Meal Credits

These funds are not visible in the Cougar Cash feature on the BYU app, but you can check your current balance and transaction history on My Financial Center.

1. Open a web browser on a phone or computer and go to myfinancialcenter.byu.edu.
   
2. If prompted, log into the site with your BYU Net ID and password.
   
3. The fourth section on the homepage is called “Cougar Cash / Meal Plans”. You will see the current balance of your employee meal credit here under the label “Employee Meal – Dining – PT”.
   
4. If you would like to see the transaction history for your meal credit, click the “Manage Account” button. You will then be able to select “Employee Meal – Dining – PT” from the Transaction History dropdown.

You can use your meal credit funds on the Dining Mobile Ordering feature on the BYU app. Just pay with your personal Cougar Cash at checkout. Areas that use Dining Mobile Ordering have asterisks next to them below.

You must pay with Cougar Cash (your BYU ID card).

This meal credit account is higher in priority than Cougar Cash.

Ex: If you are paying for a $7.50 transaction at Cougar Café but only have $4.00 on your meal credit account, BYU will charge $4.00 to your meal credit account and charge the balance ($3.50) to your personal Cougar Cash.

Meal plans are generally lower priority than this meal credit, so if you are an employee with a meal plan your employee meal credit funds will be used first.

The only exceptions to this rule are for meal plans at the Cannon Commons.

• Meal plans with a meal balance (meals instead of dollars) are higher priority than the meal credit at the Cannon Commons.
• Cannon Block of Meals funds are also higher priority than the meal credit at the Cannon Commons.

Employee meal credits should not be used to purchase Dining meal cards.

Each morning (4:46 AM) meal credit deposits and withdrawals are calculated from your BYU timesheet. This means that your daily posting will include both credit from the previous day’s shift(s) and any adjustments made the previous day by time corrections. Adjustments will always appear as a separate line item on your transaction history.

The process to pull data from your timesheet begins at 10 PM each night, so if you clock out for a shift after 10 PM there may be a one-day delay in your credit loading to your account.

Please email diningemployeemeals@byu.edu
with any questions or concerns.

Your meal credit account is set to not go over $250. This means you will not accrue any additional funds while your meal credit account’s balance is at $250.

Withdrawals happen on your account if time corrections are made and if you were issued more credit previously than you should have been. If this results in a negative balance, you will not be able to use the meal credit account until you build the balance back to a positive value. If you feel like there is an issue with your account, please contact diningemployeemeals@byu.edu.

Whenever you use meal credits to pay for a meal at the Cannon Commons, you will be charged the Dining part-time employee price. Here is the current pricing:

• Breakfast: $7.60
• Lunch: $9.65
• Dinner: $11.15
• Sunday Breakfast: $7.60
• Sunday Lunch: $12.55
• Sunday Dinner: $12.55

Any meal credits that you spend are considered earnings and we are required to report them on your paycheck for tax reasons.

• You can view your BYU paychecks at this link: https://hrms.byu.edu/psp/ps/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/ROLE_EMPLOYEE.PY_IC_PAY_INQ.GBL
• The funds you spend will be listed in the “Hours and Earnings” section on your paycheck under the description “Meal Credit – Non Cash Taxable”.
• The amount of meal credits you spend will not affect your total gross income or your net pay (the amount you are paid via direct deposit).
• The amount of meal credits you spend will be included in your federal gross taxable income.

Any meal credits that you spend are considered taxable earnings, and will be included in your calculated federal and state taxable income on your W-2.

For your 2021 W-2 (the W-2 you will receive in January 2022), only meal credits spent since Sunday, November 28 will be included.

1/6/2023 - Meal credits now accepted at vending machines.

7/28/2022 - Account maximum balance raised from $100 to $250, effective 8/5/2022.

1/19/2022 - Additional FAQ added with information on W-2 tax form.

12/17/2021 - Cannon Commons payment priority order modified so that Cannon Block of Meals is higher in priority than employee meal credits.

11/28/2021 - All funds employees spend starting on this date will appear on the employee's paycheck as taxable earnings.

9/21/2021 - Meal credit hourly rate increased from $0.50 per hour to $2.00 per hour. $100 account maximum balance introduced.

Occasionally system outages or issues create a delay in credits being issued the next day. When an incident occurs a notification will be posted here on this web page.

For full transparency, we will keep a history of credit issuance delays and issues here on this web page.

• Ongoing: There is occasionally a one-day delay with credits being issued (about once every two weeks). We are aware of the issue and are working to modify our process to eliminate this from happening.
• 4/25/2022 - BYU Data Feed lost all data, so all employees were issued withdrawals this morning. Correcting deposits were issued by 9:30AM that morning.
• 3/28-4/5/2022 - BYU had issues with data for 3% of Dining employees. Some employees lost data, other former employees had extra data. Affected employees saw large deposits or withdrawals around 3/28, and reversals of those issues by 4/5.
• 12/17/2021 - No credits were issued this day. All credits that should have been issued had a one day delay, and were posted 12/18.