PAYROLL
In planning your work for November, it is important to remember that Veterans Day is Monday, Nov. 11. Thanksgiving is recognized on Thursday, Nov. 28, and Friday, Nov. 29, is also a state holiday. November biweekly payroll for state agencies (“B” or “C” biweekly schedules) will be paid on Friday, Nov. 8, and Friday, Nov. 22. November monthly payrolls will be paid on the last working day of the month, Wednesday, Nov. 27.
With these dates in mind, agency staff should plan their work accordingly for the deadlines:
SUPPLEMENTAL: PeopleSoft supplemental payrolls are set to pay on Friday Nov. 12. Agencies should have had these payrolls processed and paperwork forwarded to OMES by Monday, Nov. 4.
The next biweekly pay date for “B” and “C” biweekly schedule agencies will be Friday Nov. 22. Agencies should have these payrolls processed and paperwork forwarded to OMES by Friday, Nov. 15.
MONTHLY: Monthly payrolls will be set to pay on Wednesday, Nov. 27. Agencies should have these payrolls processed and paperwork forwarded to OMES by Wednesday, Nov. 20.
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For state EBD insurance purposes in calendar year 2020, please distribute this listing to Payroll and Human Resource Directors (to view the table click here). Questions may be directed to Lisa Raihl at 405-521-3258, [email protected] or Jean Hayes at 405-522-6300, [email protected].
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Giving gifts to employees is restricted and should only be given as part of a formal employee recognition program. See 74 O.S. § 4121 and 4122. Furthermore, any gift cards, certificates or coupons given to employees are to be included in the employee’s taxable income. These items are considered by the Internal Revenue Service to be cash or a cash equivalent and do not meet the requirements to be excludable as a de minimis fringe benefit.
Even when an employer provides gift cards, certificates or coupons to purchase a turkey, ham or other nominal value property, these are considered wages and are subject to income and employment taxes. This is true even when the card restricts the items purchased, the time to use the coupon, and any unused portion is forfeited. Cash equivalents do not meet the de minimis fringe benefit requirements.
In the HCM system, process the gift card amount using the TRC Code of “GIFT,” which will show as earnings code “GFT.” The amount will be included as taxable income and will be taxed on the paycheck.
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The OMES Form PWC should only be used when an employee is not entitled, in part or whole, to the funds. All PWC forms received by OMES will initiate the process to retrieve the funds, if direct deposit, and cancel the warrant in the payroll system. It is imperative that agencies identify payroll errors and process the Form PWC immediately upon discovery.
Paper Warrant Cancellations:
The original warrant must be marked “Void,” attached to the completed PWC form and sent to OMES Transaction Processing. These requests cannot be processed by fax.
Direct Deposit Cancellations:
Fax OMES Form PWC (revised 4/2017) to 405-522-2186. Verify the fax was successful. Requests for cancellation of direct deposits must be made by completing the PWC form and faxing it to OMES to initiate the cancellation procedures. To ensure that direct deposit funds are returned, the PWC request must be received by noon three business days prior to the effective pay date.
Any faxed request for cancellation of direct deposits after that cutoff will be subject to recall or reversal procedures which are subject to denial by the employee’s bank. An employee must be notified in writing of a reversing entry and the reason for the reversing entry no later than the effective date of the reversing entry. Please notify the employee no later than the day the OMES Form PWC is submitted for processing.
The statement below can be modified by your agency and used to inform your employee(s) of the pending reversal.
“A payroll item will be posted in error to your bank account on MM/DD/YY. A reversal has been issued and will post to your account to pull these funds back to the state. Please keep the full amount of this deposit in your account. If the state cannot retrieve the full amount of the deposit, action will be taken in accordance with applicable procedures to retrieve the funds from you.”
Once the funds have been returned to the state, OMES will process a cancellation in the payroll system which returns the funds to the agency. If the funds cannot be recovered from the bank, the agency is responsible for recovering the funds from the employee. Please refer to 74 O.S. § 840-2.19 D for proper procedures for recovering overpayments if needed. The agency should submit the OMES Form 94P for processing if the employee reimburses the funds through a miscellaneous payroll deduction or cash.
PWC forms received for direct deposit items that are more than five business days past the effective date will not be processed in accordance with NACHA rules. If agencies encounter erroneous entries more than five business days past the effective date, please contact OMES or OST for consultation on options for recovering the funds.
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Agencies need to review all outstanding employee overpayments and collect required amounts from employees. After collection, please submit OMES Form 94P as applicable. If a refund of taxes is due to the agency, the form must be submitted by Friday, Dec. 20, 2019. After this date, refunds cannot be returned to the agencies; however, agencies are still required to submit the form after this date for employee wage corrections. Corrections due to overpayments will be posted to the employee’s 2019 W-2 for requests submitted through Monday, Jan. 6, 2020. Any corrections submitted after Jan. 6 will require a corrected W-2.
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When an employee reimburses a payroll overpayment, please complete and submit the OMES Form 94P as soon as the reimbursement is made. Timely submission helps ensure corrections are reflected in the quarter in which they occurred for proper reporting and also helps in the full recovery of OPERS retirement amounts. If the retirement system is not aware of an overpayment and the pending overpayment refund request, payouts to former employees may be incorrect, resulting in a loss to the agency. In addition, retirement calculations may be incorrect if the overpayment is not reported timely.
Please do not provide copies of personal checks. The form allows the agency to enter the amount reimbursed. Additional back up data is not required.
