Payroll Processing Frequently Asked Questions

General FAQs

Payroll Services for TAMU

Team CEO Phone
Vacant (979) 845-2760
Maxine Wenzel (979) 845-2797
Team PhD Phone
Gale Johnson (979) 845-2787
Vacant (979) 845-2782
Team Swat Phone
Jennifer Guajardo Reyes (979) 862-2898
Vacant (979) 845-6095
Krystle Smith (979) 845-4793

Emails:

payroll@tamu.edu – Texas A&M University (TAMU)

Our processors work on one of three teams; each team has been assigned certain colleges and supervisory organizations as their responsibility for phone calls, email inquiries and payment requests. Please note that payroll reports in Workday cannot be filtered by college or supervisory organization, so you may occasionally be contacted by a processor you don't normally work with.

To see which Payroll Processing team works with your TAMU college or supervisory organization, click here.

Payroll Services for TAMHSC, TAMUS, TAMUCT, TAMUT, TDEM, TAMUG, and TAMUSA

Rhonda Hall (979) 845-4809
Merri Tilton (979) 845-4815

Email:

payroll@tamu.eduTAMHSC, TAMUS, TAMUCT, TAMUT, TDEM, TAMUG, and TAMUSA

Distribution and Verification Services for TAMU, TAMUG, TAMHSC, TAMUS, TAMUCT, TAMUT, TDEM, and TAMUSA

Rhonda Norton (979) 845-3056
Nicki Cooks (979) 845-2711

Email:

payroll@tamu.edu – Verifications, SSO Access, Prior year W-2, Garnishments and Withholding Orders, ACH and Paper Check Distributions and All Other Inquiries

Supervisory Organizations

Use the "Reassign Superior Organization" section of the Supervisory Organization Assistance Request Form when you need to correct the superior organization for an existing supervisory organization.

Note: Reassigning a superior organization does not change the employee's manager. A Move to New Manager business process has to be initiated in Workday to change an employee's manager. Additionally, workers under the supervisory organization will "follow" the reassigned organization.

A blue bar at the top of the box means the employee does not have a supervisory organization with this specific department or college. The gold bar at the top of the box means the employee is an active (has supervisory organization with employees) or inactive manager (has supervisory organization with no active employees or has an inactivated organization) in that position. Managers with active staff have a gold circle with a number next to their picture or cloud icon; the number represents the number of staff they currently manage. Note that an employee can have a supervisory organization with a different department or college and not have one within the department or college they are employed under.

Complete the "Edit Supervisory Organization Name" section of the Supervisory Organization Assistance Request Form. For continuity, we suggest keeping the original name but adding additional text behind it. Note: Payroll Services cannot edit the supervisory organization number of manager name.

Example: (Edited name in italics)

Current Supervisory Organization Name: 02123456 Rec Sports (Jane Doe)
Organization ID: 02123456_M16760

Change to: 02123456 Rec Sports Outdoor Adventure (Jane Doe)
Organizational ID: 02123456_M16760

A new report—Empty Supervisory Organization—is available to return supervisory organizations with no positions and/or no workers. The report can be run upon written request submitted by the department to payroll@tamu.edu. Payroll Services staff will create your excel report and send to the requestor. These empty organizations should be investigated by departmental staff to see if inactivation is needed. Please see the related question of "How do I inactivate a supervisory organization that is no longer needed or empty" for detailed instructions.

Payment Elections (Direct Deposit)

There are 2 separate job aids available through Workday Help in your SSO Menu. On the Workday Help homepage, click Education in the upper toolbar and select User Guides. You can scroll down to view and/or print out these job aids:

Payment Election Enrollment Event (Onboarding)

The process for an Employee to manage payment elections during the onboarding process

Managing Your Bank Accounts

This job aid outlines the activities for an Employee to add an additional bank account for use when electing direct deposit for payment and how to edit existing bank accounts in Workday.

  • Entering payment election information is an employee self-service function in Workday.
  • Payment elections can be edited at any time, but be mindful of deadlines (if updated after payroll deadlines for the current pay period, the change will not become effective until the next pay period and could result in rejection or delayed receipt of the current pay).
  • See the Workday Help Job Aids of "Edit Payment Elections" to view the process to set-up and/or edit payment elections outside of the onboarding process.

Employees receiving an error message in Workday when setting up Payment Elections will receive a paper check instead of direct deposit. This error must be overcome to allow the direct deposit set-up to occur. This could be happening for one of several reasons:

  1. The Direct Deposit Declaration Workday Inbox item was skipped during the onboarding process. Navigate to the Payment Election Enrollment Event (Onboarding) Job Aid in Workday Help for more instructions.
  2. The original Declaration question was answered as "Yes" during onboarding. In this case, the declaration question will need to be resent so the employee can answer the question differently. To have the question resent, please notify your HR Contact.

