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Setting Up Direct Deposits in HRS

Overview

Direct deposit (also known as ACH or Automated Clearing House) allows an employee's paycheck to be automatically deposited into his/her bank account on payday rather than receiving a paper check. HRS allows for an employee to have his/her paycheck direct deposited into up to three different accounts. This user procedure outlines the steps required for entering an employee's direct deposit information into HRS as well as the steps to take to deactivate/stop an employee's direct deposit.

Process Considerations:

  • Employee direct deposit information can be entered at any point prior to the final calc/confirm of the payroll on which the direct deposit should begin.  Unlike effective dating on other HRS pages, the effective date of the direct deposit entry does not necessarily have to be within the pay period of the payroll it should begin as long as it's entered prior to that payroll's final calc/confirm (usually noon on Thursdays) and the effective date is prior to the employee's next pay date.
  • The University of Wisconsin does not send direct deposits to international bank accounts.
  • Employee direct deposit information cannot be entered when the final calc/confirm processes are running. The administrator page to make ACH entries and the employee self-service page are locked out during this time.
  • Direct deposit will automatically be deactivated for employees if:
    • they have an active direct deposit record but a paycheck has not been issued in 15 months, a new effective dated row will be added and the Status changed to Inactive.
    • the employee has no confirmed paychecks, the program will evaluate the employee’s Job record.  If the top row of the employee’s Job Data, on all empl records, has an HR status of Inactive, the program should deactivate the direct deposit record.
  • The process to deactivate direct deposit will be run once a month after the monthly payroll is confirmed.
    • A Cypress report will be delivered monthly to show employees that had a row automatically added and deactivated.
  • Before using this guide, a Payroll Coordinator should have the following from the employee:
    • Completed Authorization for the Direct Deposit of Payroll Form
  • Employees may be enrolled in the Focus Pay Card ACH/Direct Deposit automatically if they do not have an ACH active entry in HRS. 
    • Administrators can view this entry on the Direct Deposit page with a US Bank routing number of #071004200.
    • An employee can submit a new Direct Deposit of Payroll Form that can be entered on top of the US Bank row. However, they cannot inactivate the US Bank Focus Pay Card unless they are adding an active ACH/Direct Deposit account for the employee. See KB Focus Pay Card in HRS for more details.
  • Employees at institutions with Multi-Factor enabled for all employees will also have access to enter and update their direct deposit through Self Service.
You may click on the links below to navigate directly to a section:


Enter Direct Deposit

  1. Navigation: Main Menu > Payroll for North America >Employee Pay Data USA > Request Direct Deposit.
  2. On the Request Direct Deposit page, enter the Empl ID of the employee. Click the Search button.

    direct deposit search
  3. The Effective Date will default to today's date. Update the effective date for prospective changes only.  Do not retroactively adjust this field.
  4. Click the Status list and choose "Active."
  5. Key the financial institution's 9-digit routing number into the Bank ID field. 
    • You can also search for the financial institution by clicking the Look Up tool for this field.
      • If you choose to look up the Bank ID rather than key it, you will see the Bank ID listing in the Look Up Bank ID page.  By default, the banks will be listed in order by routing number. 
      • However, if for example, you would like to see the list of Wisconsin banks click on the State link to sort.
      • This will put the list in alphabetical order by state.  Simply click on State again to see the listing of banks in reverse alphabetical order.
      • Select the bank that you need from the list by clicking on any of the links in the row.  This will take you back to the Direct Deposit tab.

    bank lookup
  6. If you manually key the Bank ID, and the number is not recognized by HRS, you will get the warning message below.  When you receive this message, double check the Bank ID is correct.  If it is not correct, re-key the correct routing number.  If the number is valid, then it has not yet been set up in HRS for use.  Send a ticket to UWSS Service Operations listing the financial institution and routing number information and request it be set up in HRS