The form requires the State EmplID be entered. This has been changed for the privacy and security of the employee. Please do not submit with the social security number or any other number.
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When an employee chooses to reimburse an overpayment using annual leave, the amount of annual leave reduced should equal the gross amount of the overpayment.
If an employee reimburses an overpayment using terminal leave, an OMES Form 94P must be submitted to correct the retirement amounts reported on the check that included the overpayment. Terminal leave is not included in retirement wage calculations; therefore, a payroll earnings adjustment is required.
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Agencies must complete Form DER, Deceased Employee Reporting when an employee dies and payments are made after the date of death. The form is on the OMES website under CAR Forms. Complete all forms and send to OMES/CAR payroll, (attention Alicia Reel) as soon as possible after all payments have been processed.
Procedures for processing payroll after the death of an employee are available in the HCM how-to document titled "Payroll Processing for Death of an Employee".
NOTE: Remember to update the date of death on the HR Personal Data Record, update Job Data for a termination with the reason code ‘SO4’ (deceased), and terminate the employee’s direct deposit. Banks will return direct deposits for deceased customers. A return of an item will cause a delay to the individual receiving the payment.
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40 O.S. § 165.3a, allows employers to provide employees the option of designating a beneficiary for wages and benefits payable upon an employee’s death. There is no requirement for an employer to allow employees to select beneficiaries, but agencies may want to consider adopting such a policy. Providing the option to employees would relieve stress and anxiety after the death of the employee on the family members. Also, agencies would have clear guidance on who is to receive final wage payments and avoid any potential difficulties in determining who should receive the payment(s).
This statute does not include any longevity payment that may be due as of the date of death of an employee. 74 O.S. § 840-2.18, subsection H.2, authorizes any longevity payment to be paid to the decendant’s surviving spouse, or if there is no surviving spouse, to the decedent’s estate.
For more information or sample forms and instructions, please contact Jean Hayes at 405-522-6300, [email protected] or Lisa Raihl at 405-521-3258, [email protected].
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Beginning in 2012, the IRS mandated Box 12 reporting for the cost of employer-provided health coverage. The W-2 must show the amount in Box 12 with Code DD.
To correctly report the cost of health coverage, all payments made for health insurance must process through the payroll system. Failure to process through payroll will result in incorrect reporting on the W-2. For help establishing the appropriate deduction codes, state agencies should contact the OMES HelpDesk at 405-521-2444 or at [email protected].
As a reminder, this reporting to employees is for their information only. The amount reported is not taxable and is only intended to inform them of the cost of their health care coverage.
For questions or more information, please contact Lisa Raihl at 405-521-3258 or [email protected], or Jean Hayes at 405-522-6300 or [email protected].
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As a reminder, in the HCM system, the W-2 process loads the employee’s mailing address for IRS Form W-2 reporting. If there is no value in the mailing address field, then the employee’s home address will be used on the W-2. If there is a value in the mailing address field that is not to be used on the Form W-2, it must be updated or inactivated.
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The 1095-C form process in the HCM system has been set to load the employee’s mailing address just as the W-2 process does. If there is no value in the mailing address field, then the employee’s home address will be used on the W-2. If there is a value in the mailing address field that is not to be used on the Form W-2, it must be updated or inactivated.
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Please verify the correct agency address is being used on the HCM system. The agency address can be found on the Employee’s Earnings Statement. If the address is not correct for the agency, this must be updated before year end processing of tax forms. Please contact the OMES Service Desk at 405-521-2444 to have the agency’s address updated in the HCM system.
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The HCM system employee W-2s and 1095-C forms are processed and printed in mail drop order. Please ensure this field is properly used for employees. The forms will print in the same order as checks and advices sort, which is based on each agency’s needs.
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State agency W-2 forms will be printed from the PeopleSoft HCM System. The format for the W-2 forms will be the same as that used last year. Envelopes that fit the 2018 PeopleSoft W-2 forms should fit the 2019 W-2 forms.
The format for the 1099 MISC forms is the same as last year. The forms will have three sections with the top 1/3 and the middle 1/3 of the page containing the 2 copies of the form and the bottom 1/3 of the page will contain mailing addresses. Instructions will print on the back of the form. Standard No. 9 or No. 10 envelopes with left windows should work.
Sample printed forms of the PeopleSoft W-2 and 1099 MISC can be provided if requested. Please contact Jean Hayes at 405-522-6300 or [email protected], or Alicia Reel at 405- 522-9479 or [email protected]
NOTE: This is not applicable for the institutions of higher education due to the fact that they are responsible for their own year-end reporting.
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ACCOUNTING
Appropriated budgets lapse 30 months from the end of session. Bills passed by the 2017 Legislative session would have lapsed on November 26. However, due to the special session held in February 2018 which changed the FY18 appropriations, the lapse date for the FY18 appropriations was extended to August 2020. Budgets remaining for FY18 will be extended. This will include original budgets and carryover budgets from FY18 with outstanding encumbrances, requisitions or balances.
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Several updates were made to the Statewide Accounting Manual in October. Appendix 6 was added to the manual and lists the changes. The changes were made either to update for a change in statute or for clarification purposes. Briefly, the updates included:
- Updating the cap from $25,000 to $50,000 for IT purchases that may be made by an agency by p-card if the product is an IT statewide contract and on the approved hardware or software list;
- Clarifying some language regarding encumbrances;
- Removing a restriction against purchasing refreshments;
- Adding basic information about converting to bi-weekly payroll;
- Clarifying information regarding per diem reduction for meals provided;
- Clarifying transfer due dates.
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