The Release Radar

At PaymentWorks, we are committed to continuously improving and expanding our product to provide you with a more efficient, secure, vendor management experience. This page is your one-stop destination for all the latest updates, feature releases and our roadmap for the future.

FEATURES & UPDATES

Coming Soon

Connect Supplier User Interface

Target: Nov 2024

A User Interface will be available in the PaymentWorks Application to support creating Manual Connections. A ‘Connect Supplier’ option will be added to the Suppliers Tab, along with a modal that auto populates registration data for the supplier you are connecting based on entering the Request ID.

Self Service – User Management

Target: Dec 2024

Experience a simplified and modernized user interface with the Self-Service User Management feature, providing those with access greater control over user management within the PaymentWorks account.

Non-US Vendor Form Improvements

Target: EOY 2024

As part of our ongoing commitment to improving the registration experience, we are excited to announce a series of enhancements that will be rolled out through the end of 2024. Each update will be released individually and with detailed description as soon as it’s available.

Enhanced Bank Account Information Accuracy and Directions
Mandatory SWIFT Code for Non-US Vendors
~~Enhancing the Tax/EIN selection and entry for Non-US Entities~~ (released)
~~Updated Directions for Business Legal Name Entry~~ (released)
~~Updated Directions for Full Name or DBA Entry~~ (released)
Updated Validation File Upload Instructions

October 2024

EarlyPay details for Payer Invoice view

To provide Payers with more details about their EarlyPay payments, three new data elements have been added for viewing EarlyPay invoices:

Approved Date: The date of the initial payment.
EarlyPay Fee Amount: The dollar amount of the fee.
Discount Rate: The percentage of the discount.

Upcoming Release: Self-Service Roles, Permissions, and Approval Management

We’re pleased to announce that the release of our new self-service Roles & Permissions and Approval Management features is on track for the next 2-3 weeks. This consolidated rollout will enable control over role and permissions and approval workflow management. To be followed in December by enablement of the User Management feature as well.

What You Need to Know: To help you prepare, we recommend reviewing the latest release notes and configuration guides available in our knowledge base . These resources provide detailed instructions on configuring roles, permissions, and approval steps to best fit your needs.

Key Next Steps:

Visit the Knowledge Base: Access release notes and setup guides for a smooth transition. (Roles and Permissions, Approval Management)
Prepare Your Team: Familiarize relevant team members with the new features and workflows, especially those managing roles and approval processes.

Sept 2024

ISO 3166 Country and Region Code Update

During the week of September 3rd, we will update PaymentWorks to align with the latest version of the 3166-2 ISO database files. This update will ensure that country and region codes are accurate, consistent and up to date across all systems.

New Sanctions and Watchlist Provider

PaymentWorks is now supporting a new provider to power our screening and monitoring of vendors against critical sanctions and watchlists. More information will be shared directly to customers during transition through the remainder of the year.

Sanctions and Watchlists List Configurations (New provider only)

View and manage your sanctions / watchlists screening list configurations in our new user interface. Customers leveraging our new sanctions provider will have access to this feature including:

View and export of current lists being screened
View and export of all available lists (ones that can be added for screening)
Import list configurations (self-service)

Relevant Knowledge Base Articles:

View Sanctions and Watchlists Screening Configurations (new provider)
Update Sanctions and Watchlists Screening List Configurations (new provider)

Sanction Alert Report Updates (New provider only)

Alert reports have been updated to include additional details:

Matched entity profiles and alerts associated
Alerted sanction or watchlist names (previous reports displayed sources which are not 1:1 with configured list names)

Relevant Knowledge Base Articles:

How to Read a Sanction Alert Report (new provider)

Update – Role and Permission + Approval Management Timeline Adjustment

We’re excited to bring you more control over user management with the upcoming release of roles and permissions. To ensure a smooth and seamless experience, we’ve decided to expand this release to include approval management as part of the same self-service release.