    direct deposit error message
  7. The Prenotification Required box is checked as a default.  DO NOT uncheck this box. warning sign
  8. If Prenotification Required is not checked, the Employee's Direct Deposit will not work correctly.
  9. Key in the employee's bank account number in the Account# field.
  10. Choose the type of account in the Account Type pull-down menu (Checking or Savings).
  11. Select an option from the Deposit Type drop down menu.
    • Balance: Choose Balance if the balance of the employee's pay is supposed to be deposited into the account.  If setting up only one account the deposit type must be Balance. If setting up multiple accounts, one of the accounts must have a deposit type of Balance.
    • Amount: Choose Amount if the employee wants a fixed dollar amount to be deposited in his/her account.
    • Percent: Choose Percent if the employee wants a specific percentage of his/her net pay to be deposited in this account.  Note: The percentage of all accounts entered needs to equal 100%.
  12. If you choose a Deposit Type of:
    • Amount: Enter the amount the employee would like deposited into the Amount field.
    • Percent: Enter the percent the employee would like deposited into % Net Pay.
    • Balance: You do not need to enter anything into the Amount or % Net Pay fields.
  13. In the Priority field, enter in a desired priority number (priority numbers start at 1).  This is mostly important when an employee has multiple direct deposit accounts set up. 
    • During calculation, distributions are made to accounts in order of their priority number-- the lower the priority number, the higher the priority. 
    • HRS uses the priority designations if the employee's net check cannot cover all the deposit definitions. 
    • When Deposit Type of Balance is chosen, the Priority automatically defaults to 999 and should not be changed.
  14. If you need to set up another Direct Deposit account for the employee, click the Add Row icon under the Distribution Information section and repeat Steps 4-10.
    • Example: To set up another direct deposit for the same employee, you might pick the same Bank ID, type an account in the Account#, choose "Savings" as the Account Type, and select a Deposit Type of "Balance" (which will deposit the employee's remaining net pay balance into this account).  The Priority is set to "999" automatically.
  15. Click the Save button when you are finished. The International ACH Bank Account box should be left unchecked in most cases.  However, when an employee checks the box labeled "Check this box if the entire amount of your direct deposit is ultimately deposited to a financial institution outside of the United States" on the ACH form, then you must also check the International ACH Bank Account box on the Request Direct Deposit page in HRS.  If you receive an ACH form from an employee with this box checked, please fax a copy to UWSS Service Operations.

    direct deposit entry

Changing An Existing Record

If an employee already has a direct deposit record, but is requesting a change to it, follow these steps:
  1. Navigate to Payroll for North America >Employee Pay Data USA > Request Direct Deposit.
  2. Enter the Empl ID of the employee whose direct deposit you are stopping.  This will pull up that employee's current direct deposit record.
  3. Add a new effective dated row under the Deposit Information section by clicking the Add Row icon.  The employee's current information will be carried through to the new row.
  4. Key the appropriate Effective Date of the change and leave the Status field set to "Active."
  5. Using steps 4-11 above, update the appropriate fields (Bank ID, Account#, Account Type) with the employee's new information provided on the Direct Deposit Authorization form.
  6. Click the Save button when you are finished.

Stopping a Direct Deposit Record

If, for some reason, an employee's direct deposit record needs to be deactivated, follow these steps:
  1. Navigate to Payroll for North America >Employee Pay Data USA > Request Direct Deposit.
  2. Enter the Empl ID of the employee whose direct deposit you are stopping.  This will pull up that employee's current direct deposit record.
  3. Add a new effective dated row under the Deposit Information section by clicking the Add Row icon.  The employee's current information will be carried through to the new row.
  4. Key the appropriate Effective Date of the change and update the Status field to "Inactive."
  5. Click the Save button when you are finished.

Direct Deposit ACH Auto Termination Report

Monthly a process will be run to automatically deactivate direct deposit for individuals with no paycheck for 15 months (see process considerations above for more information). After the process is run a Cypress report will be delivered  to show employees that had a row automatically added and deactivated.
auto term report for ach

Additional Resources

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    KeywordsHRS savings saving checking balance amount percentage net pay training ACH paycheck pay card PY, Payroll PY, Payroll PY, Payroll   Doc ID16877
    OwnerMelanie K.GroupUW–Shared Services
    Created2011-02-12 19:00:00Updated2023-08-15 10:24:19
    SitesUW–Shared Services
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