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ACA Cloud Compliance Solution - PDF
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1 ACA Cloud Compliance Solution User Guide Last Update 6/8/ N. Kickapoo Lincoln, Illinois integrity-data.com **Updated Documentation** visit our website to check for updated user guides.
2 Copyright Manual copyright 2016 Integrity Data. All rights reserved. Limitation of Liability The content of this manual is furnished for informational use only, is subject to change without notice and should not be construed as a commitment by Integrity Data. Integrity Data assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or inaccuracies that may appear in this manual. Neither Integrity Data nor anyone else who has been involved in the creation, production or delivery of this documentation shall be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, exemplary or consequential damage, including but not limited to any loss of anticipated profit or benefits, resulting from the use of this documentation or sample code. Publication Date April 2016 Page 2 100
3 Table of Contents Basic Underpinnings of the ACA Law... 6 Measurement Method... 7 What s in this manual... 8 Future releases... 8 Symbols and conventions... 8 ACA Compliance Solution Login... 9 ACA Compliance Solution User Interface and Navigation Quick Setup Order Part 1: Global Settings User Management Part 2: Configuration ACA Setup Benefits (Deductions) Pay Code Standard Measurement Period Initial Measurement Period Seasonal Employee Override FMLA & All Unpaid Leave Company Waiver Code ACA Plan Exclude Active Employee and Waived Employees Control Group Government Entities Part 3: Utilities & Maintenance ACA Maintenance Edit 1095-C Edit 1094-C C Prerequisites Employees Employee Document Information Transactions Dependent Benefit Benefits Page 3 100
4 ACA Utilities Upload & Import Year End Close Generate IRS Files Utility Rehire Part 4: Alerts & Report Generation Report Interface Eligibility Reports Employee Reports IRS Forms ACA Alerts Part 5: Dashboard Reference and Contact Columns Part 6: C Step 1: Employee Data Import Importing Employees Step 2: Import Employees Step 3: View Payroll Employee Step 4: Templates Step 5: Employees General C and General Attachments Recipients List Part 7: Glossary Affordable Aggregated ALE Group Applicable Large Employer (ALE) Full Time Employee Hour of Service Look-Back Measurement Method Minimum essential coverage (MEC) Minimum value (MV) Page 4 100
5 Variable Hour Employee Offer of coverage Part 8: Contact Information Page 5 100
6 Basic Underpinnings of the ACA Law Integrity ACA Compliance Solution is web-based/hosted software designed to integrate with payroll systems such as Microsoft Dynamics GP, and other widely used ERP systems. The ACA Compliance Solution engine is designed to assist users in gaining compliance with the employer reporting and tracking requirements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), legislation signed into law on March 23, The statute, which restructures all health care delivery in the United States, comprises mandates for individuals, insurers, and employers. It is known by several shorter names: the Affordable Care Act, the ACA, the new health law, and Obamacare. The ACA Compliance Solution addresses the employer mandate and refers to the law as the Affordable Care Act, or the ACA. Under Section 4980H of the Internal Revenue Code, applicable large employers must offer their fulltime employees minimum essential coverage that provides minimum value and is affordable or potentially pay a penalty. Two important components of the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act form the basis of the reporting engine of the ACA Compliance software: First, the calculation to determine if a company is considered an applicable large employer Second, finding who is considered a full-time employee eligible for employer provided health coverage. The ACA defines an applicable large employer as an employer that employed an average of at least 50 full-time employees, including full-time employee equivalents, on business days during the preceding calendar year. An employer not in existence during an entire preceding calendar year will be an applicable large employer for the current calendar year if this employer is reasonably expected to employ an average of at least 50 full-time employees, including full-time employee equivalents, on business days during the current calendar year. For employer in a common control or affiliated group, the ALE count is determined by the combined totals of the aggregated ALE group, not individually. According to the Affordable Care Act, a full-time employee is anyone who has worked or was expected to have worked on average, 30 hours per week. An employee who works 130 per month is equivalent to 30 hours per week. To credit an employee with hours of service, the ACA requires tracking of (1) each hour for which an employee is paid, or entitled to payment, for the performance of duties for the employer; and (2) each hour for which an employee is paid, or entitled to payment by the employer on account of a period of time during which no duties were performed because of vacation, holiday, illness, incapacity (including disability), layoff, jury duty, military duty or leave of absence. Page 6 100