This consolidated release will help prevent inconsistencies between sandbox and production environments, reducing the likelihood of accounts becoming “out-of sync” due to mismatched data between roles and approval steps.

Updated Timeline
Our team is working hard to complete these improvements, and we are now targeting a release in Late Oct / Early Nov. We believe this extended timeline will allow us to deliver a more valuable and comprehensive solution.

Key Features Approvals and Workflow:

Approval Step Table: A centralized hub for managing approval workflows for vendor-related processes with multiple steps and rules.
Approval Step Management: Configure approval workflow steps and rules for vendor-related processes (Invitation, Registration, and Update).
Rule-Based Approvals: Set conditions for approvals based on specific field values and assign them to the appropriate roles.
Step Approvers: Designate approver roles for each rule or a fallback approver for steps with no active rules to ensure approval coverage.

Key Features Roles and Permissions:

Roles and Permissions Table: A centralized hub for managing user roles, Actions are restricted to users with appropriate permissions.
Role Creation and Editing: Easily create new roles or edit existing ones with straightforward options.
Role Duplication: Save time by quickly duplicating existing roles.
Remove Role: Safely remove roles with a confirmation process to prevent accidental deletions.
Search and Export: Find specific roles using the search bar and export role details to a CSV file for reporting.
Access Control Enhancements:
- System Administrator Role: Automatically assigned to payer admin users with default permissions for managing and testing new capabilities.
- PW Reviewer Role: Hidden from non-staff users to prevent unauthorized changes.

August 2024

Redesigned Payment Instruction File Tracker

We’re excited to introduce a redesigned Payments Instruction File Tracker. This new interface is designed with your needs in mind, providing easier navigation and improved visibility into payment activities. An email has been sent to all Payments Approvers outlining the changes and updates in the new Payments Experience.
Features that have been redesigned:

View Progress
Historical files
Upload Files – Override for Duplicates
View file content

Coming Soon: View Batches and Payments in new Payment Experience

While the new Payments Experience introduces many enhanced features, some functionalities, such as Batch Review and Manual Payments Approvals, are still available only in the Classic interface. We recommend continuing to use the Classic version for these specific tasks until they are fully integrated into the new experience.

Update ID Column Added to Updates Tab

We’ve added an Update ID column in the Updates Tab.

Key Details:

The Update ID is already available in exports via manual download, flat file via SFTP, and API. This addition to the UI has no impact on existing integrations.
This enhancement was implemented in response to feedback from our customers, who expressed the need for a numeric reference for updates, similar to Request IDs (NVRs).

Self Service – Role and Permission Management

Target Release: 30 Sept 2024

On 30 September 2024, the new Roles and Permissions table will replace the legacy application table for all users. All existing roles and permissions will remain available and should not be impacted by this update. Following this change, any modifications to roles and permissions will no longer require the PaymentWorks change request process.

The redesigned Self Service Roles and Permissions feature is designed to streamline how you manage user roles and permissions within PaymentWorks. This update empowers Payer Admin Users to create, modify, and control roles with ease.

Key Features:

Roles and Permissions Table: A centralized hub for managing user roles, Actions are restricted to users with appropriate permissions.
Role Creation and Editing: Easily create new roles or edit existing ones with straightforward options.
Role Duplication: Save time by quickly duplicating existing roles.
Remove Role: Safely remove roles with a confirmation process to prevent accidental deletions.
Search and Export: Find specific roles using the search bar and export role details to a CSV file for reporting.

Access Control Enhancements:

System Administrator Role: Automatically assigned to payer admin users with default permissions for managing and testing new capabilities.
PW Reviewer Role: Hidden from non-staff users to prevent unauthorized changes.

July 2024

Payee – Bank Account Management

Payees will not be allowed to remove bank accounts that are linked to a remittance address. They must link the address to another bank account before the application will allow for its removal.

What’s Changing?