Note: As a U.S. entity, Texas A&M University is obligated to comply with the requirements of the United States Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which oversees payments sent outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. This includes automated clearing house (ACH) payments, such as direct deposits. Texas A&M University payroll system does not permit direct deposit to banks outside the United States. Failure to answer the question or answer as "Yes" will prevent the payment election process from completing and the employee will receive paper checks.

No, an employee can only answer the Direct Deposit Declaration (i.e. Workday inbox email) within the pre-hire period. Once an employee is working on the job, Workday will allow access for the employee to enter their payment election information. The declaration question must be answered to trigger the payment elections inbox item. It is highly recommended that an employee wait until they received a Workday inbox email for payment election set-up before attempting entry. Entry out of sequence is a frequent error reason.

Updates to active employee's payment elections of any nature (adding a new account, updating existing bank account or routing numbers, percentage reallocation among accounts, etc.) are a self-service function in Workday. If you need to make changes or updates, please be aware of the following deadlines. Pay Schedules are available on our website so you can be certain of your upcoming payday deadline.

Biweekly paid employees: Payment election changes or updates should be completed by 11:00 a.m. on the day Timesheets are due. This date is found in the 4th column of the current Fiscal Year Biweekly schedule. For example, if the biweekly pay day is Friday 2/26/2021, you should have your updates completed in Workday by 5:00 p.m. on Monday 2/22/2021.

Monthly paid employees: Payment election changes or updates should be completed by 5:00 p.m. on the day listed as BPs Due. The is the date business processes effective in the current month must be completed in Workday to be applied to your pay result. This date is found in the next to last column of the current Fiscal Year Monthly Schedule. For example, if the monthly pay date is Monday 3/1/2021, you should have your updates completed in Workday by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday 2/16/2021.

If you are unable to complete your changes or updates by the deadline, your existing elections will be applied to the current pay result; any changes or updates made will be effective for future pay results. If you have questions regarding timing, please discuss with your manager or department liaison.

Managers, Timekeepers, and Timesheets

Missed Salary or Hours should never be processed using the Request One-Time Payment business process. There are no one-time payment plan components for this type of pay. Missed regular pay is calculated and processed by the Workday Retro process and paid to an employee on their next regularly scheduled payday (biweekly or monthly). The Workday Retro process works for all timesheets and/or business processes completed and approved by the set deadlines. Additionally, if you try bypass the retro process and initiate the one-time payment business process to pay for missed salary or hours by picking an "extra pay" component such as "Extra Pay Outside Regular Job Duty" you will not only tax the employee at 22% FIT rather than W-4 rates, you will likely ensure the employee will be double-paid when the Workday Retro process picks up missed regular pay. Please contact your Payroll Processing team first if you have any questions regarding missed regular pay.

A departmental contact should submit a completed Payroll Payment Request form to pay the employee for the missed hours. List the pay period in question in the Dates From/Dates Thru section. Include detailed comments such as "worked 5.00 hours on [mm/dd/yyyy]" for all days worked. The total hours in the comments should match the total hours in the Miscellaneous section of the form. Calculate the gross due. Make sure the form is approved by a departmental staff member with signature authority on the paying account to confirm hours worked, since they cannot be corroborated in Workday for audit purposes. Submit this request to payroll@tamu.edu, and our staff will enter it to pay your employee the missing hours.

You greatly increase your employees chances of being paid correctly in both positions if you have the effective date of the change be the beginning of the next biweekly pay period. When an employee is in 2 different pay groups during a biweekly pay period, they will frequently have their monthly days from the biweekly period not drop into their monthly paycheck or they will be overpaid because they submitted monthly work hours on their biweekly timesheet. By making the change effective the beginning of the next biweekly pay period you will allow the employee to complete a full biweekly period as a biweekly and allow the manager to approve the timesheet before their change; this helps minimze the employee not receiving expected pay results or having to write a check back to TAMU. Workday has a different way of processing than our legacy system and the old way of always timing moves on the 1st day of a month doesn't work well. Timing is crucial to receiving expected pay results. Additionally, retro and current business process deadlines should be taken into consideration; a department may start the change job business process early but if it is still routing for approval after deadlines, the resulting action will not calculate until the following month.

Current timesheets lock at 7:00 a.m. the day after they are due (usually a Tuesday). They will reopen the next day at 5:00 p.m. (usually a Wednesday) for retro adjustments. While employees and managers do not have access to update the current timesheet during this time frame, the Timekeeper can update the locked timesheet all day Tuesday until 5:00 p.m. on behalf of the employee by entering the missed hours; the timekeeper's entry automatically approves the timesheet and drops the results to payroll. During the locked period, managers can approve any timesheets that had already been submitted to them; if the manager doesn't approve by 5:00 p.m. Tuesday, the hours won't get dropped into the current period and will payout on the following biweekly. Note that your department may and payroll services has specific timesheet deadlines, which allows departments to begin generating required reports for review. All employees are encouraged to submit their timesheet before deadline so expected pay results are received.

