CAR Newsletter May 2024

Volume 34, Number11 | Fiscal Year 2024 | May 15, 2024

ACCOUNTING

• PeopleSoft Financials Upgrade

PAYROLL

• Workday Payslips and OMES Adjustments 
• Payroll Deduction Register Must Accompany Payments
• W-4 Entries in Workday@OK
• Employee Direct Deposit Verification of Bank Routing Number
• Using State Vehicles to Commute 
• Processing of Taxable Fringe Benefits with Payable Wages
• Military Differential Wage Payments – Taxation and Reporting

HIGHER EDUCATION

• Deadline for Payroll
• PFT Processing for Cancellations and Adjustments

CENTRAL PURCHASING

• Supplier/Payee Registration News and Updates

AGENCY NEWS

• OST – Electronic Payment Requirement
• OST – Quick Reference Contact List
• Retirement at OMES

TRAINING

• AGA OKC Chapter Trainings
• Payroll Law
• Form W-4 and Other Payroll Updates
• Form I-9 and E-Verify Webinars

PeopleSoft Financials is currently processing the PeopleSoft Update Manager 48 upgrade and the new release will be available to financial users on Monday, May 20. PeopleSoft will be inaccessible the weekend prior. 

With this upgrade, your financial and purchasing teams will have an improved, new mobile user experience including additional fluid features, enhanced dashboards, added navigation search functionality and more. 

In preparation for the upgrade, OMES placed a code freeze in the PeopleSoft system on any modifications that require application development or  design changes. The freeze went into effect Wednesday, April 24 and will last until Monday, May 20. Submissions received via ServiceNow will be notified of the code freeze; however, if deemed an emergency, proper justification can be submitted by OMES Finance Center of Excellence, Information Services or Central Purchasing for review.

If you have any questions regarding the freeze, email servicedesk@omes.ok.gov.

Agencies are responsible for sending vendors the backup documentation for payments processed to ensure proper credit to employees’ accounts. This will be one of the deduction reports from Workday@OK (RPT00234 or RPT00095) or the garnishment letter. When contacted by suppliers or the Central Payroll team to provide this information, prompt response is required, especially due to the time sensitivity of some payments. Without this information, the supplier may not timely credit an employee’s account and if for garnishments or liens, penalties and/or interest may be added to the employee’s account in error. When mailing payments, please ensure all documentation related to the payments is included. When payment is processed as an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) or Interagency WIR, please be sure to send via fax, scanned/emailed or mail the proper documentation. Suppliers may have a specific method for receiving the payment information, and, if so, their instructions should be followed.

Employees should enter their tax elections directly into Workday@OK. If an agency allows employees to submit a W-4 to staff for entry into the system, the form must be the current version. If not the current version, the form should be disregarded and returned to the employee with no changes made in the system.

Agency personnel that enter W-4 information must use care when entering employee W-4 elections. If the information is not entered correctly, employees may have more or less withholding than desired, which could impact them at year-end. In addition, not entering the information correctly based on the actual W-4 form would be an audit finding and could result in penalties and/or interest being assessed to the agency. The IRS posted a training webinar on their website that agency personnel can view to refresh their knowledge of the IRS W-4 form.

Agencies are advised to review the bank routing numbers employees enter against the documents the employee has uploaded for accuracy. Employee bank deposit slips should NOT be used to get the bank routing/transit number for setting up direct deposit information.

A voided check from the employee is the most reliable method. If the employee does not have a voided check or wants to deposit into another type of account, have the employee call the bank directly to get the routing/transit number. A bank routing/transit number should never start with the digit 5. This indicates a branch of the bank.

Workday@OK does have an algorithm to verify routing numbers are valid; however, the algorithm may not catch all invalid numbers. If an invalid routing number is used and processed to the Office of the State Treasurer, their validation will fail. A failed direct deposit leaves OST unpaid and additional processing required of the agency.

47 O.S. § 156.1, as amended, prohibits the personal use of state-owned motor vehicles but permits the use of the vehicles for commuting in very specific situations. OK AG Opinion 2007-18 also addresses this issue.

When a state employee is allowed to commute in accordance with the statute or the attorney general opinion, the agency must notify the governor, the president pro tempore of the Senate and the speaker of the House of Representatives. In addition, when an employee is using a vehicle from OMES Fleet Management, the agency must complete OMES CAM Fleet Management Form 022 (Authorization for Commuting in State Vehicle).

The IRS considers commuting to be a noncash taxable benefit to the employee even when the use of the vehicle is for the benefit of the employer. There are very few exceptions to the taxability of commuting. Exceptions are for certain vehicles that are not likely to be used for personal use because of their design. These vehicles are listed in IRS Publication 15-B.