Bank accounts linked to a remittance address can no longer be deleted.
The system checks if a bank account is associated with any remittance address before allowing deletion.
If a linked bank account is selected for deletion, an error message will inform the payee: “This bank account cannot be deleted as it is linked to a remittance address. Please add a new bank account and link the remittance address to the new account before attempting to remove this one from your profile.”
Payees must use the bank account edit feature to ensure the account is not linked to a remittance address before removal. This ensures that all accounts are linked to an address and reduces any potential for missing data when updates are sent to the ERP.

June 2024

PaymentWorks EarlyPay Dashboard

Monitor your EarlyPay program with insights into your invoice approval times, top invoice amounts, and overall metrics.

This dashboard highlights exciting details about the EarlyPay program for Payers. Currently, it includes total vendors enrolled, approved invoice dollar amount, as well as invoice approval time insight. We will be iterating on this dashboard over time to be sure that it continues to deliver value to Payers as they grow their EarlyPay programs.

Vendor – Address Management

We are removing the ability for your vendors to “Change Address” in the Related Customers section of the Payee Company profile.

What’s Changing?

The “Change Address” option has been removed from the Payee Company profile in the remittance/order address section under Related Customers.
This change is aimed at reducing instances where a payee can impact the address linked to “sites” within your ERP system.
Payees can still edit, create, or share addresses directly from the Payee Company profile in the remittance/order address section.
The Related Customers section will remain for informational purposes only.

Enhanced Character Support

PaymentWorks has updated the data encoding within the application from Latin-1 to UTF-8.

This change allows NVRs, updates and other parts of the application to support a wider range of non-Latin language characters. This change ensures accurate display of these characters. Previously, unsupported foreign characters appeared as question marks (?).

Registration Form Tax Field Changes

Due to changes in the IRS W-9 form as of March 2024, the registration form fields have been updated for compliance.

Single Member LLC Registration: The term “Single Member LLC” has been removed from the first question on the registration form. It is now labeled as “Individual or Sole Proprietorship” to align with the revised W-9 instructions, eliminating confusion around disregarded entities.
- Background: This update follows the revised Form W-9 instructions, which eliminated the reference to a single-member LLC disregarded for US federal tax purposes. This change addresses industry feedback that the reference was confusing since a disregarded entity should not complete the form in its own name. Instead, the owner of the disregarded entity should be listed on line 1, with the checkbox on line 3a indicating the owner’s US federal tax classification.
New Field Addition: A new field corresponding to field 3b from the W-9 form has been added. This field appears when the Tax Classification is “Partnership,” “Trust/estate,” or “LLC Taxed as a Partnership” and includes a checkbox for entities with foreign partners, owners, or beneficiaries. If selected, the W-9 form will reflect this choice automatically.

May 2024

Dynamic Payment Method is Live!

Why Upgrade:

Flexibility: Customize and update your payment methods and terms on-demand, without lengthy procedures.
Preferred Options: Encourages the use of secure and preferred payment options, facilitating better business transactions.
Enhanced User Experience: Features a visually appealing interface that improves selection accuracy and ease of use.
Data Consistency: Achieves uniform data for simpler transactions, better reporting, and insightful analytics, enhancing as adoption increases.
EarlyPay Compatibility: Necessary for those using EarlyPay to ensure smooth vendor transactions.
Future Enhancements: Future enhancements regarding more robust non-us vendor support may require dynamic payment method.

How to Transition:

The new Dynamic Payment Method form component must replace existing payment fields in the registration form before the feature will take effect.

