1. Year End
2. Benefit Rate
3. Budget Planning
4. Student Employment
5. Purchasing News
1. YEAR END
Year end is fast approaching. Attending to outstanding items is even more important as we prepare for the Workday cutover. Our year end memo outlines specific dates. Keep an eye on the Workday website for specific cutover dates. In addition, you can register for the following year end seminars via Success at Wes.
- Wednesday, May 15th at 1pm
- Friday, May 31st at 11am
Specific Reminders
If you have a voucher that needs to be paid now but pertains to the next fiscal year, please include the prepaid account code on the voucher (13705) as well as the correct expense account code as a positive and negative amount on the voucher.
Any Fiscal 24 invoice not paid or accrued via an email communication by June 28 will be charged to Fiscal 25. See additional information in the year end memo.
Please reconcile and submit any outstanding PCard vouchers asap.
Remember to set an approval proxy if you are going to be out of the office. It is very important, especially at our fiscal year end, that all SmartDocs make their way through workflow in a timely manner. Please remind others in your department to set a proxy if they are out of the office.
If you are a chargeback center or you have outstanding transactions that may hit a budget outside of your area, please be sure to process the transaction as soon as possible as departments are actively trying to predict year end balances.
2. BENEFIT RATE – See special note related to Grants
For the 2024/25 fiscal year, the budgeted full benefit rate will be 39.5%. The breakdown of the rate will be:
21.85% Medical, dental, and other
10.00% Retirement
7.65% FICA
Both unrestricted operating and restricted gift and endowment funds will be charged according to the percentages outlined above. Any differences between the budgeted rates and actual rates will be centrally managed.
Grants
As the University moves forward with our transition to Workday, we will be utilizing a new federally negotiated fringe benefit rate on all grants as of July 1. Without a federally negotiated rate, grants are required to charge actual benefit expenses. This can result in unexpected differences of budget to actual amounts depending on what an employee elects for medical and dental coverage and makes it hard to budget.
Our new negotiated rate will be 32.2% for all full time employees charged to grants. Rates will not change for students, part-time employees or faculty summer salary which are currently charged at lower rates due to the absence of medical and dental. The new rate should be reflected on all future grant proposals. All active grants will be automatically charged the new rate effective July 1, 2024 under Workday.
3. BUDGET PLANNING
Due to the transition from the WFS (Peoplesoft) financial system to Workday, we have decided to postpone the budget planning process for this spring. Instead, we request that users wait until the new fiscal year begins to initiate budget amendments for 2025 directly within Workday. As a reminder, budget planning allows departments to realign the upcoming year’s budget in line with projected expenses. In Workday’s financial system, there will be budget checking for operating expenses prior to expense submission. Training materials will be provided well in advance of July 1st to ensure everyone is prepared for the transition. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding during this period of change.
4. STUDENT EMPLOYMENT
As we prepare for our transition to Workday, we will be freezing all hiring into the Student Employment System on June 15th. If you know that you are going to hire a student over the summer, please enter that information as soon as possible to avoid missing the freeze date and needing to wait until July 1st to hire the student in Workday. Students can be hired in the Student Employment System with a future date.
5. PURCHASING NEWS
Please see attached for information on a new purchasing request form, hotel agreements, OneSource and more.