1. Year End
2. PaymentWorks
3. Benefit Rate
4. 2026 Budget Planning
5. Payments to Non US Citizens
6. Purchasing News
The fiscal year end memo has been posted here. Please review carefully as there are quite a few changes related to our first year end with Workday. In addition, the Finance Office will be hosting various Year End Seminars to review the year end process in more detail and answer questions. The same presentation will be given at all sessions so you only need to attend one unless there are additional questions. Visit Success at Wes to register for one of the sessions below. Note – the first one is tomorrow at 11:00.
Year End Seminar Dates:
Tuesday May 6th at 11a
Wednesday May 14th at 1:30p
Thursday May 22nd at 10a
Tuesday June 3rd at 11a
Wednesday June 11th at 2p
Wednesday June 18th at 10a
The Finance Office would like to thank the Wesleyan community for their feedback and participation in the rollout of PaymentWorks, the new vendor On-Boarding process. This process provides a more simplified, streamlined interface for the vendor, including the ability to check the payment status. It also provides additional transparency for University staff into the status of the process, as well as verification of payment details to provide increased security over the payment. Help materials are available on our website including focused materials geared towards domestic versus foreign vendors.
Some frequently asked questions to date:
Do existing suppliers have to register?
Not at this time. Existing suppliers can still be paid without registering. However, if they require a change to their payment information, the previous Service Now process has been replaced by PaymentWorks so they will have to register at the time the change is needed.
How do we know if they are already registered?
There are a few different ways to determine if a supplier is already registered. The PaymentWorks term for fully registered is “Connected”.
- In the New Vendor tab you can change the Request Status filter to “Connected”
- In the Vendor Profiles tab you can see all the connected vendors or search for them in the search field in the upper right corner
- From the Home screen you can go to “Setup and Manage Supplier Portal” and click on the “Suppliers” tab. All of our suppliers are loaded but the fully connected ones will have a green dot in the “Connected” column all the way to the right. This means they have been through the registration process and have a PaymentWorks account.
Can I turn off the notifications?
You may have noticed that you receive an email notification at each step of the onboarding process. You can customize which notifications you would like to receive by going into the “Account” menu in the upper right corner of the system. Then click “Manage Notifications” under the Personal Setup section along the left panel. Then click “edit” at the bottom of the screen and you can uncheck the box for any notifications that you no longer wish to receive.
3. BENEFIT RATE
Wesleyan Funds
For the 2025/26 fiscal year, the budgeted full benefit rate will be 39.5%, broken down as follows:
21.85% Medical, dental, and other
10.00% Retirement
7.65% FICA
These rates will apply to both unrestricted operating funds and restricted gift and endowment funds. Any variance between the budgeted and actual benefit rates will be centrally managed. Please note that temporary workers with an FTE of .8 FTE or greater will be charged the full benefit rate. Those with an FTE below .8 will be charged FICA only.
Grants
The federally negotiated fringe benefit rate for all full-time employees charged to grants is 32.2%. This rate does not apply to students, part-time employees or faculty summer salary, which are currently charged at lower rates due to the absence of medical and dental benefits. This fringe rate is effective through 06/30/2026 and should be reflected on all future grant proposals.
The budget planning period for fiscal year 2025/26 will be open on June 2nd through June 30th, 2025 for the unrestricted operating fund (fund 100). This is an opportunity for departments to align next year’s budget with expected expenses. Workday requires sufficient budget to be available before an expense can be submitted, so departments are encouraged to review historical spending and plan accordingly. Training materials will be provided to cost center budget specialists and managers in advance of the planning period and drop-in sessions will be scheduled.
Key dates:
Original budget amendments will only be allowed during the first two weeks of budget planning, from June 2 to June 16.
Adjustment budget amendments will be allowed after June 16.
5. PAYMENTS TO NON US CITIZENS
This is a busy time of year for processing of prizes to students. All prizes are taxable to the students, however, a prize made to a Non US citizen requires a withholding of 30% for federal taxes. This percentage will default into the Default Withholding Tax Code section of the Supplier Invoice if the recipient is a Non US citizen. A requisition is not required. The Student Payment attachment should accompany the Workday Supplier Invoice.
The many types of payments, and resulting taxation and documentation requirements, have been summarized in this handy quick reference chart.
Please see attached Purchasing News for information related to Workday receiving, local restaurant ordering, RJ Julia and WB Mason.