Existing PaymentWorks Users:
1. Update Settings: Adjust the Registration Form Display Tables in both Sandbox and Production environments.
2. Access Resources: Use the training video and the knowledge base for guidance on settings adjustments.
3. Submit a Change Request: Authorize the dynamic payment method form component to be added to your registration form through a change request.
4. Integration Adjustments: Payers with integrated systems are responsible to update API integrations to include new custom fields.
5. Go Live: After thorough testing in the Sandbox, payment works will help migrate the updated registration form in your Production environment.
New to PaymentWorks
1. Enjoy the convenience of having this feature added to the registration form by default.
2. Administrators will be required to fill out the payment method, term, and display tables to enable payment methods in their registration form.
3. Administrators can do this by watching the training video and reading the release notes in the knowledge base link below.

For additional information, visit our knowledge base to learn more.

April 2024

Next Gen: Payee Portal Remittances Redesign

As part of our modernization initiative, we have enhanced the payee remittance page with a streamlined and user-friendly interface, consistent with our prior releases in the new Next Gen Payee Portal.

Not yet available, the ability for payees to export their remittances data will also be released in April 2024.

All Next Gen UI pages will still allow users to access the Classic UI experience.

Improvements

Messages: The default vertical size of the message box has been increased from 100px to 200px and is now expandable.
“Invalid EIN” Email Message: Message to Vendors has been rewritten for clarity.
DBA Name vs “Pay to” name: If the company name (also known as DBA Name) changes in the vendors company profile, the “Pay To” field for the remittance address will be updated to reflect this change.

Self-Service Payment Information & Form Component

aka Dynamic Payment Method

This feature is designed to empower users with more control over their payment methods and terms configuration. With this update, we are adding consistency to the payment method selection and allowing users the ability to configure their payment method and term preferences, display conditions and descriptions. Visit our knowledge base articles to learn more.

Edit permissions were updated recently for all “Admin” roles. However, the new form component must replace existing payment fields in the registration form before the feature will take effect.

New to PaymentWorks (accounts set up after March 31, 2024):
1. Enjoy the convenience of having this feature added to the registration form by default.
2. Administrators will be required to fill out the payment method, term, and display tables to enable payment methods in their registration form.
3. Administrators can do this by watching the training video and reading the release notes in the links below.
Existing PaymentWorks Users without Integrations:
1. Supported and required if signing up for EarlyPay – Update process documentation to follow in the coming weeks.
2. In the meantime – Dive into this training video and read the knowledge base articles for more details about this feature.
Existing PaymentWorks Users with Integrations to their ERP:
1. Not yet supported- We are actively working on a plan to accommodate this change for users with integrations live in production.
2. Note: this may require changes to your integrations. Stay tuned for more details as this plan is created.

March 2024

Next Gen – Vendor Portal Table Filtering

Filters have been added to the vendor-facing invoices table in the Next Gen application. Next Gen and Classic invoices pages are now in functional parity.

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form W-9 Revision.

PaymentWorks has updated all W9 links with the IRS recently released a revised version (dated March 2024) of Form W-9, and Instructions for the Requester of Form W-9.

While the Form W-9 remains mostly unchanged, the revision to line 3a, which provides the federal tax classification of the provider of the form, is intended to provide clarity for limited liability companies (LLCs). New line 3b requires a flow-through entity to indicate whether it has direct or indirect foreign partners, owners, or beneficiaries when it provides the Form W-9 to another flow-through entity.

Follow up targeted for April 2024 – Addition of the new 3b field to the core fields in the paymentworks registration form.

February 2024

SFTP Upgrade

PaymentWorks will be upgrading the SFTP system for better availability, reliability, and security. This will occur Friday, March 1st, 2024 for the sandbox/test environment, and Saturday, March 16th, 2024 for Production. There will be a brief 5-min outage during low-traffic times to perform the upgrade. Most customers will not require any action, but a few may be required to use newer security settings. This upgrade affects SFTP connectivity and communication only. There are no changes to the upload/download process or file processing workflows.

Additional details can be found here: PaymentWorks Knowledge Base

Next Gen: Redesigned User Interface (UI) for Payees

In 2023 PaymentWorks started a user platform overhaul (Next Gen) for a more modern and improved experience. On 26 February, we will launch an update to core pages in the Payee User Interface and new navigation.

