six 

agencies that represent varying levels—high, medium and low—of 

purchase card spending in fiscal year 2014: the Departments of Defense 

(DOD), Veterans Affairs (VA), the Interior (Interior), Homeland Security 

(DHS), and Energy (Energy) and the Environmental Protection Agency 

(EPA). Our selection of agencies was based on purchase card spending 

levels and was informed by Inspectors General office reports that 

addressed purchase card spend analysis taking place at executive 

branch agencies. For these six agencies, we reviewed government-wide 

and agency-specific policies and regulations and interviewed acquisition 

and finance personnel to understand what data concerning purchase card 

transactions are available and the extent to which agencies collect and 

analyze these data to support strategic sourcing initiatives. We also 

collected and analyzed government-wide purchase card transaction data 

from the three SmartPay banks for fiscal year 2014 and the first two 

quarters of fiscal year 2015 to understand what data are available to 

agencies for performing spend analysis and to identify potential 

challenges presented by the data supplied by vendors through the banks.

Data used to select purchase cardholders and analyze government-wide 

purchase card spending were found to be sufficiently reliable for the 

purposes of this report.

To assess the extent to which local offices and cardholders seek

opportunities to achieve cost savings when using purchase cards, we 

 

5

Office of Management and Budget, Memorandum for Chief Acquisition Officers, Chief 

Financial Officers, and Chief Information Officers on Implementing Strategic Sourcing 

(Washington, D.C.: 2005). 
Page 4 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

selected a nonprobability sample of 20 cardholders from high-spending 

offices within DOD and VA—the two agencies that use purchase cards 

most—and who had made purchases with a specific merchant included in 

a government-wide contract that had the highest volume of sales with 

these agencies. We interviewed cardholders, approving officials, and 

personnel who identified requirements fulfilled through cardholder 

purchases to understand how prices are considered and vendors 

selected when buying goods and services with purchase cards. Appendix 

I describes our objectives, scope, and methodology in greater detail.

We conducted this performance audit from April 2015 to May 2016 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

The broadening of purchase card use from procurement offices to 

individual government cardholders in 1994 improved the ability of 

agencies to quickly and easily acquire items needed to support daily 

operations and reduced the administrative costs associated with such 

small purchases. Though government purchase cards were originally 

reserved for use by procurement personnel, the Federal Acquisition 

Streamlining Act of 1994 allowed authorized government cardholders to 

make purchases under the micro-purchase threshold without obtaining 

competitive quotations if the price to be paid was considered reasonable.6

Further, the act dictated that cardholders distribute their purchases 

equitably among qualified suppliers. Moreover, according to the Federal 

Acquisition Regulation (FAR), these cards are the preferred means to 

complete purchases under the micro-purchase threshold. According to 

GSA, from fiscal year 2010 to 2015, cardholders spent a range of about 

$17 billion to $19.5 billion annually in goods and services using purchase 

cards.7 (See figure 1) 

 

6

Pub. L. No. 103-355, § 4301. Authorized government cardholders are recommended by 

their supervisors and must complete purchase cardholder training. 

7

At the time of our review, the micro-purchase threshold was $3,000. On October 1, 2015, 

the micro-purchase threshold was raised to $3,500.

Background
Page 5 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

Figure 1: Government-wide Purchase Card Spending, Fiscal Years 2010-2015, in 

Billions

Although purchase cards may be used as a payment mechanism against 

contracts, for the agencies in our review, over 97 percent of the 

purchases in fiscal year 2015 were transactions valued below the micropurchase threshold. (See table 1)

Table 1: Number of Fiscal Year 2015 Purchase Card Transactions below the Micro-purchase Threshold for Selected Agencies

Agency Total number of transactions Micro-purchases Percentage of total

Department of Veterans Affairs 6,388,324 6,292,144 98.5

Department of Defense 5,420,142 5,260,842 97.1

Environmental Protection Agency 52,487 52,345 99.7

Department of Homeland Security 826,392 818,185 99.0

Department of Energy 129,175 126,606 98.0

Department of the Interior 1,298,415 1,298,229 100.0

Source: Agency data | GAO-16-526
Page 6 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

The government’s purchase card program—part of the SmartPay

program—is managed by GSA, which currently administers the purchase 

card contracts with three banks: US Bank, Citibank, and JP Morgan

Chase.

8 According to GSA’s SmartPay website, streamlining paper-driven 

acquisition processes of the past with the use of purchase cards saves 

the government about $1.7 billion annually (approximately $70 per 

transaction) in administrative costs. Further, when selecting which bank to 

use for its purchase card program, an agency can negotiate with its bank 

the terms for purchase card refunds under the purchase card program’s 

contract. These refunds are based on speed of payment and volume of 

transactions and may also result in a cost savings for agencies. The 

GSA’s SmartPay website indicates that the government has received 

approximately $3 billion in refunds from purchase card spending since the 

SmartPay program’s inception in 1998.

