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September 2026 Newsletter Content Overview
- General
- Adobe Licenses—time to migrate to UW-IT license
- Accounting and Grants
- Effort and Project status updates
- Payments and Procurement
- Purchase Order and Encumbrance clean up
- 60-Day Reimbursement Policy Reminder
- Coming Soon: UW Travel Form Update for Multi-City Travel Details
- HR/Payroll
- Reminder: Autumn I-9 drop-in hours start September 30
- SDB Award Reminders for Autumn Quarter
- Return from Summer Hiatus
- Foreign National Services
- Update: New rule ending “Duration of Status” has been postponed
GENERAL
Adobe Licenses—time to migrate to UW-IT license
UW-IT has re-negotiated their contract with Adobe which will benefit all Adobe users as follows:
- Adobe Acrobat Pro is now available at no cost when using the UW-IT license. Please note that you must still request access to it.
- Adobe Creative Cloud Suite (which already includes Adobe Acrobat Pro) is now only $35 per year when using the UW-IT license.
Identify any Adobe users in your unit not using the UW-IT license and guide them to UW-IT to request access for their free Adobe Acrobat Pro license. Additional guidance will be shared in the following weeks, but in the meantime, please carefully review the following information.
What you need to know
Effective immediately, all Adobe Acrobat Pro and Adobe Creative Cloud Suite licenses should be provided via the UW-IT license.
What’s changing?
Purchasing individual licenses for these products outside of UW-IT will no longer be supported. This means that Adobe licenses can no longer be purchased via Workday workflows of Requisitions or Supplier Invoice Requests. After December 31, 2026, CAS will no longer reimburse employees for personal Adobe Acrobat Pro or Creative Cloud licenses, or allow these purchases on ProCard.
What this means to you
If you currently have a license separate from UW-IT, initiate your license via UW-IT for Adobe Acrobat Pro and/or Adobe Creative Cloud Suite and begin migrating your data. If you need assistance with migration, contact CAS IT at cas-ithelp@uw.edu.
If you have an upcoming renewal of an existing license: STOP the renewal and initiate license via UW-IT, as noted above. If the renewal is not stopped in time, cancel the purchase. Adobe provides a full refund within 14 days of purchase. If greater than 14 days, Adobe will issue a partial refund; CAS will honor the difference in amount.
If purchased on a ProCard, the College will allow processing of the refund, even if it is not the full amount. Cost Center Managers, Grant Managers, and Compliance reviewers should send back these purchases to ensure the transaction is cancelled.
If seeking an employee reimbursement for this expense, the purchase date of the license can be no later than November 1, 2026, and must be submitted no later than December 31, 2026. To receive the full reimbursement, the employee must demonstrate they have moved to the UW-IT license.
ACCOUNTING AND GRANTS
Effort and Project status updates
We are about mid-way through the current cycle for effort and project statements. Certifiers will have until October 23 to complete their step. CAS has an internal goal to have statements complete by October 2.
There are 8 effort and 30 project statements which still need attention from older cycles. Please prioritize their pre-reviews and certifications.
Here is the status of effort and project reporting as of September 15, 2026:
| Status | Effort | Project |
|---|---|---|
|
Pre Review |
89 |
282 |
|
Ready for Certification |
41 |
71 |
| Certified – great job! | 72 | 118 |
|
Total |
202 |
471 |
Need help?
- For ECC access, visit the ECC System Access page to get started.
- For questions regarding this process, please use our Grants Inquiry form to contact our Accounting and Grants team.
PAYMENTS AND PROCUREMENT
Purchase Order and Encumbrance clean up
Beginning September 1, Procurement has updated their Mass Close process for Purchase Orders (PO). Previously, the Mass Close process was used only for POs that were fully invoiced, received, and carried a zero balance. The updated process will now include POs with no activity for more than 12 months. This means the PO will be automatically closed, and the remaining balance on the encumbrance will be released without having to submit a UW Connect Purchase Order – Change or Close form request.
Procurement is implementing this process in phases. The first phase closed POs with no activity for 24 months. More information will be coming before October when the transition to this new process is complete.
Note: the Mass Close process will continue to exclude any POs with a Grant (GR) worktag. POs on grants will still need to be manually closed via a UW Connect Purchase Order – Change or Close form request to release the encumbrance.
