Departments can purchase gift cards for employee recognition using their ProCard. The gift must be reported to Payroll because the gift is taxable. See the Employee Recognition webpage and the Employee Recognition FAQs.
The department should have a defined, documented and monitored procedure for how recognition works and the gift cards are given.
The gift cards must be treated like cash and managed using Cash Management controls.
The gift cards must be reported to Payroll as income by emailing the amounts of the recognition to pr-tax@uw.edu.
Note: Gift cards should not be purchased with one’s own credit card and then be reimbursed.