Purchase card data are available from two sources: the bank servicing 

the agency as well as a system developed by GSA called the SmartPay 

Data Warehouse, which was designed to assist with purchase card 

analysis. According to GSA officials, the Data Warehouse can be used to 

compile aggregate data from banks for each participating agency and for 

the government as a whole. The data can be sorted by various fields, 

such as vendor, agency, and transaction date. Additionally, GSA officials 

stated that they can sort the data based on an agency’s spend for 

improving internal management and, in the future, may be used to identify 

opportunities for savings. Although purchase card data can be used to 

support spend analysis, agency officials told us that these data are 

primarily used for internal control purposes, notably to mine the data in 

order to identify card misuse and potential fraud and abuse.9

 

In 2004, GAO found that while agencies had begun to take actions to 

achieve cost savings through purchase card programs, most had not yet 

taken full advantage of available opportunities to obtain more favorable 

prices on the items purchased with cards. For example, we found that 

agencies had only negotiated discount agreements with a few of the 

vendors frequently used by cardholders; purchase card training programs 

lacked practical information to help cardholders take advantage of the 

 

8

The SmartPay program covers government charge cards including travel, fleet, 

purchase, and integrated cards.

9

Data mining is an automated process used to scan databases to detect patterns, trends, 

or anomalies for use in risk management or other areas of analysis.
Page 7 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

discounts that had been negotiated; and there was a lack of management 

focus on leveraging buying power to achieve cost savings on items 

purchased. As a result, we found that the government was not taking 

advantage of opportunities which could have saved taxpayers hundreds 

of millions of dollars. Officials cited inconsistent vendor reporting of 

detailed transaction data—referred to as level 3 data, which is necessary 

for identifying specific items for each transaction—as an impediment to 

analysis of purchase card spending patterns. However, we found that 

despite lacking specific data on transactions, agencies could take steps to 

get better prices such as identifying vendors with high volumes of sales. 

As a result, we made several recommendations to focus management 

attention on the cost saving opportunities available for purchase card 

buys, facilitate cardholder access to discounted prices, and develop 

mechanisms that provide cardholders with better pricing from major 

vendors for key commodities, such as agency-wide discount 

agreements.10

Over the last decade, OMB has taken additional steps to implement 

strategic sourcing initiatives meant to increase the value of each dollar 

spent by government. In 2005, it issued a memorandum implementing 

strategic sourcing practices across the government. In the same year, 

OMB, Department of Treasury, and the General Services Administration 

established the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative (FSSI) to identify 

government-wide opportunities to strategically source commonly 

purchased products and services and to eliminate duplication of efforts 

across agencies. Further, in a 2009 update to its purchase card guidance 

for federal agencies, OMB asked that agencies think more strategically 

about what they were buying with purchase cards. The guidance required

that agencies incorporate purchase card spending into analysis that 

supports strategic sourcing decisions and recommended that agencies 

review and analyze patterns of purchase card spending for potential costsaving opportunities. More recently, OMB announced the government’s 

intent to use a category management approach and GSA issued 

guidance in May 2015 to provide agencies with consistent standards for 

 

10GAO recommended that the secretaries of the six agencies included in its review (the 

Departments of Agriculture, Defense, the Interior, Justice, Transportation, and Veterans 

Affairs), direct their purchase card program managers to analyze available data to analyze 

purchase card expenditure patterns to identify opportunities to achieve savings and to 

assess whether cardholders are getting good prices; only two agencies implemented 

these recommendations. Further, we recommended that these six agencies take steps to 

communicate information to help cardholders take advantage of mechanisms established 

to achieve savings; only two agencies took action to implement.
Page 8 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

its implementation. Category management calls for lead agencies to 

analyze acquisition approaches for particular groups of goods or services 

to further reduce duplication of acquisition efforts among agencies and 

help ensure that agencies receive uniform, competitive pricing. However, 

this guidance on category management does not address agencies’ 

review of purchase card transaction patterns.

Although the federal government has taken these steps to enhance 

strategic sourcing of goods and services, GAO has reported multiple 

times on the shortcomings of implementing such initiatives by federal 

agencies.11 For example, in 2012 we found that selected agencies were 

only leveraging a fraction of their buying power through contracts as a 

result of strategic sourcing analysis. While leading private sector 

companies reported strategically managing as much as 90 percent of 

their spending, we found that agencies responsible for the majority of 

government procurement spending reported managing less than 5 

percent of their spending through strategically sourced contracts. Further, 

we found that FSSI contracts had low levels of use and that commodities 

and services purchased the most by the government were not available 

through FSSI. We made several recommendations to DOD, VA, and 

OMB to improve department and government-wide strategic sourcing 

efforts. While DOD has taken steps to evaluate resources devoted to 

strategic sourcing, it has not yet completed steps to identify and evaluate 

the best way to strategically source its highest spending categories. VA 

implemented both of its recommendations by taking steps to evaluate 

ways to strategically source high spending goods and services and by 

establishing strategic sourcing goals and metrics. OMB has not yet fully 

addressed recommendations to provide federal agencies with metrics to 

measure progress toward strategic sourcing goals nor to require an 

assessment of whether more top spend products and services should be 

considered for strategic sourcing.

