Procurement Services Blog

To ensure timely payment of customs fees and smooth clearance for your goods, a valid Purchase Order number must be provided before import shipments are initiated with Expeditors. 

If you do not provide a purchase order to Expeditors, the invoice will be sent to your department for processing. 

The UW is contractually obligated to pay invoices Net 30 days from receipt. Failure to pay invoices promptly may result in the UW being put on credit hold.

To help avoid delays processing your requisition, please take extra care to ensure your justification clearly addresses why competition is not feasible, what makes the supplier uniquely qualified, and what steps you took in determining the sole source.

Please refer to the Sole Source Job aid (link at the top of the form) for examples and more detail. Sole source should be a justification for an exception to competition, rather than a default option.

In mid-February, the process for suppliers onboarding into UW Workday systems will be changing.

Suppliers will create accounts and onboard in a different area of Workday, called Workday Strategic Sourcing (WSS). The login requires all new suppliers to use a Multi-Factor Authentication app, keeping their information and attachments secure, such as required IRS W-9 and W-8 documents.

We are pleased to announce an upcoming Workday enhancement that introduces an improved Activity Note functionality for Supplier Invoices and Supplier Invoice Adjustments.

Current Status:

Workday does not allow users to add notes or comments when a Supplier Invoice or Supplier Invoice Adjustment is:

Workday’s Requisition approval workflow continues to function as designed; however, some submitters are expecting faster turnaround times than the system is intended to deliver.  To reduce confusion and ease pressure on individual team members, we are providing a refresher on the correct approval process.

Is a Supplier performing service or a repair on a piece of equipment? Using spend category SC1056 will flag your requisition as an exception item and possibly delay processing.

Instead, use Spend Category SC1264 Maintenance Contracts for equipment service/maintenance agreements or SC2128 Repair and Maintenance for one-off repairs and service calls. For more information visit the Special Items section of the Exception Items web page.

The Find Suppliers R1495 report has more new features! Suppliers can now be searched by Unique Entity Identifier for suppliers that provide them, as well as by multiple business contact emails, either full email (person@company.com) or partial email using the business domain (@company.com).

Introduction

Effective October 1, 2025, the Washington State Department of Revenue (DOR) implemented changes under Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill (ESSB 5814) that broaden the scope of retail sales tax to include certain services. 

Procurement Services, in collaboration with the Tax Office, issued an initial announcement about this law on September 2, 2025. This document provides follow-up guidance for the University of Washington (UW) Academy to help campus partners understand the changes and ensure compliance.

The tax-reporting season is fast approaching, and we need your assistance to be compliant with IRS Form 1099 reporting. As such, we need payment information for transactions that were made outside of the Workday accounting environments (these payments are most typically cash payments made to individuals participating in UW led research).

Workday now includes a feature to "copy" a Miscellaneous Payment. If you need to create an MP similar to a payment you have submitted previously, you can use this feature to create a new MP with the same information (Payment Type, Request Category, Amount, Line Items, etc.) To copy an MP: