Payroll Processing Frequently Asked Questions

Payroll Contact Changes

Payroll staff are aligned to better serve the TAMU, TAMUG & TAMHSC HUBs plus our shared services with TAMUCC, TAMUCT, TAMUS, TAMUSA, TAMUT, TARL and TDEM.  Please email payroll@tamu.edu or call the Payroll Administrator associated with your HUB, College, Agency or concern:

Payroll Shared Email: payroll@tamu.edu (all Payroll staff have access)

There are 4 separate job aids available through Workday Help in your SSO Menu. On the Workday Help homepage, click Training on the blue toolbar and select Job Aids. You can scroll though the list to view and/or print 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.

Edit Payment Elections

The process for an Employee to edit their own payment elections outside of the onboarding process.

From Paycheck to Payment Elections

The process for an Employee to add payment elections after electing to receive a paper check rather than direct deposit during the onboarding process.

• Entering payment election information is an employee self-service function in Workday.
• Employees are 100% responsible for the accuracy of data entered during initial set-up and/or if they make any subsequent updates or changes at a later date.
• Employees agree to not hold their employer responsible for any delay or loss of funds due to incorrect or incomplete information the employee supplied or due to an error on the part of the employee’s financial institution in depositing funds into the employees account(s).

• Payment elections can be edited at any time; be mindful of deadlines noted in the next FAQ question.
• If an update is made after payroll deadlines for the current pay period, the change will not become effective until the next pay period and could result in rejection by the banking entity. Our office will be notified, and we will start the process to prepare a replacement paper check which is mailed to the employee’s current home address listed in Workday, thus delaying receipt.

Updates to active employee’s payment elections of any nature (i.e., adding a new account, updating existing account and/or routing number, percentage reallocation among accounts, etc.) are an employee self-service function in Workday. 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 must be completed on the day Timesheets are Due. This date is found in the 4th column of the current Fiscal Year Biweekly Pay schedule. For example, if the biweekly PAYDATE is Feb. 23, you should have your updates completed in Workday by 5:00pm on Feb. 19. 

Monthly Paid Employees: Payment election changes or updates must be completed on the day listed as BP’s Due. This date is found in the next to last column of the current Fiscal Year Monthly Pay schedule. For example, if the monthly PAYDATE is Apr. 1, you should have your updates completed in Workday by 5:00pm on Mar. 22. 

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 updated made after deadline will be effective for future pay results.  If you have questions regarding timing, please discuss with your HR Professional. 

Employees who have not set-up Payment Elections in Workday default to paper payroll and expense checks. 

Paper payroll checks are mailed by Payroll via United States Postal Service (USPS) to the employee’s home address in Workday. Checks are mailed one business day prior to payday; in the event payday falls on a Monday, checks are mailed that day. 

It is critical that employees enter a valid address in Workday.  A valid and complete home mailing address includes the Apartment # or Unit # if applicable AND Zip Code; do not include the name of the Apartment Complex. This will ensure employees receive their pay checks timely.  

Here are some examples: 

USPS Can successfully deliver:  
8085 Atlas Pear Drive Apt. #1213 
College Station TX 77845 
United States of America 

USPS CANNOT deliver:
The Enclave Student Housing 
1800 Holleman Drive 
College Station TX 77840 
United States of America  

NOTE: In the event your paycheck prints without an address, you will be notified via email and asked to update the information in Workday. 

Paper expense (reimbursement) checks (if applicable) are mailed by Financial Management Operations (FMO) when they generate. 

The error must be overcome to allow the direct deposit set-up to occur. The error could be happening for one of several reasons: 

1. The Direct Deposit Declaration Workday Inbox item was skipped during the pre-hire/onboarding process.  Use the Payment Election Enrollment Event (Onboarding) Job Aid in Workday Help for 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 Professional. 

NOTE: As a U.S. entity, the Texas A&M University System 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 clearinghouse (ACH) payments, such as direct deposits.  Texas A&M University Systems 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. 

Email the following information to payroll@tamu.edu:

• Employee Name
• Employee UIN
• Position Number and Title (Annual Work Period of position must cover period requested)
• Blocked Country
• Begin Date
• End Date
• Reason
• HR Professional Contact information (if we have any questions)

Partial Month Salary Calculation
A recent clarification from TAMUS Workday Services explained how partial month salary is calculated.

Annual Work Periods that begin on the 1 (example – Jan. 1 – May 31):
Employees with an effective date after the 1 receive partial salary based on a daily rate.

Annual Work Periods that begin on the 16 (example – Jan. 16 – May 31):
Employees with an effective date on the 16 will receive ½ of their monthly salary. If the effective date is the 17 or later, the employee will be paid partial salary using the daily rate.

Annual Work Period decisions and these partial month salary calculations should be kept in mind as you review recruiting and hiring needs, budgetary funding and offer letters. Payroll maintains a Partial Month Payment Worksheet for the current fiscal year under Forms on the website; this can be used to generate an estimate of an employee’s first paycheck.