 

11GAO, Strategic Sourcing: Opportunities Exist to Better Manage Information Technology 

Services Spending, GAO-15-549 (Washington, DC: Sept. 22, 2015), Strategic Sourcing: 

Leading Commercial Practices Can Help Federal Agencies Increase Savings When 

Acquiring Services, GAO-13-417 (Washington, DC: Apr. 15, 2013), Strategic Sourcing: 

Improved and Expanded Use Could Save Billions in Annual Procurement Costs, 

GAO-12-919 (Washington, DC: Sep. 20, 2012), Opportunities to Reduce Potential 

Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue, 

GAO-11-318SP (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 1, 2011); Best Practices: Using Spend Analysis 

to Help Agencies Take a More Strategic Approach to Procurement, GAO-04-870

(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 16, 2004); and Best Practices: Improved Knowledge of DOD 

Service Contracts Could Reveal Significant Savings, GAO-03-661 (Washington, D.C.: 

June 9, 2003). 
Page 9 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

All of the agencies in our review incorporated purchase card data into 

aggregate spend analysis to support strategic sourcing initiatives as 

required by OMB; however, many officials pointed to data challenges, 

such as a lack of specificity, that make it difficult to conduct more detailed 

analysis. Despite these challenges, four of the six agencies took 

additional steps to conduct specific analysis of purchase card spending 

patterns as recommended by OMB guidance. Moreover, two of these four 

agencies identified opportunities for savings through such analysis, 

demonstrating that savings can be found. However, while some DOD 

components analyzed purchase card data, certain components of DOD 

did not. Further, Energy did not perform agency-wide analysis of 

purchase card data. Without more focused efforts on this type of analysis, 

these agencies may be missing opportunities to find cost savings with 

purchase card buys.12

The January 2009 OMB Circular A-123, Appendix B, stipulates that to 

support strategic sourcing initiatives underway at agencies, purchase 

card data must be incorporated into spend analysis along with contract 

and delivery order data. All six of the agencies selected for our review 

incorporated purchase card spend data into their annual or quarterly 

aggregate spend analysis to support strategic sourcing initiatives.13 Our 

prior work defines spend analysis as providing knowledge about how 

much is being spent for which products and services, who the buyers are, 

who the suppliers are, and where the opportunities are for leveraged 

buying and other tactics to save money and improve performance. From 

this analysis, organizations can evaluate and prioritize commodities to 

create a list of top products or services to target for strategic sourcing. 

This list typically includes the products or services on which most of the 

organization’s spending is focused. Although agencies we reviewed 

incorporated purchase card data into their aggregate spend analysis, 

some officials stated that its inclusion had little impact on results due to its 

relatively small dollar value. 

 

12In this report, we define DOD components as the military services and other defense 

agencies that comprise the entire department

13Strategic sourcing can encompass a range of tactics for acquiring products and services 

more effectively and efficiently. In addition to leveraged buying, strategic sourcing tactics 

include managing demand by changing behavior, achieving efficiencies through 

standardization of the acquisition process, and managing supplier relationships. 

Four Agencies Took 

Steps to Identify Cost 

Savings through 

Analysis of Purchase 

Card Data; Two 

Agencies Could Do 

More

Agencies Incorporated 

Purchase Card Data into 

Strategic Sourcing 

Analyses, but Specific 

Purchase Card Analysis Is 

Hindered by Data 

Challenges 
Page 10 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

The OMB guidance also states that agency purchase card program 

coordinators should further conduct a more specific analysis of purchase 

card data, reviewing spending patterns and levels—independent of the 

aggregate agency spend analysis—to identify opportunities for savings 

through negotiation of discounts, improvements to the buying process, 

and increased volume purchases. Officials at most of the selected 

agencies, however, raised concerns about the costs and benefits of using 

resources to analyze purchase card spending because it represents a 

small part of overall spending. The six agencies’ average purchase card 

spend ranged from about 2 percent to 17 percent of total spend for fiscal 

year 2015 (see table 2). Furthermore, officials also stated that the value 

of extensive analysis is questionable, as individual purchase card 

transactions are low-cost and, therefore, considered low risk. For 

example, Interior officials told us that, in general, the cost of doing 

analysis on such a small portion of overall spending tends to outweigh 

benefits if it does not lead to a cost-saving contract. DOD officials told us 

they do not focus on purchase card spend, using resources to focus on 

higher dollar value spending instead. 

Table 2: Selected Agency Fiscal Year 2015 Percentage of Purchase Card Spend to Total Spend

(Dollars in millions)

Agency Card spend Total spend

Percentage of card/total 

Spend

Department of Veterans Affairs 3,964 23,853 17

Department of Defense 4,765 277,438 2

Environmental Protection Agency 26 1,577 2

Department of Homeland Security 421 13,715 3

Department of Energy 70 1,000 7

Department of the Interior 433 3,306 13

Total 9,679 320,889 3

Source: Agency data.

