PaymentWorks: Frequently Asked Questions
Below are some frequently asked questions. Click any question to expand the answer.
PaymentWorks is UCI’s new cloud‐based vendor onboarding solution. It’s an easy-to-use web portal that will allow campus organizations to invite potential vendors to complete an online onboarding process and become UCI vendors. Vendors submit their identity and ACH banking information through the secure PaymentWorks website, where it is automatically verified against third-party data sources.
PaymentWorks will be more convenient for the companies and individuals we pay, allowing them to directly manage their profile online. It will also be more secure for UCI, reducing the risk of payment fraud through a more sophisticated verification process conducted over a secure network connection. It verifies sanctions and performs other compliance checks required for recipients of federal funding. It allows the campus to move a manual verification process to an automated platform. Departments are empowered in the process and vendors utilize self‐ service in their registration and updates.
The main change is simply that you will need to use PaymentWorks to send invitations to new vendor entries rather than the outgoing Kuali Vendor Onboarding system. You can also see the status of your vendors and whether they’ve been approved in PaymentWorks. The PaymentWorks Project Team is preparing instructions and help materials for the campus to ensure all units will be able to quickly get up to speed on how to send and manage vendor invites using PaymentWorks. Training will be conducted over Zoom and be made available online.
Yes, please view PaymentWorks Initiator Training Resources.
A PaymentWorks link is available on ZotPortal. It is also linked to the KFS Homepage (recommend use jump-to navigation). Users will log into PaymentWorks using their UCInetID and password in order to request a vendor be onboarded into the Kuali Financial System. This request to onboard will still route to the campus Vendor Coordinator in Accounts Payable.
Creating a profile in PaymentWorks is free to all campus organizations and their suppliers. There are no fees or costs associated with the service for end users.
No. The process for reimbursing employees and students will not be changed. Active employees and current students should not be onboarded as vendors.
If using the one-time payee option in the Travel & Event Management (TEM) module, the payee does not need to be onboarded as a vendor. If using a Disbursement Voucher for Refund (DVR), those are one-time payees that also do not have to be onboarded on as vendors. For all other Disbursement Vouchers that are not employee, student, or Refund related, the payee would have to be onboarded as a vendor.
Continue to perform searches inside KFS as you do currently, to determine if a vendor is already in the University's vendor database. KFS is still the system of record for all of UCI's vendors and the process of creating purchase orders or disbursements inside KFS should not change. Instructions for searching the KFS vendor can be found on Searching the KFS Vendor Database. At a later date, UCI will evaluate moving the entire existing database into PaymentWorks, allowing full vendor searches from within the application.
Any foreign vendor or individual will also register through PaymentWorks if they are to receive a UCI vendor number for a transaction. There are customized fields for each country and address format.
One of PaymentWorks' benefits is that of automation. Onboarding time depends on several factors, the primary of which being the vendor's completion of the registration process. That said, the onboarding process should not be longer than that for the KVO process for vendors. Onboarding delays may occur if a vendor is found to have sanctions against them or other validation obstacles. However, a vendor may enter their ACH/Payment Instructions and multiple address/divisions directly in PaymentWorks, which may help speed up payment.
No, any active vendor number will remain in the University's database; only new vendors need invitations sent to them. Accounts Payable and the UCI Vendor Coordinator will be working individually with departments and vendors that would like to make changes to their vendor profile, address, or payment information. For those making changes, they may be asked to create an account in PaymentWorks to ensure all change requests are validated.
All vendor updates will be managed through PaymentWorks. Existing vendors who wish to update their address, identity information, or ACH banking details should be invited to PaymentWorks. Their new PaymentWork profile will then feed into and update the KFS vendor database.
No. The onboarding process requires an email invitation sent directly to a vendor and the vendor to complete and attest to their own information. It can only be done by the company or individual being onboarded to certify their login/password, tax ID information, and bank/payment method.
Contact the vendor onboarding coordinator for guidance if you have any vendors or individuals who cannot complete the vendor onboarding process.