7 Measurement Method If an employer is determined to be an applicable large employer, there are two methods the employer can use to identify employees who are eligible for employer sponsored health coverage - the Monthly Measurement method or the Look-back Measurement method. Under the monthly measurement method, the employer determines if an employee is a full-time employee on a month-by-month basis by looking at whether the employee has at least 130 hours of service for in any month. If the employee meets the requirement of working at least 130 hours in any one month they would be eligible for health coverage no later than the first day after the next two months from the month they reached 130 hours. Under the look-back measurement method, variable hour employees are tested to determine if they qualify as being full-time based upon the hours of service that the employee is credited with during a period of time that cannot be less than 3 months and no more than 12 months. During this period of time the employee will be tested to determine if, on average, they work at least 30 hours per week during the entire testing period. Employers with hourly paid workers who may have varying schedules usually use the look-back measurement method. Another advantage of the look-back method is that in order for an employee to be tested they must remain employed during the entire testing period. Page 7 100
8 What s in this manual This manual is designed to provide you with a framework for understanding and working with the ACA Compliance Solution software. Each section will provide guidance on how to reach the compliance mandated. Included are instructions on software utilities that have been developed as part of this package to help users maximize the functionality of their ERP system. Future releases The ACA Compliance Solution will continue to have product updates and feature releases as we receive feedback from customers and guidance from the IRS. As updates are released, you may see menu navigation changes and new functionality published. We typically publish changes on a Sunday evening. You will be notified of changes via if you are on our ACA distribution list. Symbols and conventions Page 8 100
9 ACA Compliance Solution Login An is sent with an invite to login to the ACA Compliance Solution. When you receive the from in your inbox click the link within this to login. If you have not received this check your junk or spam folders for the invite. After selecting the link to login, a web Browser will open to a login screen. You may authenticate your login by using a Microsoft Live account or a Google account. If you do not have these types of accounts, you can create an account. There is no cost to create the Microsoft Live or Goggle the account. Page 9 100
10 ACA Compliance Solution User Interface and Navigation When you first log in to the ACA Compliance Solution, you will be able to view the Dashboard page as depicted below. From here, you will have access to all the navigation elements and feature pages. Header Information appears at the top of the screen, which includes the currently logged in account (eg. Wilbur Consulting) and user (eg. Sebastian Farnsworth). Main Navigation appears on the left in expandable menu panels. The most frequently used items appear toward the top. If you are just beginning to use the application, you may spend more time in the menus lower down for your setup efforts. The menus are defined according to the following: Dashboard Also serves as the landing page. Consists of a series of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) organized at the top of the page, which provide high level visibility into the status of the application with the following: o Alerts o Percentage of Employees Covered o ALE FTE Count o FTE without coverage o Minimum Essential Coverage Cost o Days Remaining in Admin Period Alerts & Reports Provides access to Eligibility, Employee and IRS reports. It also contains the Alert Log functionality Utilities & Maintenance Contains the following maintenance and utility items: ACA Maintenance o Edit 1095-C information o Edit 1094-C information o 1094-C Prerequisites o Employees o Employee Company Exceptions Page
11 o o o o o o o o Transactions Dependent Benefit Benefits ACA Utilities Upload & Import Year End Close Generate IRS Files Utility Rehire Configuration Contains the section for all setup items as per the following: ACA Setup o Benefit o Pay Code o Standard Measurement Period o Initial Measurement Period o Seasonal Employee Override o FMLA o Company o Waiver Code o ACA Plan o Exclude Active Employee (Waived Coverage) o Control Group o Government Entities Global Settings o User Management Provides the ability to manage users who have access to the ACA Compliance Solution, as well as invite new users. All functionality is contained within the above-mentioned pages with exception of reports, which can be exported to various file formats or printed directly. Page
12 Quick Setup Order It is important to complete the setups in this order. 1. Global Settings User Management to set up new users. For more details, review the User Management video here. 2. Configuration > ACA Setup Standard Measurement Periods Initial Measurement Period Company Setup Enter Company setup information. The company(s) are required to be setup before the import and the Company ID needs to match the ID in the import file. o o You will not be able to fill out all fields at this time. You can fill out lowest cost plan after the import process completes. The Control Group will need to be setup before setting up the Default Control Group ID. The Company or Companies must be setup before the Imports will be successful. Control Group Add each company with their unique company ID as their own group. If companies are in a common controlled or affiliated group you can setup a unique group id for the combined group and place each member in that group. Reports will not runs without this entry. 3. Utilities and Maintenance > ACA Utilities > Upload & Import We are now ready to import the data. If you do not have the import file ready, please review this KB article for details on what information is needed to import the data. Also review the Upload & Import Data section of this document for more details. 4. Configuration > ACA Setup Now that the data has been imported we can complete the setups. Company complete any additional items that were not setup before the import, if any. Benefits It is important to note that Employer Benefit and Employer Family Benefit must be checked in order to complete ACA Plan portion. See additional information regarding Benefits in the Benefits section of this document. Deduction will not be used unless you are using the W2 Safe Harbor. 5. Reports (Eligibility, Employee, IRS Forms) Full-Time Employee and Equivalents (ALE) Standard Measurement Initial Measurement Monthly Initial Measurement Eligibility View rest of them 6. Utilities & Maintenance ACA Maintenance The bottom four are places to Edit, Delete or Add respective records Edit 1095-C Information This will fill after you complete the Year End Close 7. IRS REPORT GENERATION SETUP ORDER 1094-C Prerequisites Utilities & Maintenance/ACA Maintenance Year End Close Utilities & Maintenance/ACA Utilities 1095-C, 1094-C Forms Alerts & Report/ACA Reports/IRS Forms Edit 1095-C, Edit 1094-C Utilities & Maintenance/ACA Maintenance Generate IRS Files Utilities & Maintenance/ACA Utilities Page