Moreover, although purchase card data are readily available, agency 

officials cited several challenges as obstacles to analyzing the data 

separately. Similar to what we found in 2004, officials at all six selected 

agencies stated that purchase card data are generally not sufficient to 

support the detailed spend analysis necessary to target specific 

commodities or services for strategic sourcing opportunities. Bank 

databases provide agency officials with information on all purchase card 

transactions, including vendor name, merchant category code (general 

description of what a vendor sells), transaction date, and transaction 

dollar amount, but other transaction level details are not consistently 

tracked or provided. Transaction level data—referred to as level 3 data—
Page 11 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

would provide insight into the specific items purchased, including quantity 

and unit prices. However, only vendors can provide level 3 data to the 

banks and we found not all vendors submit this information. Without it, 

agencies rely on merchant category codes, which provide only a general 

description of what vendors sell, and the total amount spent with each 

vendor. Our analysis of the 18 months of bank data we had requested 

confirmed this data challenge and also highlighted that the level 3 data 

fields are not standardized, which further complicates data analysis. For 

example, approximately 36 percent of records did not contain information 

in data fields meant to provide a description of the item being purchased. 

Further, the information that was included varied significantly. Although 

some transaction records contained information on the make and model 

of items, other transactions had general descriptions of what was 

purchased. Other purchase card transaction records contained only a 

series of letters and numbers without a description of what was 

purchased.

Additionally, purchase card data also may associate multiple merchant 

category codes with one type of vendor, impeding spend analysis and 

requiring extensive, time-consuming data cleanup to maximize 

usefulness. For example, office supply vendors can be classified under 

merchant category codes for Office/Photo Equipment, Stationary/Office 

Supplies, Stationery Stores, and Combination Catalog and Retail. DHS 

officials reported that in fiscal year 2014 transactions with Staples and 

Office Depot—both vendors under the Office Supply FSSI—were largely 

recorded under different merchant category codes. To perform an 

analysis of office supplies, officials would have had to use a combination 

of merchant category codes and vendor names for both vendors. 

However, they would not have had enough information to know which 

vendors provide what commodities or services. 

Another challenge with the purchase card data is that one vendor may be 

listed under multiple names, making it time consuming to develop a list of 

top vendors. For example, as part of its agency-wide strategic sourcing 

efforts, DHS regularly standardizes different names for the same vendor 

reported in purchase card data to improve the accuracy of vendor 

information for analysis. DHS officials noted that there may be many 

variations of vendor name, for example, for vendors with franchises or 

multiple locations, complicating analysis of bank data. Our analysis of 18 

months’ worth of purchase card data confirmed this phenomenon; for 

example, one major general merchandise store was identified with more 

than 5,000 different variations of its name. Although time consuming, 

standardizing vendor names helps ensure that vendor information is more 
Page 12 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

appropriately counted when developing a list of top-spend vendors to 

support analysis for potential savings.

Despite concerns with the data, four agencies in our review—DHS, EPA, 

VA, and Interior—took additional steps to analyze purchase card 

spending patterns as recommended by OMB guidance. Because the data 

do not provide consistent insights into what agencies are buying, these 

agencies identified the vendors with which they spent the most. Interior 

reviewed quarterly reports provided by its purchase card bank to identify 

the top high-spend vendors. To improve the accuracy of vendor 

information for analysis, DHS took the extra step to normalize the differing 

names reported in bank data for the same vendor.

VA has performed product spend analysis on an as-needed basis to 

identify opportunities to leverage spend. The last of these analyses was 

conducted in May 2015 resulting in consideration of a potential 

department-wide contract for specific medical equipment which would 

provide for discounts on items that could be procured with purchase 

cards. In January 2016, VA began a pilot program where a small core 

team will routinely conduct spend analysis to identify opportunities to 

aggregate requirements and leverage purchase card spending. Further, 

VA purchase card officials have access to reports from the bank that may 

assist with analysis of purchase card spend patterns and plan to 

collaborate with the department’s procurement office to establish regular 

reviews of these data in the future. 

Some positive outcomes resulted from individual agencies’ purchase card 

analyses. Specifically, two agencies—EPA and Interior—used their 

analysis of purchase card data to identify potential commodities to be 

strategically sourced. For example, EPA, spurred by dissatisfaction with 

previous contracts, identified the vendors its cardholders most frequently 

used to obtain lab supplies. Officials stated that based on this analysis of 

its data, the agency established three new blanket purchase agreements 

(BPA) for the lab supplies.14 EPA reported approximately $50,000 savings 

to date on lab supplies, $43,000 of which it attributed to purchase card 

procurements. In another instance, Interior used bank data to identify that 

wireless service providers were among the top vendors with whom the 

 

14A BPA is a simplified method of filling anticipated repetitive needs for supplies or 

services by establishing “charge accounts’’ with qualified sources of supply. FAR 13.303-

1(a). 

Despite Challenges, Most 

Agencies Performed 

Specific Analysis of 

Purchase Card Data, With 

Some Positive Outcomes
Page 13 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

agency used purchase cards. However, officials are still evaluating 

possible solutions to determine the best combination of wireless services 

and equipment to be provided through contract.

