This issue of the Financial Management Office Newsletter includes information about the following:
Resources
The FMO Newsletter is distributed monthly. Should you have any questions about this newsletter, contact Amy Kunz via email at amykunz@hawaii.edu.
Subscribe to this FMO Newsletter
Unsubscribe from this FMO Newsletter
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
ACH Payment Notifications
Target Audience: Fiscal Administrators and Staff
When a vendor signs up for ACH/EFT payments, one of the required fields is an email address. Whenever an ACH payment is sent, an accompanying notification email will be sent out to the email address provided.
The content of the email depends on whether the payment is made via Purchase Order (PO) or Disbursement Voucher (DV), as listed below: For ACH payments from POs, the email would contain:
- Payment amount
- PO number
- Invoice number
- Check stub notes
For ACH payments from DVs, the email would contain:
- Payment amount
- Check stub notes
- Payment initiator’s name and phone number
Since invoice numbers are not included by default for payments via DVs, if it is critical that the vendor has the invoice numbers, please enter the invoice numbers and other pertinent information in the “Check Stub Text” field when creating the DV. This will assist the vendors in applying payments correctly when received.
Should you have any questions, please contact Donnie Feng, Disbursing Office at donnie@hawaii.edu.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Notification of TouchNet 8.3 Upgrade
Target Audience: All
TouchNet is doing an upgrade to their bill payment software that will become effective March 25, 2022. With this implementation, additional functionality is being introduced to TouchNet users. The different updates will address issues discovered through the continued use of eRefunds and the Installment Payment Plans.
The additional eRefunds features will support ACH and credit card refund methods. An administrator will be able to perform the following: 1) generate, update, and submit a refund batch, 2) remove a refund from a batch, 3) cancel a batch, 4) remove a hold for a given refund, 5) retry a failed refund from the refund posting report. (The system will update the status to processing, pending, or completed.)
For Installment Plans there will be additional support for institutions. An administrator will have access to add and edit payment plans by accessing the Payment Plans menu in the Operations Center. An administrator also can enroll a student or authorized user into one of these plans (such as itemized, estimated or term payment plan) by using the Customer Service module. (UH system currently uses itemized Payment Plan)
Payment Plan Batch Enrollment and Plan Rollover are also available from the Payment Plans menu.
Payment Plan reporting is available from both the Payment Plan and Reports menu in the Operations Center.
Note: Appropriate charges, payments, and financial aid are used to recalculate an itemized and term payment plan balance. When a payment is not made in Bill+Payment, it is applied like financial aid and lowers all installments equally. Only payments made in Bill+Payment toward an installment are applied to a specific installment.
Within customer service, for an individual installment, the administrator will now be able to see Mark Unpaid within the action menu for itemized payment plans (e.g. no account associated for payment source). Additionally, when a student’s installment payment has been marked unpaid, an email notification can be system generated and sent to the student or authorized user (using same email template as the student).
If you have any questions, please contact Denise DeArment at dearment@hawaii.edu.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Frequently Asked Tax Related Questions
Target Audience: Fiscal Administrators and Staff
I am preparing my 2021 tax return and need tuition paid information on my Form 1098-T. If I did not receive it in the mail, where can I print such form?
You can print the form from the following website:
https://myuh.hawaii.edu/task/all/1098
A vendor is asking for UH general excise tax number. Where can I find it?
UH does not have a general excise tax number as UH is not required to pay general excise tax on its revenue. UH is a state governmental instrumentality and exempt from paying general excise tax on its revenue.
Are stipends taxable to students?
The word “stipend” is a term used by universities to denote a payment of cash. Unfortunately, the term itself does not characterize the payment for tax purposes. Sometimes a stipend represents wages because the stipend is paid in exchange for the personal services of the payee. Other times a stipend represents a payment in the nature of scholarship or fellowship because it is given for the purpose of aiding the payees to conduct study, training, or research for the classes that the payees are taking. For answers to common situations, please refer to the Tax Services FAQ section of the FMO website.
Should you have any questions, please contact Kenneth Lum at kenlum@hawaii.edu.