13 Part 1: Global Settings This section contains the configuration data for the tenant wide system which affects all Integrity Cloud Service Applications inclusive of the ACA Compliance Solution. If you have any other services in addition to the ACA Compliance Solution then items in this section will apply to them User Management The ACA Compliance Solution begins with a single admin user, which was defined during the initial onboarding process upon purchase of the product. The example below shows this condition for Wilbur Consulting: For an existing user, the name, phone number, and fields are all editable. You can add another user by clicking Add User in the grid header region. The creation of a user alone does not mean they will have access to the system. You will need to send an invitation to the user by clicking the Invite button. This will send an to the user s specified address and allow them to click a link establishing their credentials to log into the ACA Compliance Solution. Establishing their credentials means that the user will need to select an authentication provider (currently Google accounts or Microsoft live accounts are supported). Please note that the invitation itself can be sent to any address but the actual login credentials themselves are tied to the aforementioned authentication provider. For example: Sebastian Farnsworth has an address of and that is where the invite was sent. Once Sebastian checked his and clicked on the invitation embedded in the invite, he was prompted to select an authentication provider. It is at this point that Sebastian will need to provide Google or Microsoft credentials to log into the ACA Compliance Solution. NOTE: It is advisable to create at least one more user and invite them to the ACA Compliance Solution as soon as possible after logging into the solution for the first time. This will ensure that there is at least one other user of the system in the event that a problem arises with the initial user, e.g. technical issue or user leaves the company etc Page
14 Part 2: Configuration ACA Setup This section contains most of the configuration data, which in turn affects what is included in final reporting. Benefits (Deductions) The ACA Compliance Solution recognizes a Benefit as well as a Deduction in the upload of transactions to determine if an employee has taken health insurance. The system looks for a 2 or a 3 record type and pulls the associated codes into the Benefit Window and appends the codes directly to an employee. The only Codes you need for the ACA are those that are related to Health (Not Dental or Optical). The exception will be if you have a W2 Safe Harbor in which case you may need all the deductions. Employee benefits include various types of non-wage compensation provided to employees in addition to their normal wages or salaries. These costs are incurred by the employer on behalf of the employee. Keep in mind the difference between a benefit and a deduction: o o A benefit is paid for by the employer as part of a compensation package. A deduction is a transaction in which an employer collects money from an employee s pay checks. In the ACA Compliance Solution, either a benefit or deduction code that has been checked for health coverage tracking will be used to monitor employees that had accepted coverage. If you are an employer who covers 100% of the employee cost for coverage you would typically have only benefit records. If you require an employee to participate in their individual health costs you would have a deductions for their portion. In some cases you may have both the benefit record for the employer portion of the cost and a deduction record for the employee portion of the cost. Your Benefits/Deductions will appear after a successful Employee and Transaction Import of Data. The Affordable Care Act Solution only needs Health Benefits/Deductions unless you are using a W2 Safe Harbor. In that case, you will need deductions as well. You can manually add benefit/deduction codes by selecting the Add new benefit option on the top. Page
15 Benefit/Deduction Codes consist of a Code ID and a description as well as the checkboxes defined below. Users can add, delete and edit benefits. Be sure to note the Type should say medical only for those Benefit/Deduction Codes that are actually Medical. If they are not Medical, then no check box should be selected and they will be ignored when identifying who had elected coverage. *Benefit to Include By selecting the Employer Benefit check box, the system will track this benefit on an employee-byemployee basis. Make sure that, when you attach this benefit to the employee, (See Benefit Maintenance) you input the correct start date. Reporting for ACA compliance will rely on that date being accurate. If you have separated family benefits/deductions into their own codes you can check the box associated with family only benefits or deductions. Although there is no affordability standard for spouse and dependent coverage at this time, our solution will track this for reporting purposes. You should only use this feature if you have setup