60-Day Reimbursement Policy Reminder
As of July 6, 2026, the UW has changed how employees (including student employees) are reimbursed for travel and non-travel purchases. If an expense reimbursement isn’t submitted within 60 days, it will be treated as taxable income.
For more information about the new policy, visit AST’s Reimbursements page or the UW Travel Office’s Taxable Reimbursements page.
Coming Soon: UW Travel Form Update for Multi-City Travel Details
Earlier this year, AST updated our UW Travel Reimbursements form to allow requestors to enter additional details for a UW business trip with multiple destinations. This update was intended to help us identify appropriate meal per diem rates per request while reducing back-and-forth.
We are in the process of workshopping our form to make it easier for requestors to provide multi-city trip information, including a template travel details spreadsheet. Thank you for your patience as we continue to improve our form; we will share more information once these updates go live.
HR/PAYROLL
Reminder: Autumn I-9 drop-in hours start September 30
Autumn quarter is fast approaching! As a reminder, AST’s I-9 team will be hosting our annual I-9 drop-in hours from September 30 to October 7 in AST’s Office, Communications Building, B042 (located on the basement level). Please review and share the attached autumn 2026 I-9 drop-in schedule (PDF) with your incoming hires.
If your incoming hires want to complete the I-9 process early or are unable to attend drop-in hours, please encourage them to schedule an I-9 appointment via Calendly and verify their original, unexpired document(s) with our team. The earlier the appointment, the better! We highly recommend this process be done within three business days of their hire date, as required by USCIS.
Contact teamcas-i9@uw.edu if you or your incoming hires have any questions or concerns.
SDB Award Reminders for Autumn Quarter
Speaking of autumn quarter, AST will soon be able to process your autumn SDB award requests. In preparation for the upcoming academic year, we recommend the following action items:
- Encourage your students to set up direct deposit and update their address information in MyUW. Signing up for direct deposit is strongly encouraged so that students can receive their funds quickly and securely. If your student is unable to set up direct deposit, any aid checks they receive will be sent to their local (not permanent) address on file. Note that direct deposit in MyUW for SDB is separate from direct deposit in Workday for payroll.
- Submit your Requests for SDB Fund Number Setup for aid year 2026-2027 if you haven’t done so already. One of the most common delays for processing SDB award requests is not having your 6-digit fund numbers set up.
We also recommend submitting your SDB award requests to AST ahead of time so that our team can review requests and troubleshoot any issues before autumn quarter award processing begins.
Contact AST at teamcas@uw.edu if you have any questions. You can also reach out to Student Fiscal Services at sfshelp@uw.edu if you would like to confirm whether your funds are set up.
Return from Summer Quarter
All academic personnel placed on summer hiatus with an end date of 9/15/2026 will be returned to paid status centrally by UWHR. Please double-check after September 16 that no academic personnel are still on summer hiatus. Administrators and HR Managers can run the Leave Results for Organization report in Workday to identify all academic personnel in their sup orgs who were placed on summer hiatus to verify they have been returned to paid status.
Additionally, please ensure that all academic personnel have the appropriate worktags and FTE % in place for fall quarter. You can run the Employee Detail by Organization R0314 report with an effective date of 9/16/2026 to check this information. Please make sure any necessary corrections in Workday. Departments whose HR/Payroll transactions are administered by AST can submit tickets via our submission forms.
FOREIGN NATIONAL SERVICES
Update: New rule ending "Duration of Status" has been postponed
The new rule ending “Duration of Status” (D/S) for J-1 Exchange Visitors has been postponed by a federal court and will not go into effect on September 15, 2026, as originally planned. Please monitor the International Scholars Operations (ISO) blog for further developments as the court case proceeds.
ISO will be hosting an information session on Tuesday, September 15 at 2:00 PM for scholars affected by this change. Scholars can register for that session and review the information slide desk. J-1 holders can also consult ISO’s Scholar FAQ on End Duration of Status, or reach out to the Foreign National Services team at teamcas@uw.edu with specific questions or concerns.
As always, please fill out our General Inquiry Form (preferred) or email teamcas@uw.edu if you have any questions or concerns.
Administrative Support Team
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