• The method of calculating the taxable fringe benefit is dependent on the employee’s status.
• Commuting rule: Most state employees may use the Commuting Rule. Under this rule, the value of a vehicle provided to an employee for commuting is computed by multiplying each one-way commute by $1.50. If more than one employee commutes in the vehicle, this value applies to each employee. This amount must be included in the employee’s wages or reimbursed by the employee.
• Cents per mile: A cents-per-mile method may also be used by most state employees.
• Automobile lease valuation rule: Elected officials or employees whose compensation is at least as great as a federal government employee at Executive Level V (for 2024; $180,000) are not allowed to compute taxable income under the Commuting Rule. These officials and employees must use the Automobile Lease Valuation Rule to compute taxable income.
• All valuation methods are described in detail in IRS Publication 15-B.

The employee may choose to have the value included as taxable income or pay the employer for personal use rather than having it treated as wages. When treating the value as wages, the imputed income is subject to FICA and income tax withholding. The taxable amount, if not paid by the employee, must be processed through payroll so that taxes are calculated, and amounts are reported on the employee's W-2.

The taxable amount will need to be processed through Workday@OK as a One-Time Payment, a pay input or entered on the timesheet, depending on the agency’s processing policy. The amount will be included as taxable income and will be taxed on the paycheck.

We recommend the vehicle usage be included in the employee’s payroll each pay period to prevent a large sum being included in the employee’s last pay of the calendar year, resulting in a higher-than-normal amount of taxes withheld. Additionally, up-to-date reporting of vehicle usage will benefit the agency should the employee terminate during the year.

For more information, please email the central payroll team at payrollreporting@omes.ok.gov.

When processing non-paying taxable fringe benefits for employees through payroll, only include the amount when processing payable wages. Nonpaying taxable fringe benefits such as Vehicle Usage, Miscellaneous Noncash Earning and Gifts for Employees are subject to taxes and require payable wages to collect the employee share of taxes. Questions may be directed to the Central Payroll team at payrollreporting@omes.ok.gov.

Military differential wage payments are payments made to an employee during the time the individual is on active duty for a period of more than 30 days and represents all or a portion of the wages an employee would have received from the employer if the individual was performing services for the employer.

Military differential pay is includable as wages for income tax purposes on Form W-2 but is excludable from Social Security and Medicare taxes. To correctly report military differential wage payments, the amount should process through the correct compensation plan.

The military differential pay is also included in wages for OPERS, OLERS and URSJJ retirement contributions and must be correctly processed for the information to be sent to the retirement systems correctly.

Please refer to 72 O.S. § 48 and OAC 260:25-15-44 for additional information related to leave of absence due to military service.

In planning your work for May, it is important to remember that Memorial Day is Monday, May 27, 2024.  

OMES policy requires that all payroll transactions and paperwork be filed with OMES FIVE (5) BUSINESS DAYS prior to the actual pay date to ensure adequate time for audit and processing. Agency staff should plan their work accordingly to meet this deadline. 

Payrolls that are received after the deadline are disruptive to the normal process schedules and put a great burden on all parties involved. Agencies that do not meet the deadline are increasing the risk that employees are not paid on time when processing payrolls late.

As a reminder, when an MWC or EWC is submitted to cancel a payroll warrant, a corresponding PFT Reversal file must be submitted to remove the funds from the 789 class-funding and place the amount back in the originating class-funding. The amount in the PFT reversal file should be the gross-to-net amount and employer share of taxes and benefits that processed on the original warrant.

The PFT Reversal process is also used to process amounts in or out of the 789 fund based on business needs. This includes:

• Processing taxes which were not processed through the normal 500Misc/PFT process but must be submitted through the ACES system.
• Corrections necessary for overpayment refunds. 
• Correction of items improperly reported or omitted from the original PFT submitted.

Additional information on processing PFT Reversal files can be found on the OMES website.

OMES Registration continues to evolve and has made some high-impact changes to improve our registration system and customer service. Reflecting on the past year, these are ways we have eliminated unnecessary time and complications from our registration process:

• Removed repetitive questions.
• Eliminated need for COI and SOS until point of award.
• Refined verbiage within eSupplier to provide clarity.
• Aligned the registration process to work for both payees and suppliers, cutting out the need to differentiate and provide different sets of directions.
• Reduced response times for all registration functions by more than 80%.