Two agencies in our review did not perform agency-wide analysis of 

purchase card data—DOD, which accounts for just over one quarter of all 

government purchase card spending—and Energy. Though DOD 

purchase card program guidance does not require analysis of spending 

patterns, DOD officials told us that they expect such analysis to be 

performed at the component level rather than across the entire 

department. The department provided examples of steps taken by 

individual DOD components to perform analysis of purchase card spend:

• The Army reported that it coordinates with US Bank to perform an 

annual review of spending to identify potential strategic sourcing 

opportunities and to review Army usage of FSSI and mandatory 

vendors—but did not provide us with examples of results of this 

analysis.

• Washington Headquarters Services reported that management 

attention to recurring purchases within the organization resulted in the 

award of 16 BPAs for supplies and services including ones for 

locksmith supplies, maintenance services, and interpreter services.15 

• Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) conducts analysis of government 

purchase card data yearly to identify opportunities to leverage buying 

power.16 Recently, DLA reported the award of a contract based on 

this analysis that allows for centralized ordering of nails and staples—

two items previously purchased separately by component sites.

However, other components of DOD, such as the Air Force and Navy, did 

not report any purchase card spend analysis activity. Until DOD, 

specifically the Office of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy, 

issues agency-wide guidance or direction on analysis of purchase card 

 

15The Washington Headquarters Services provides essential administrative services to 

support the Office of the Secretary of Defense, DOD agencies, and offices in the National 

Capital Region.

16The Defense Logistics Agency is DOD’s largest logistics combat support agency 

supporting military services, several civilian agencies, and foreign countries.

Certain Components 

within DOD and Energy

Did Not Perform OMB 

Recommended Analysis of 

Purchase Card Data 
Page 14 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

spending, components may be inconsistently identifying opportunities for 

cost savings.17

Similarly, Energy did not conduct agency-wide analysis of purchase card 

data citing resource and data constraints as an impediment. Energy

officials stated that they lack tools necessary to develop accurate analysis 

of vendor spending. However, our own analysis of VA and DOD purchase 

card data shows it is possible to analyze vendor names to more 

accurately identify high-spend vendors. Through statistical analysis that 

compared vendor names, similar names were identified, evaluated, and 

aggregated as appropriate. This allowed us to have a more accurate 

count of transactions for high-spend vendors from the Army and VA 

offices from which we selected case study cardholders. Like DOD, 

Energy may be missing opportunities to obtain savings without performing 

some level of analysis of purchase card spending. 

We examined local efforts at two of the six agencies in our review—VA 

and DOD—and found local initiatives that may benefit the whole agency. 

None of the local DOD purchase card program officials we spoke with 

provided examples where they reviewed purchase card spending patterns 

to identify areas for cost savings. However, based on local knowledge of 

purchase card spend patterns, cardholders and other officials we 

interviewed from VA regional offices identified commodities procured with 

purchase cards that could be bought through BPAs instead, helping 

ensure pre-negotiated discounted prices and reliable service from 

vendors. Specifically, 

• In December 2014, a regional VA office established two BPAs for 

modular wheelchair ramps and installation services—once procured 

through individual purchase card transactions—to achieve better 

prices and to ensure more timely delivery. According to officials, these 

BPAs reduced delivery and installation times from 4-6 weeks to 

approximately 4 days and saved $1.1 million. Similar arrangements 

for use across VA are expected to be established in the third quarter 

of fiscal year 2016. 

 

17The Office of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy is responsible for all 

contracting and procurement policy matters in DOD.

More Sharing of 

Information on Local 

Initiatives and 

Informing 

Cardholders of Cost 

Saving Opportunities 

Needed to Create 

Purchase Card 

Spend Savings
Page 15 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

• This same office reported that they recently awarded orthotics 

contracts to 17 vendors for various items, including diabetic shoes 

and braces that had been procured with purchase cards. The 

contracts are intended to access the best quality of care for veterans, 

but the office also achieved better prices, getting discounts from 1 to 

22 percent on items purchased through the contracts. 

• Another VA regional office reported that it transitioned bed rentals 

from individual card buys to a national contract to avoid instances of 

cardholders’ purchase authority being exceeded when patients 

required use of beds for longer than anticipated. The contracts 

allowed for reduced workload and easier placement of orders 

according to officials, even though the level of usage was not enough 

to achieve significant cost savings.

Further, individual VA cardholders we spoke with leveraged knowledge of 

existing local contracts to receive better prices or provided information to 

contracting staff of possible opportunities to obtain savings. For example, 

one VA cardholder noticed that a contract for protective boots had been 

allowed to lapse and that VA was using purchase cards to buy the boots 

at a higher price than the previously negotiated contract rate. Her office 

informed contracting officials, who are planning to negotiate lower prices 

on a new contract. This cardholder also noticed that when she moved

from one VA office to another, the prices her new office paid for protective 

eyewear was much more expensive than what her old office paid. 

