Universities and businesses are falling victim to scammers at an alarming rate. One of the most popular scams is the “Vendor Bank Account Update” scam. To aid in that process and further protect ourselves and our vendors, we have partnered with a company called PaymentWorks. PaymentWorks will “Mitigate fraud and ensure compliance by automating the collection and verification of payee identity credentials”.
This will change the way we request new vendors and maintain old ones; it will also eliminate the Payment Selection form, the Worker’s Classification Questionnaire, the need to collect a W-9, and transaction ZXK1 to request a vendor number. All of these things will now shift to the vendor’s responsibility inside the PaymentWorks system.
To prepare for this migration to the PaymentWorks system, there will be a freeze on vendor changes on December 13th, and new vendor requests beginning December 20th. We plan to go live with PaymentWorks on January 9, 2020, and all vendor changes and vendor creations will then be initiated through PaymentWorks. Training for the new system will start on December 16, 2019, and specific dates and times will be announced soon, and also posted in K@TE.
For questions regarding PaymentWorks, email ap_paymentworks@tennessee.edu.