codes that separate the spouse and/or family costs and does not include any of the employee s cost of coverage. *Benefit (Family) to Include An employer may extend employer-paid health care benefits to dependents of employees. The ACA requires reporting of dependent coverage for self-insured plans only. If you provide employer-paid health care benefits to dependents, select the Employer Family Benefit check box for a benefit. Remember, this is for employer-paid health care benefits to dependents. If an employer provides health care coverage options for dependents but does not pay any portion of those costs, there is no need for a benefit code. Those costs are deducted from the employee s wages as included under the deduction code for family coverage *Deduction to Include An employer may provide health care coverage to employees but require an employee to pay a portion of those costs. Deductions are amounts taken out of employee wages. If an employee is required to pay a portion of their health care cost, select the Deduction check box. When setting up these deductions on an individual employee basis, make sure you pay close attention to the start date. This information is now needed for annual reporting. *Deduction (Family) to Include An employer may provide health care coverage to dependents of employees but require an employee to pay a portion or all of those costs. Deductions are amounts taken out of employee wages. If an employee is required to pay a portion of a dependent s health care costs, select the Family Deduction check box. When setting up these deductions on an individual employee basis, make sure you pay close attention to the start date or adjusted hire date of the employee. This information is now needed for annual reporting. Page
16 The transaction import process (defined later) will actually auto-create benefit/deduction codes that are found in the import file. In practice you may find that you rarely need to manually enter a benefit/deduction code apart from the import process. Pay Code Most ACA reporting is based on number of hours worked. In this section, you will define the pay codes that represent hours that an employee works. These are the pay codes that will be included in the calculation of reported hours worked. Click on Add new record at top left to add a pay code. You may also edits and delete pay code records. Employee hours for the purpose of the ACA are defined as follows: (1) each hour for which an employee is paid, or entitled to payment, for the performance of duties for the employer; and (2) each hour for which an employee is paid, or entitled to payment by the employer on account of a period of time during which no duties are performed due to vacation, holiday, illness, incapacity (including disability), layoff, jury duty, military duty or leave of absence. Not all Pay Code IDs are necessarily represented. Commissions, bonuses and profit sharing are examples of pay codes that are not used for tracking hours; they are usually entered as dollars. However, if you are using a W2 Safe Harbor you will need to include these for determining Gross Income. If you are importing these types of transaction you would put in a zero for the hours of service. Avoid double-counting hours. An example is an employer that pays an hourly base rate and a shift premium. If these are separated into two pay codes, you only want to include one, usually the base hour pay code. Including both could double-count the hours. The transaction import process (defined later) will actually auto-create pay codes that are found in the import file. In practice you may find that you rarely need to manually enter a pay code apart from the import process. Standard Measurement Period Background If an employer is reasonably unable to determine that an employee will work, on average, 30 hours per week they can establish a testing period for eligibility determination. Referred to as the lookback measurement method, employers are permitted to determine an employee s full-time status based on a Page
17 measurement period established by the employer. The measurement period can be up to 12 consecutive months but no less than 3 months. During the measurement period, an employer is not subject to an excise tax payment for not offering the employee with affordable health coverage. Employees determined to be full-time during a standard measurement period must be offered coverage during a corresponding stability period of the same length, but not less than six months, even if their hours drop below the 30 hour per week average during this period and they remain employed. In order for an employee to be tested in a standard measurement period they must have worked the complete period without interruption. If your company has high turnover or lower waged workers it is advisable to use a 12 month measurement period. In an effort to provide flexibility to employers, an employer can have different measurement and stability periods for four categories of employees: 1. Employees located in different states 2. Salaried and hourly employees 3. Employees of different entities 4. Collectively bargained employees and non-collectively bargained employees You can set up multiple standard measurement periods as defined above using the standard measurement period setup page. The system allows for either one default standard measurement period or multiple periods defined by location and type of employee. Period You can select an existing period ID or create a new one by typing a name into the New Period field. This is a unique name for this standard measurement period. You can have multiple standard measurement periods. Employment Type Drop-down list that includes: o o o ALL All employees are included in this Period ID. SALARY Only salaried employees are included in this Period ID. HOURLY Only hourly employees are included in this Period ID. Page
18 In most cases you would select ALL for this option. Page