According to this cardholder, she was able to coordinate the use of a 

contract from her previous office at her new one thereby reducing costs 

for eyewear by approximately 77 percent. Another cardholder noticed her 

office was making recurring purchases for data communication services. 

Her office reviewed purchase card orders and worked with the contracting 

office to place these services on a contract. Agency officials expect this 

contract to reduce costs and to be available to multiple VA hospitals. 

These efforts further demonstrate that with more attention to patterns of 

purchase card buys and increased information sharing, the government 

could better leverage its buying power when using purchase cards. As 

seen in the example with the wheelchair ramps, some of these 

opportunities for savings may be appropriate to expand to the entire 

agency, which may increase potential savings significantly.

Cardholders we spoke with were generally aware of existing contracts 

that they could use to procure items. Further, we also found examples 

where agency offices used various mechanisms to share information with 

cardholders and to remind cardholders of negotiated contracts that could 
Page 16 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

provide a cost savings. Some of the training or practices we identified 

may be useful for other offices to use or emulate. For example,

• One Army program manager includes information on government 

contracts cardholders should use in a quarterly newsletter he sends 

out.

• Another Army program manager provides training on purchase card 

operating procedures that directs cardholders to use government 

contracts. Additionally, one cardholder told us that she incorporated 

these topics into her own training which she provides to local 

personnel who place purchase card order requests with her.

• One program manager we spoke with from VA forwards emails from 

agency-level contracting offices concerning the mandatory use of 

certain contracts or changes to existing government contracts to 

cardholders under his responsibility. For example, one email directed 

cardholders to VA’s list of national mandatory government contracts 

and noted that the contracting office updates the list monthly. 

• Another VA program manager provides supplemental purchase card 

training to cardholders which discusses mandatory use of certain 

strategic sourcing contracts and other agency-wide contracts and 

notes that open-market purchases are a last resort for cardholders.

Some cardholders we spoke with told us that other factors may result in 

using a vendor other than those under an FSSI contract or other contract 

vehicle. For example, speed of delivery is at times a consideration when 

selecting a vendor, especially for urgent requirements. Further, some 

Army cardholders we spoke with noted that they frequently need to 

purchase equipment that meets specific technical requirements for 

conducting experiments, and thus need to use vendors that can meet 

these specific criteria.

None of the six agencies in our review have purchase card guidance that 

encourages local officials to examine purchase card spend patterns to 

obtain savings and to share information on such efforts. The existing 

guidance focuses largely on preventing fraud or misuse of purchase 

cards, rather than leveraging buying power to achieve savings. However, 

the examples we found demonstrate that sharing information on initiatives 

at the local level broadly across the agency may help to improve 

knowledge of available cost saving contracts—such as the example with 

the cardholder that knew of the contract for protective eyewear—and 

finding new opportunities for cost savings—such as the instance where 
Page 17 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

VA is expanding use of a contract for wheelchair ramp services. Also, 

sharing information on local training efforts may be a way for other offices 

to use pre-existing resources to train their own cardholders. Federal 

internal control standards state that management should internally 

communicate the necessary information to achieve the entity’s 

objectives.18 Effective information and communication throughout an 

organization are vital for an entity to achieve its objectives, which can be 

accomplished through written guidance. Although we did not speak with 

local offices in the other agencies in our review, our experience in 

speaking with officials at VA regional offices indicates that other agencies 

could benefit from identifying and sharing information on local initiatives 

that leverage spend. Without communication of any local efforts taking 

place, agencies may be missing opportunities to leverage the buying 

power when using purchase cards. 

OMB’s policy clearly indicates the importance of conducting analysis on 

purchase card data to identify cost savings. Paying attention to purchase 

card spending has yielded positive results, both at an agency-wide 

level—where EPA and Interior’s actions resulted in savings or potential 

better terms for government buyers—and at a local level where VA 

cardholders noticed patterns and focused efforts to obtain savings. 

However, agencies remain reluctant to invest substantial time and 

resources into leveraging the government’s purchasing power when it 

comes to purchase cards. Some of the reasons are valid—imperfect and 

challenging data, larger procurements that require attention, and lack of 

resources. Yet, when totaled across agencies, purchase card spend 

represents billions of taxpayer dollars that the government has a 

responsibility to spend wisely. Agencies that are not performing even a 

modest amount of purchase card spend analysis, specifically certain 

components within DOD and Energy, may be missing opportunities to 

identify areas for savings with purchase cards. Although some DOD 

components have taken steps to analyze purchase card spend data for 

cost-saving opportunities, without clear guidance from DOD for all 

components, resources may not be applied to seek out opportunities. 

Aside from spend analysis, an agency has shown that paying attention to 

purchase card spending at the local level can also result in cost savings. 

Further, by having all agencies encourage local officials to examine 

 

18GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, GAO-14-704G

(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 2014). 

Conclusions
Page 18 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

purchase card spend patterns to identify opportunities to obtain savings 

and to share information on such efforts, agencies may leverage buying 

power more effectively. 