  • If hours on an employee's timesheet have already been paid out and then removed in error from the timesheet, the hours should be re-entered and submitted back to the manager. The HR Contact or Timekeeper should inform payroll, so the employees No Retro date can be moved forward.
  • If you do not want the hours worked in an additional biweekly position to be included in the overtime calculation, the job classification Exclude from Overtime needs to be added on those positions. This can be done through the Change Job business process. Email hrcomp@tamu.edu should you have any questions regarding overtime.

To create the most efficient time off recording for the majority of TAMU's employees, the following process has been implemented for any early release/emergency time off hours. The emergency or early release time off will be entered into Workday for the applicable period by the Workday Systems Administrator. This is entered as a mass submission for the entire affected campus. A time off entry reason and corresponding hours are loaded. If they are not showing on a timesheet, the employee can run calculations on their timesheet to pull in the Systems entry or it will automatically run through the new calculations when more time is entered on a time sheet. Time must then be submitted and approved. The entry of emergency or early release time off will not automatically remove or adjust any regular hours already entered. If the employee had previously entered regular hours that now overlap the time off, either the employee, manager or timekeeper should adjust the time if in fact the employee was out of the office due to the event. Please be aware that graduate assistant non-teaching employees, employees in a non-accruing position (student employees, wage employees, employees working in positions that are less than 4-1/2 month terms and 50% effort, faculty, etc.), employees that were not scheduled to work during the closure, or who were on other paid time off (vacation, sick, sick leave pool, etc.) are not eligible to receive holiday hours. Emergency or early release time off should be adjusted for those employees who worked partial shifts during the closing. Eligible non-exempt (hourly) employees who were required to work during the time off hours will receive equivalent compensatory time off or other appropriate compensation. Managers may use their discretion in revising schedules for those employees who work while the university is closed. Exempt (monthly) employees are not required to have emergency time off posted to their Time Off Balance. Questions regarding emergency time off should be directed to benefits@tamu.edu.

It is critical that Managers review and approve their employee's timesheets before both retro and current deadlines. Employees are able to go back 3 prior pay periods and make positive and/or negative corrections to their timesheets, which must then be resubmitted to the manager for approval. Retroactive timesheets have an earlier deadline than current timesheets. If the manager or timekeeper does not approve corrected timesheets by the retro deadline, the retro process will not pick up the changes for the current pay period and the employee will have to wait an additional two weeks for payment. It is critical that Timekeepers run their Useful Reports and work with managers to get their employees timesheets submitted and approved. Once current timesheets lock, timekeepers are the critical link in the process, as they can enter hours and approve timesheets on behalf of employees and managers. There should be no reason an employee who submits corrected or current timesheets before their respective deadlines does not receive pay as expected.

Please note these timelines will differ during holiday or special periods.

Monday, 11 a.m Current period timesheets, approved by Managers or Timekeepers, are due every other Monday at 11 a.m.
Monday, 12 p.m. Initial Pay Calculation Results Reports available
Tuesday, 7 a.m. Timesheets are locked; only Timekeepers can update, enter time and submit on behalf of their managers
Pay Calculation Results Report refreshed to include prior day timesheet and business process updates
Wednesday, 7 a.m. Pay Calculation Results Report refreshed to include prior day business process updates

Yes. Warnings have been added on timesheets to alert employees (and others) when the employee has not been assigned to a pay group or when certain Onboarding steps have not been completed. These warnings will not prevent the employee from entering or submitting time, nor will it prevent managers from approving time. However, if an employee has not been assigned to a pay group, they will not be paid with the pay calculation. Please monitor the employees' business processes to ensure expected pay results will occur.

Once an employee submits their timesheet, a corresponding task will arrive in the manager's Workday Inbox. The manager should review and approve the time task from the inbox item. Managers can also run the Review Time report and approve multiple employees together. Once timesheets lock, the manager should work with the departmental timekeeper to make sure any missed hours or late submissions are entered and submitted.

Biweekly Paid Employees and Timesheets

Payslips are available to view and/or print in Workday per this timetable:

Biweekly Paid Available 1 calendar day prior to payday

Approved missed hours are included by the Workday Retro process and are paid to the employee on their next regularly scheduled payday. Biweekly employees can go back up to 3 prior pay periods from the current period to make positive and/or negative timesheet retroactive adjustments. They must resubmit the corrected timesheet to their manager for approval by the retro deadline to avoid delayed payment. Timesheets with corrections have earlier submission deadlines than current period timesheets. If you experience any difficulty entering missed hours, please consult with your departmental timekeeper for assistance.