19 State The ACA allows you to have different standard measurement periods by location which is defined as States. This drop down list contains the State abbreviations applicable for your employees. (Derived from transactions and employee maintenance records) You can choose to select individually or include ALL. Close Period This feature reserved for a future release Start of Measurement Period You can start your measurement period as of the hire date or the first day of the next month. In most cases, you will select Using First Day of Next Month. The reason for this is that you are not credited with having offered coverage to an individual unless the coverage period included every day of the month. Most insurance coverage starts on the first day of the month. Standard Measurement Period Input the start date for your measurement period. Input the number of months in your period. The end date will automatically calculate. Administrative Period The administrative period is used to Administrative periods If you have an administrative period, input the start date of the administrative period and the number of months. ACA Compliance Solution will not allow you to enter more than 3 months. Stability Period Employees determined to be full-time during a measurement period must be offered coverage during a corresponding stability period of generally the same length even if their hours drop below full-time, provided they remain employed. The stability period can be no shorter than 6 months. The stability period can be no longer than the preceding measurement period. Input the start date of the stability period and the number of months. ACA Compliance Solution will check for compliance. Initial Measurement Period Initial measurement periods apply to employees hired after the start date of the current standard measurement period. A new employee is defined as an employee who has not been employed at least one standard measurement period. It s important to note that the initial measurement period and the standard measurement period are different: o o The standard measurement period applies to all employees within a given time range. The initial measurement period applies to an individual employee based on their start date. An initial measurement period s start and end dates are based on an employee s hire date and whether tracking starts on the hire date or the first day of the following month after hire date. Page
20 There are no predefined start and end dates. The initial measurement period is variable as it changes depending on an employee s hire date. Although an employer is allowed an administrative period of up to 90 days, there is one exception that needs to be considered: The Initial Measurement period and Administrative Period combined cannot exceed 13 months, but the administrative period following a standard measurement period may last up to 90 days. Page
21 Start of Measurement Period You can elect to have the initial measurement period start as of the hire date or the first day of the next month after hire date. It is common practice to choose the latter Using First Day of Next Month Initial Measurement Period - Months Input the number of months in the initial measurement period. Administrative Period - Months Input the number of months for the administrative period. Stability Period- Months Input the number of months for the stability period for new hires. The initial measurement period, as selected by the employer, must be between 3 and 12 months, and may begin on the employee s start date or the first day of the next month. The employer measures the number of hours completed by the new employee during the initial measurement period and determines whether the employee completed an average of 30 hours per week. If the newly hired employee is determined to be a full-time employee during the initial measurement period, the employer must treat the employee as a full-time employee during the subsequent stability period, which must be the same length as the stability period for ongoing employees. Page
22 Seasonal Employee Override The use of the seasonal employee override feature will only affect the employer s classification as an applicable large employer. It has no effect on individual eligibility. The seasonal employee exception applies if, during the prior calendar year, (1) an employer s full-time employee workforce (including FTEs) exceeded 50 employees on only 120 or fewer days, and (2) seasonal workers were the only reason the 50-employee threshold was exceeded during this period. This utility allows an employer to classify an employee as being seasonal even if the above rule does not apply. The IRS has provided guidance on rules that may apply even if the employee works more than 120 days. Simply click Add New Employee to create a record and Delete to remove a record. Click Here for Knowledge Base Article on Seasonal Page
23 FMLA & All Unpaid Leave This page allows you to track FMLA absences in order to not penalize the employee for not having performed services during this period. This window also is used for any unpaid leave that hours are not tracked such as Jury Duty & Military Deployments. If an employee takes FMLA and is being tested within a measurement period, these entries will automatically be factored into the calculations. When reporting for testing periods, both standard and initial measurement, the calculation looks for entries in this table to see if there was an absence where the employee needs to be credited hours for that period of time. The system will calculate the total number of hours of service during that period, calculate the number of days during the period that were not FMLA and divide those days into the total hours. This gets an average hours per day worked. We will then multiple that average by the number of days during the testing period they were on FMLA. That will credit them their average hours as if they had worked. If an employee is out on FMLA for the entire year but has Health coverage, you will need to upload benefit codes for the 12 months that they are absent as well as hours of service per month. This FMLA window does not apply for such a scenario because there are no hours for the system to calculate the average hours worked per day. To create an FMLA entry, select an employee ID from the drop down box. The system will display any FMLA records which currently exist. A record simply consists of a start and ending date representing the time an employee was on FMLA. You may create more than one date range to represent multiple periods of FMLA leave. To delete a given record simply click the delete button for the appropriate row record. Page