To help identify opportunities for cost savings, we recommend that the 

Secretary of the Department of Defense direct the Office of Defense 

Procurement and Acquisition Policy to issue guidance or instruction to 

help ensure that components make reasonable efforts to analyze 

component-level purchase card spend patterns to identify areas for 

possible savings. 

To help identify opportunities for cost savings, we recommend that the 

Secretary of the Department of Energy take reasonable steps to regularly 

analyze agency-wide purchase card spend patterns to identify areas such 

as high-use vendors or frequently purchased commodities for further 

analysis.

To ensure that good practices are shared within agencies, we 

recommend that the Secretaries of Defense, Veterans Affairs, the Interior, 

Homeland Security, and Energy, and the Environmental Protection 

Agency develop guidance that encourages local officials to examine 

purchase card spend patterns to identify opportunities to obtain savings 

and to share information on such efforts. Where applicable, we further 

recommend that these agencies determine the feasibility for broader 

application of these efforts across the agency or organization.

We provided a draft of our report to the Secretaries of Defense, Veterans 

Affairs, the Interior, Homeland Security, and Energy as well as the 

Administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency and General 

Services Administration, and the Director of the Office of Management 

and Budget. DOD, VA, DHS, and Energy concurred with our 

recommendations and Interior partially concurred. Agencies’ comments 

are summarized below and written comments from DOD, VA, Interior, 

Energy, and DHS are reproduced in appendices II-VI. OMB and GSA did

not to provide comments on our report. EPA did not respond to our 

request for comments on the draft. We also received technical comments 

from VA, which we incorporated as appropriate. 

In its written comments, DOD concurred with both of our 

recommendations and stated that the Office of Defense Procurement and 

Acquisition Policy will issue guidance to help ensure that DOD 

components and local officials take steps to analyze purchase card 

spending for potential cost-saving opportunities. Similarly, Energy 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation
Page 19 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

concurred with both recommendations in its written response. It will use a 

new spend analytics database to analyze agency-wide purchase card 

spending patterns and update existing acquisition guidance, purchase 

card policy, and operating procedures to encourage local examination of 

spending patterns and share information on such efforts. Both agencies 

estimate implementation of these recommendations by the fourth quarter 

of fiscal year 2016.

DHS and VA agreed with our recommendation to develop guidance that 

encourages local officials to examine purchase card spending patterns for 

opportunities to obtain savings and to share results of these analyses. 

Staff from the Office of the Chief Finance Officer will update the DHS 

purchase card manual to encourage local officials to perform quarterly 

analysis of purchase card data in order to identify strategic sourcing 

opportunities. In its written comments, VA stated that the Office of 

Management is working with the Office of Acquisition, Logistics, and 

Construction to develop guidance and implement strategic sourcing for 

the department’s overall spending to include purchase cards. The Office 

of Management will also update the VA’s purchase card policy to 

encourage agency officials to analyze purchase card spending patterns 

for cost-saving opportunities and share the results of these analyses.

Interior partially concurred with our recommendation to encourage 

examination of purchase card spending patterns by local officials. The 

agency stated in its written comments that it will encourage its bureaus to 

use data analysis tools to make purchase card spend data available to 

program managers and buyers. It will promote sharing of data across 

regional boundaries to help identify potential opportunities to negotiate 

savings for commonly used items. However, the agency does not see a 

need for additional guidance to assist the bureaus in implementing these 

efforts. While encouraging additional, bureau-level analysis of purchase 

card data is a positive step toward fully leveraging Interior’s buying power, 

we continue to believe that formalizing these actions through guidance 

will help ensure uniform implementation across its offices.
Page 20 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents of 

this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the 

report date. At that time, we will send copies to the appropriate 

congressional committees, the Secretaries of Defense, Veterans Affairs, 

Interior, Homeland Security, and Energy as well as the Administrators of 

the Environmental Protection Agency and General Services 

Administration, and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, 

In addition, the report is available at no charge on the GAO website at 

http://www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact 

me at (202) 512-4841 or MakM@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices 

of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last 

page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this report 

are listed in appendix VII. 

Marie A. Mak

Director

Acquisition and Sourcing Management
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 21 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

The Office of Management and Budget’s Circular No. A-123 Appendix B

requires agencies to incorporate purchase card spending data into overall 

spend analysis to support strategic sourcing initiatives and recommends 

that agencies analyze purchase card spending patterns and levels to 

identify opportunities for negotiation of discounts and increased savings 

based on volume. In response to a congressional committee request, we 

assessed the extent to which selected (1) agencies analyze purchase 

card data to identify opportunities to leverage buying power agency-wide 

and (2) local purchase cardholders take advantage of opportunities to 

achieve cost savings when using purchase cards. 

