When someone is invited to visit Washington University and will require a payment for service or reimbursement, it is important to establish whether they are a U.S. citizen or if they are in the U.S. on a visa. This is designed to keep WU compliant, and more importantly, to protect the visa status of our guests.
The Tax Department has issued a series of guidelines and forms to facilitate processing of payments and reimbursements to guests. Contact Faculty Support or Olin’s Accounting Department for a copy. You may also use the sample email at the link below when inviting guests and attach the FIIR form link to the email. The Guest Information form can be used to collect travel information.
- Sample Email to Guests: Click Here
- Guest Information Form: Click Here
Guests who are new to Washington University or who have not been paid by WU in the last 18 months need to submit a copy of their tax forms to be set up in Workday to receive payments. Their legal name, address, Federal Tax ID number, and email address are required. To facilitate and speed the process of gathering this information, when an email is sent to invite a guest, please submit a General Inquiry ticket to our ticketing portal. The ticket will notify our team that we should expect forms through DocuSign (e.g., W-9, EFT, W-8BEN, wire, FIIR). DocuSign is monitored daily, so when a form arrives, one of our staff will pull the ticket containing the necessary information so the Workday setup can be done. Once the guest is in Workday, the ticket status will be updated, and the requestor will receive an automated email to let them know the guest has complied with their request. If the requestor does not receive the automated email within a specific time frame, they can follow up with the guest, mentioning that the forms are needed prior to their WU engagement. When a ticket is later submitted with a request to issue payment to the guest, our staff will be able to process it without the usual delays of waiting for payee setup.
Ticket Procedure
- Ticket subject should be input as “DocuSign Request – Guest Name”
- The following information must be included in the “What’s your question” area of the ticket.
- Specific business purpose for guests’ visit
- Guest type: Domestic or foreign (forms required are shown below)
- Domestic (W-9 and optional EFT form)
- Foreign (W-8BEN, FIIR form, and wire transfer form)
- Please attach a copy of the email invitation
- Accounting team will monitor DocuSign daily for incoming forms
- New submissions will prompt Accounting Team to submit a request in Workday to create a miscellaneous payee.
- Accounting Team will update the ticket status to “submitted in Workday,” initiating the automatic notification to the requestor that the guest has submitted their form.
- Requestor should follow up with guests if they do not receive the ticket update email to ensure data is collected before the campus visit.
The university’s preferred method of payment is EFT (or wire transfers for payments outside the U.S.).
Form required to establish payee in Workday:
DocuSign W-9 – individuals (companies are welcome to email their W-9)
DocuSign W-8BEN – for foreign individuals
DocuSign W-8BEN-E – for foreign entities
DocuSign Foreign Individual Information Request (FIIR)
Forms required to establish electronic payments:
DocuSign EFT – to establish domestic electronic payment
DocuSign Wire Transfer Form – to establish foreign electronic payment
The electronic documents above will route automatically to Olin Accounting. Please submit a ticket into the ticketing portal with the supporting documentation so we can process your payment request.
Consultant Payments and Speaker Fees
Note that taxable payments made to foreign nationals are generally subject to 30% withholding at the time of payment. If the department would like a payee to receive a net amount after tax withholding, contact the Tax Department for the gross up amount.