How to Process a Service Agreement
The Dean’s Office is working on a streamlined process and working to develop standard templates where possible. For now, send all service agreements to the efast@uw.edu with the title: [service agreement] [unit] [Customer Name] and include a contract template should the customer have a required template and a budget with pricing. If you have questions on how to budget a service agreement, you can contact the Director of Finance in the Dean’s Office (Erika Hargadine ehargad@uw.edu)
All service contracts will be signed by the Dean’s Office. Once the contracts are signed, the unit will be assigned an activity worktag to use with the contract. The unit will then attach the fully executed contract to a “Create Customer Contract” request in Workday. Service contracts will generally fall under the special operations cost center of each unit and the unit will use the activity worktag to track revenues and expenses. Units may assign optional program and/or assignee worktags as appropriate. The unit will generate a billing schedule and invoicing of the customer will generate from Workday.
Roles and Responsibilites
The Dean’s Office Holds Responsibility for reviewing:
- contract terms and conditions
- the proposed pricing
- determining if other UW entities such as Comotion or OSP will need to review
- Signing Authority on Customer Contracts
Units are responsible for:
- preparing the pricing
- reviewing that pricing is updated annually as appropriate
- facilitating final execution of contract
- creating Customer Contracts with Billing Schedules and fully executed contracts as attachments
- reviewing if sales taxability and working with the tax office if questions arise
- Entering contracts into Workday
- Creating and Monitoring Billing Schedules
- Monitoring Revenue and Expenses in workday
- Obtaining Activity Worktags to identify the contract and track revenue and expenses through an FDM request process.
- Generating Customer Refunds if required
- Terminating Contracts, Cancelling Contracts
Sales Tax
Due to changing Washington State Laws, some Customer Contracts may be subject to Washington State Sales tax effective Fiscal Year 2026.
Please keep the following review points in mind:
- Proposal stage: Units should consider potential sales tax implications when developing proposals for customers. If there is uncertainty about whether an activity is taxable, units should proactively contact the Tax Office.
- Dean’s Office review: The Dean’s Office currently reviews contracts and can serve as an additional checkpoint. However, the initial review and responsibility for identifying potential “gray areas” should begin with the local unit submitting the request.
- Shared Environment review: The Shared Environment team reviews customer contracts when they are entered into Workday and may also identify potential issues. However, the initial determination and follow-up with the Tax Office should still begin with the local unit if it falls in a grey area.
- Customer contracts outside central review: Customer contracts do not route through central services for review, so there is not an automatic Tax Office or Cash Management review built into that process.