To address these objectives, we reviewed laws and regulations in place 

relating to the use and management of purchase card programs and 

strategic sourcing initiatives. We met with General Service Administration 

(GSA) officials who manage the SmartPay purchase card program as well 

as officials from the Office of Management and Budget responsible for 

issuing government-wide guidance on managing purchase card programs 

to gain insight into what purchase card transaction data are available to 

individual agencies and the requirements placed upon these agencies to 

analyze purchase card spending. We also collected and analyzed 

government-wide purchase card transaction data from the three 

SmartPay banks for fiscal year 2014 and the first two quarters of fiscal 

year 2015 to understand what data are available to agencies for 

performing spend analysis and to identify potential challenges presented 

by the data supplied by vendors through the banks. We analyzed data to 

determine top vendors used by certain agency offices and understand the 

extent to which descriptive information on procured goods and services is 

included in purchase card transaction data supplied by the banks. 

To determine the extent to which individual agencies perform analysis of 

purchase card data, we reviewed policies and conducted interviews with 

finance and acquisition officials from six, case study agencies that 

represent three differing levels of purchase card spending. Based on 

analysis of fiscal year 2014 purchase card statistical data available from 

the GSA website describing total spending and transactions by each 

agency participating in the SmartPay program, we selected:

1. The Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of Veterans 

Affairs (VA), the two largest users of purchase cards, both making 

purchases valued well over $500 million,

2. The Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Interior (DOI), 

each having spent between $100 and $500 million, and

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 22 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

3. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of 

Energy (Energy), each having spent less than $100 million. 

Selection of DHS and EPA was also informed by the findings of GAO and 

inspector general reports. Specifically, previous GAO reports found that 

DHS has a well-resourced strategic sourcing program and a recent EPA 

Inspector General report stated that the agency had begun to conduct 

analysis of purchase card spend to identify commodities to be sourced 

strategically. We used this information as an indicator that these agencies 

may have performed analysis of purchase card spending patterns to 

identify new strategic sourcing opportunities as recommended by OMB 

guidance. We reviewed each agency’s own policies describing the 

responsibilities of cardholders and program management to understand 

the extent to which they address issues of pricing and vendor selection. 

We conducted interviews with agency purchase card program and

strategic sourcing officials to understand how data on purchase card 

transactions are used to inform overall spend analysis and to identify 

specific services or commodities where buying power could be better 

leveraged through strategic sourcing. We asked each of the six agencies 

to provide us data describing the purchase card transactions and 

spending for fiscal year 2015 which we used to provide context. Findings 

based on information collected from these six agencies cannot be 

generalized to all agencies.

To examine the extent to which cardholders seek opportunities to achieve 

cost savings when making purchases, we collected purchase card 

documentation and conducted interviews with 20 purchase cardholders 

from DOD and VA. We selected cardholders from these two agencies 

because DOD and VA have the highest amount of purchase card 

spending, representing nearly 78 percent of total government purchase 

card spending in fiscal year 2014. To select the cardholders we analyzed 

the transaction data for these two agencies collected from US Bank, one 

of the three SmartPay banks, to identify top vendors used by DOD and 

VA and compared this list to vendors associated with the Federal 

Strategic Sourcing Initiative (FSSI). We then analyzed bank data further 

to determine which two offices within each agency had the highest levels 

of purchase card spending with the FSSI vendor and selected 

cardholders from each office to interview. Specifically, we selected 

cardholders from Army Materiel Command, the United States Army Corps 

of Engineers, and two regional Veteran’s Health Administration offices. 

Each selected cardholder made purchases with this FSSI vendor as well 

as from other vendors. Bank data used to select cardholders were 

examined for duplicate records and invalid information and were found to 

be sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this work. We interviewed 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 23 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

cardholders and collected transaction documentation to understand the 

extent to which these individuals consider price options prior to making a 

purchase and are cognizant of contracts or other vehicles meant to 

provide a savings to government buyers. While the results based on 

interviews with the selected purchase card holders cannot be projected to 

all cardholders, their experience provides insight into how cardholders 

consider price and strategic sourcing options when making purchase card 

buys.

We conducted this performance audit from April 2015 to May 2016 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives.
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 24 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 25 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Energy

Page 26 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

Appendix III: Comments from the 

Department of Energy
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Energy

Page 27 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department 

of Homeland Security

Page 28 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

Appendix IV: Comments from the 

Department of Homeland Security
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department 

of Homeland Security

Page 29 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards
Appendix V: Comments from the Department 

of the Interior

Page 30 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

Appendix V: Comments from the Department 

of the Interior
Appendix VI: Comments from the Department 

of Veterans Affairs

Page 31 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

Appendix VI: Comments from the 

Department of Veterans Affairs
Appendix VI: Comments from the Department 

of Veterans Affairs

Page 32 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards
Appendix VII: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 33 GAO-16-526 Government Purchase Cards

Marie A. Mak, (202) 512-4841 or MakM@gao.gov

In addition to the contact named above, Tatiana Winger (Assistant 

Director), Pete Anderson, Ji Byun, Virginia Chanley, Lorraine Ettaro, 

Robert Heilman, Mitch Karpman, Ralph Roffo, Sylvia Schatz, and 

Thomas Twambly made key contributions to this report.

Appendix VII: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contact

Staff 

Acknowledgments

(121268)
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