Those changes have been universally well received by suppliers and provided the registration team with the structure and ability to dig into the security of our processes and move toward further improvement and modernization. Some new changes of note:

• EFT registration is now 100% completed by the suppliers themselves in the eSupplier system.
  • The registration team no longer completes any manual registrations.
  • Required in compliance with industry security standards and the high level of fidelity OMES provides to suppliers, agencies and citizens of Oklahoma.
• Payees must self-register in eSupplier.
  • We’ve communicated this significant procedural change over the past year.
  • Facilitates improved security and standardized processes.
• Supplier registration will soon migrate all communications from email into the ServiceNow platform. Watch for more information to follow regarding this conversion.
  • Allows for more efficient, seamless interactions and the ability to track progress of your request or inquiry.
  • Greatly increases our security.
• The OMES Central Purchasing website is continually updated to house the most current information for all things registration:
  • Training materials and guides.
  •  Resources to assist agencies in directing suppliers.    
  • When a form is required, please use the most recent version from the OMES CP website.
    

OMES Registration’s goal in the coming year is to better partner with suppliers and agencies to get things done, share knowledge and improve processes. To achieve this, we plan to reach out to different agencies over time to meet with you, help with any registration questions and encourage open dialogue so that we can better understand each other’s needs.

We will hold quarterly in-person registration sessions so that those suppliers who require or prefer personal guidance can sit down with a registration specialist. Information regarding these sessions will be posted on our website. Look for more information coming soon.

The OMES Registration team is dedicated to excellent customer service and accurate work. We look forward to continued growth and we appreciate your partnership to #GetStuffDone for the state.

62 O.S. § 34.64 requires that funds disbursed from the State Treasury must be sent electronically. State agencies are able to request an exemption from this requirement with cause. All exemptions granted by the Office of the State Treasurer (OST) for FY 2023 will expire June 30, 2024.   

State agencies can obtain the FY 2025 Request for Exemption at https://www.ok.gov/treasurer/Banking/Electronic_Payment_Requirement/index.html. State agencies must complete and submit the FY 2025 Request electronically via email to OST at Electronic.Payment.Exemption@treasurer.ok.gov. Only requests submitted using this document and to the web address noted below will be considered. Agencies should submit their request by May 20, 2024, to ensure their exemption(s) can be processed before July 1. If you have questions about how your agency can send electronic payments, please contact Nancy Rooker, Banking and Treasury Services manager at Nancy.Rooker@treasurer.ok.gov.

AccountingServices@treasurer.ok.gov – Deposit Correction (Form 76).

oktreasar@treasurer.ok.gov – Fundware Statement and invoices (monthly billing).

ostcdcoll@treasurer.ok.gov – CD and collateral.

ostwiredesk@treasurer.ok.gov – Outgoing wires.

Electronic.Payment.Exemption@treasurer.ok.gov

• Electronic Payment exemption form inquiries and submissions.
  
  

BankingOperations@treasurer.ok.gov

• Check stop payments/hard cancels.
• Request for copies of cleared checks.
• Deposit and transfer requests.
• 1741 urgent deposit approval requests.
• Chargeback inquiries.  
  
  

TreasuryServices@treasurer.ok.gov  

• Credit card inquiries and application submissions.
• Online user access form submissions and inquiries.
• EFT reversal/reclaim/stop payment submissions.
• EFT trace requests.
• Webseries/Bottomline password resets/issues.
• PCI compliance questions, submission of updated PCI contacts.
• Way2Go card questions.

With over 35 years of service to the State of Oklahoma, Ms. Carol Barton will be retiring at the end of May. To honor her wishes, there will not be a retirement celebration. Well wishes and congratulations can be conveyed via a phone call, email, card or other indirect contact method. Cards can be sent to 3115 N. Lincoln Blvd., Ste 2060, Oklahoma City, OK 73105-5400.

For training and CPE opportunities, as well as local luncheons and networking events, email the Oklahoma City chapter of the AGA at communications@agaokc.com to sign up for email notifications.

Live Online Seminars

Presented by Fred Pryor Seminars

For more information, please visit their website.

Live Online Webinar presented by myCPE.

For more information, please visit their website.

Multiple webinar choices and dates:

Form I-9: An overview of the Form I-9 requirements, including step-by-step instructions on how to complete each section, acceptable documents, retention and storage.

E-Verify overview: An overview of the E-Verify program including how the program works, key features, how to enroll, employer responsibilities, program highlights and a demonstration of the program.

E-Verify in 30: A quick overview of the E-Verify program including what it is, how to enroll and key features.

E-Verify for existing users: A detailed overview of the E-Verify program specifically for existing users. Topics include Form I-9, user roles, creating a case, case alerts, how to handle a TNC and common user mistakes.

For more information on the webinars, please visit USCIS.