Impacted: All Payees on PaymentWorks will see a revamped Home (landing) page as well as improved Customers and Invoices pages in the redesigned payee user interface. All Classic pages will remain accessible for the foreseeable future but that will change as we progress towards a complete application overhaul. Payee users will have easy navigation between the two experiences: Next Gen and Classic.

Next Gen User Interface:

Home / landing Page
Invoices Page
Customer Page / Registration Status

Classic User Interface:

Remittances Page (coming soon to Next Gen)
News Page
Messages Page
Company Profile
Account

UPDATE: This change has gone into effect on the 26th of February 2024. Click Here to learn more!

January 2024

Self-Service Payment Information and Registration Form Component

This feature is designed with your convenience in mind, allowing you greater control over set up and display of your payment methods and terms on the registration form.

Key Improvements:

User Empowerment:
- Customize payment methods and terms.
- Respond to changes without PaymentWorks assistance.
- Tailor registration forms to meet your specific needs.
Simplified Configuration:
- Effortlessly map payment method and term
- Easily configure display options and text for registration form
- Ensure clarity in payment term values during supplier registration.
Intuitive UI for Registration:
- Experience a modern and dynamic form component.
- Visualize payment methods with clear, expanding/collapsing tiles.

What’s Next: We’re excited to share more information about this enhancement. Look out for more information to be released over the coming month.

December 2023

PaymentWorks Next Gen Release!

NextGen is our modernization initiative aimed at bringing you a more streamlined, user-friendly experience to elevate your vendor management experience. As part of the initial release (Early December) we are designing a fresh navigation bar, a sleek header, and an enhanced menu.

Who’s impacted:

For users with reporting access, you will see a new look to the navigation and header only on the reports and reporting dashboards page. The process remains seamless, and you’ll be redirected to the new Next Gen look without any changes to your reports or dashboards.

What’s changing:

New Design: A modernized look with an updated header, monogram menu, and Navigation Bar.
- Header Updates:
  - The PaymentWorks company logo is now prominently displayed within the header.
  - Clicking on it takes you back to the classic application home page.
- Monogram Menu:
  - The monogram menu, located on the right side of the header, shows the initials of the logged-in user.
  - Clicking the monogram icon reveals a dropdown menu help, logout and contact links among others.
- Navigation Enhancements:
  - The navigation rail is now displayed prominently on the left side of the application for easy access.
  - Hovering over the navigation rail extends it, revealing more details.
  - A “Home – Payment Works Classic” button directs you back to the PaymentWorks Classic home page.

General Improvements:

Reporting Dashboards: Dashboards date range filters are now applied to the entire dashboard page, including the metric cards, making it a page-level filter (i.e., a filter that affects all page components).
A new date range filter option, All-Time, is now available and replaces the function of the All-Time Highlights previously set at the top of the page.
New Vendor Dashboard Metrics: Two new metrics have been added to the Vendor Dashboard: (1) Invitations Claimed and (2) Registrations Submitted. Note: Registrations Submitted includes all returned submissions.

November 2023

Delivered Payments Report

A new payments report has been added to the Reports page. This report will shows payment data from payment files delivered to the bank within a given date range.

October 2023

Registration Approval Resets

A new permission-based feature has been released that allows user with specific permissions to reset or restart a registration’s approval workflow. Click to learn more

General Improvements:

Certificate Expiration Date Resolution: You’ll now find the updated date displayed consistently within the application, making it easier to track changes. Additionally, this information is readily available when you export the data.
Vendor Bank Update Remittance Address Associations: We’ve added functionality streamlining the process of associating a remit addresses to a new or updated bank account, along with an informative confirmation dialogue window for these bank account ↔︎ remittance address association changes.
Reporting Dashboards: We’ve enhanced our reporting dashboards. Enjoy improved graph performance, even when dealing with large date ranges.