Student employees can enter and submit hours worked for manager approval on a daily basis. Full and part-time staff can enter hours on a daily basis but cannot submit their hours worked for manager approval until their entries for an entire 2-week pay period are equal to the hours scheduled to work per their FTE. Employees should ignore the error when recording and saving hours on a daily basis. Workday has a validation for full-time staff to require 40-hours per week (80 hours per pay period) before it can be submitted. The 80-hours can be a combination of regular hours, approved time off, and time off with no pay.

Time off requests (paid or unpaid) can be done as a standalone process (preferred method) or can be requested during timesheet submission. Please note that if a standalone time-off request (request done through the time off application) is approved, you will be paid for the time off hours even if you fail to submit your timesheet or your manager doesn't approve your timesheet before a deadline. Time off requested during timesheet submission must also be approved by the manager in time off. Pay results must be refreshed for updated results to pull in.

On your SSO Menu, Click the Workday Help link. On the Home Page, click the "Education" tab, select "User Guides" then search the "Job Aids" for instructions for "Enter Time" and "Managing Your Time Off" among others.

Employees should contact their HR Contact or Manager at the position in question. They can review your situation and work with Payroll Services if missing hours haven't been paid. Please contact your former supervisory organization first rather than contact Payroll Services staff.

Monthly Paid Employees

Payslips are available to view and/or print in Workday per this timetable:

Monthly Paid Available 5 calendar days prior to payday

Missed salary is included in the Workday retro process and is paid to a monthly employee on their next regularly scheduled payday. For example, if you are hired with a start date of 8/26/2019, this would be after the August monthly payroll calculated. You will have missed the August monthly payroll, which pays on 9/3/2019. The 5 days you worked in August would be paid to you when you receive your September paycheck on 10/1/2019. Missed salary may also occur if you are hired early in a month but your supervisory organization doesn't fully complete your hire process before the monthly deadline. If you feel you are missing any monthly salary, please consult with your HR Contact.

Per System Regulation 31.04.01 (System Holidays, Section 1.3) an employee who is on leave without pay for the entire workday immediately before or after a holiday is not eligible to be paid for the holiday. Workday does not make an automatic adjustment to the employees pay.

Salaried employees (in eligible titles) are paid their regular salary per month, regardless of whether there is a holiday or not. To adjust whether a salaried employee is paid for any workday in a month, Unpaid Time Off should be entered for the holiday day(s) by anyone with access to the Time Off business process. Please be aware of monthly payroll deadlines to ensure the update is included in the current month's pay results.

HR Contact

As you review all your reports to confirm items are correct, these are some examples of what may be an error or "red flag" to review:

  • Missing or Unsubmitted Hours on Timesheet
  • Zero Gross or Zero Net
  • New Hires not on Report
  • Missing Compensation – Extra Pay, Allowance, Emolument
  • Costing Allocation Errors
  • Unusual Results – e.g. full-time biweekly normally grossing around $1,500.00 but gross on report is only $400.00
  • Benefit Deduction Errors for transferred / promoted / reclassified staff (you may need to notify employee and initiative a benefit refund request to HROE on your employee's behalf)
  • Close rapport with other departmental staff and familiarity with their operations and roster of active staff
  • Continual education of managers and departmental contacts
  • Run and Refresh payroll reports daily during calculation periods
  • Run Timekeeper Reports; follow-up with managers and submit on their behalf if needed
  • Monitor manager unapproved payroll tasks and address with their supervisor
  • Follow-up on submitted business processes to ensure they fully complete by retro or current deadline
  • If managers/faculty are allowed to initiate any business processes develop internal system whereby HR Contact is informed (short form or email, weekly summary, excel log, etc.) for example, you don't know a one-time payment is missing if you weren't informed it was requested
  • Earlier involvement with departmental hiring plans; hiring process can and should be initiated much earlier than first day of work or later
  • The more you know, the more you will be aware of what may be a potential error or omission
  • Employee must make request in person at the General Services Building (GSC)
  • Employee signs an affidavit acknowledging the lost or destroyed check (Form available from the Payroll Services office at the GSC)
  • Payroll Services requests a bank stop payment on the lost or destroyed check
  • Payroll Services prepares replacement paper check
  • Payroll Services contacts employee to pick up replacement paper check (picture ID required)

Email the following information to payroll@tamu.edu:

  • Employee Name
  • Employee UIN
  • Position Title
  • Blocked Country
  • Begin Date
  • End Date
  • Reason
  • Departmental Contact information (if we have any questions)

You will be notified by Payroll Services staff once the temporary access is finalized. Temporary access is for a six month period and will automatically expire after that time.