• Employee signs an affidavit acknowledging the lost or destroyed paper check (email payroll@tamu.edu to request affidavit form).
• During form completion, employee indicates if they want to pick up the replacement check at the Payroll office in the General Services Building (GSC) (picture ID required) or if they want Payroll to mail the replacement check to the mailing address they list on the form.
• Payroll prepares replacement paper check
• Payroll either mails the check or contacts the employee to pick-up as requested

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

DO NOT contact Payroll. Your first contact should be your direct supervisor; they can work directly with the HR Professionals who support your department. The HR Professionals can contact Payroll staff if they need additional assistance regarding your inquiry.

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

DO NOT contact Payroll. Your first contact should be your direct supervisor; they can work directly with the HR Professionals who support your department. The HR Professionals can contact payroll staff if they need additional assistance regarding your inquiry.

Timesheets lock the day before a biweekly payroll finalizes. At this point, neither an employee or manager can enter hours or make corrections. They must work with an HR Professional who has the Timekeeper role for their supervisory organization; they can assist with entering hours, making corrections, and approving timesheets on behalf of a manager. Note that managers can continue to approve timesheets not needing corrections that were submitted to them before the lock period. Do not contact Payroll as we will just refer you back to your Timekeeper. 

If you do not know your Timekeepers, you can obtain this information in Workday. From your Workday homepage, click the people icon or your picture in the upper right corner and select View Profile.  Click the Actions button on the blue bar on the left side of your screen, scroll down to Security Profile and select View Support Roles.  Under Assignable Role look for Timekeeper. To the right is listed who to contact for assistance. 

All employees are encouraged to submit their timesheets before deadline to avoid missed pay. 

This error appears because full-time Employees are required to have 40 hours per work week (80 hours per pay period) represented on their timesheet, except for the pay period when an Employee is first hired or terminated. In cases where the employee underwent a Change Job business process in the middle of a pay period, the validation will still trigger. 

To remove the error, enter Unpaid Time Off for the number of hours needed to bring the total hours on the timesheet to 40 per week and submit the timesheet. IMPORTANT: The Unpaid Time Off MUST be cancelled after the biweekly payroll finalizes or it may have a negative impact on the Employee’s next payroll that calculates. 

It is recommended to set the Effective Date of the Change Job business process to be the start of a next biweekly pay period (start Sunday not Monday) to avoid this situation and give the employee the chance to submit their final timesheet without having to enter unpaid time off. 

• If hours on an employee’s timesheet have already been paid and then are later removed in error from the timesheet, the hours should be re-entered and submitted back to the manager.  The Manager or HR Professional/Timekeeper should inform payroll, so they can take action to prevent double-payment to the employee.

• If a supervisory organization does 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 to those positions.  Payroll suggests contacting HROE Classification and Compensation staff first at hrcomp@tamu.edu to discuss the particulars before initiating any business processes in Workday.   

   

There are several ways to review and approve time. 

Primary Method 
Run the Review Time report. Using this report allows a manager to monitor all their employees and approve both hours worked and time off entered on a timesheet in one place. When you approve from the report the corresponding Workday inbox item automatically disappears. 

Secondary Method 
Access Workday Inbox and review and approve each individual current item. 

NOTE: Time Off requested outside a timesheet only appears in your Workday inbox and must be approved from this location to be included with pay results.

Workday has a very robust retro process that will pick up missed salary or hours and pay to the employee as part of their first on-cycle pay date.   

Monthly example 
A monthly paid employee is hired effective Jan. 22; the payroll deadline for business processes effective in the current month is listed as Jan. 23 on the Payroll January 2024 Monthly Calendar. The hire business process didn’t fully complete in Workday until Jan. 26.  This is after the deadline and January monthly payroll is closed. Thus the new employee will not receive partial January salary on the Feb. 1 pay date. Their partial January salary will get picked up during February monthly payroll processing period and pay to the employee on Mar. 1. 

Biweekly example 
A biweekly paid employee is hired effective Feb. 1; this date is part of the current biweekly period #24-12. The payroll deadline for business processes effective in the current biweekly period is listed as Feb. 5 on the Payroll February 2024 Monthly Calendar. The hire business process didn’t fully complete in Workday until Feb. 7. This is after the deadline and Biweekly period #24-12 is closed. Thus, the new employee will not receive partial wages on the Feb. 9 pay date. The employee can still enter missed hours and submit to manager; the Workday retro timesheet process can go back 3 prior periods from the current period and pick up late approved entries to pay on an upcoming biweekly pay date. 

If new hires are allowed to be start working toward the end of a payroll period, please instruct recruiting & hiring managers to be mindful of upcoming payroll deadlines and monitor Workday business process to full completion, to ensure new hires appear on Pay Calculation and/or Timesheet Reports. Unrealistic pay expectations should not be given new hires if Manager and/or HR Professionals are aware the hire business process does not have adequate time to get fully completed. 

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.

Workday Help has established Learning Hubs on a number of different topics including Time Tracking. These HUBs can be accessed through your SSO Menu by clicking the Workday Help link.  On their home page see Visit our learning hubs!  Workday Learning Hubs bring content from across their site into one central location – subject matter may be found under FAQs, Job Aids, News, Webinars, Release Notes and Reports.