24 Company Provides basic setup information for a company which will be used in subsequent calculations. Select a company from the Company ID drop down or select to create new. You will then be presented with the existing company data or have the option to define it for a new company. Click save to save the record and delete to remove the company. Clicking clear will undo changes and cancel the operation, returning you to the page as if you first arrived. Company Information Company ID Company Name EIN Phone Number Country Address1 Address2 City State Zip Page
25 Current Standard Measurement Period ID: Select the current standard measurement period, which will be used for determining eligibility for employee access to employer provided health care coverage. Previous Standard Measurement Period ID: Select the previous standard measurement period used to determine eligibility for access to employer-provided health coverage. This is used to track people in their initial measurement period. Default Control Group ID: Select a control group for this company. Eligibility Method: Select the method applicable to this company 1. Lookback Measurement- Employers are permitted to determine an employee s full-time status based on a lookback measurement period established by the employer of up to 12 consecutive months but no less than 3 months. The stability period can be no less than 6 months. This is a testing period that looks back onto the previous year or split years to determine an employee s eligibility. This is setup in the SMP. This lookback method works well if a company has part-time employees as it averages the hours for a longer period of time. 2. Monthly Measurement Employers can select a single month to look at the hours an employee works. If the employee worked 130 hours in the previous month, then they must be offered insurance no later than the first day after the next two months from when they hit 130 hours. If they accept the offer, then the law states that the employee remains covered under the accepted insurance until they have three consecutive months of not meeting 130 hours per month. For example: If I get 130 hours in Jan, 80 in Feb, 90 in Mar and 25 in Apr, I can be eliminated from coverage May 1. However, if I have 130 hours in Jan, 80 in Feb, 90 in Mar and 131 in Apr, I cannot be eliminated and my three consecutive months resets from April. This method works well for companies that have all Full Time employees or very limited Part Time because the data import is only for the year. Realize though that this method lacks the averaging of hours over a longer test period. Once you decide to do testing that spans more than one month you are no longer in the monthly method you are in a lookback method and must comply with the requirements for the lookback method. The Monthly Employee Hours Report is useful to determine the hours worked in a month. The software system still requires that you setup a Standard Measurement Period in order to work correctly. The minimum requirement is 3mo SMP, 1 month Admin Period, and 6 Months of Stability Period. This setup will be overridden by choosing the Monthly Measurement Period here in the Company Setup for IRS reporting. Current Lowest Cost Plan ID: Input the Plan ID that represents the lowest cost which is currently in place. Federal Poverty Line: The mainland single federal poverty limit, which is updated each year by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This figure is used to monitor affordability standards in regards to a company offering a qualified plan. Enter the dollar amount corresponding to the federal poverty line. The neighboring field, expressed as a percentage, is the affordability percentage. This is also published yearly by HHS. Enter the corresponding percentage. Page
26 Initial Stability Period Start Date: The date in CY2015 in which the employer began compliance with the employer mandate of the ACA. This is used to identify months in which the employer failed to offer coverage as required. An example is an employer who was required to offer coverage 01/01/2015 but did not do so until 05/01/2015. The Initial Stability Period Start Date would be 05/01/2015. This should not be confused with non-calendar year plans that had transit relief for CY2015 until the anniversary date of those plans. Electronic Filing Mask SSN: This option is only used in instances when the user is filing forms electronically to the IRS. When checked, this option will cause the printed forms to mask the first 5 digits of the employee Social Security Number. It is used primarily when distributing copies of the forms to employees who have privacy concerns with the personal information NOTE: if you are submitting printed forms to the IRS and not filing electronically, then this option should be unchecked when printing the copies you intend to send to the IRS. You can recheck the option for printing employee copies if you wish. Eligible Employees 1095-C: If this checkbox is marked, then the year end process will only create 1095-C data for eligible employees for sake of printing and submitting to the IRS. When unchecked, the year-end process will make 1095-C data available for all employees even those who are not required to receive one. NOTE: Electronic filing via IRS will only consider eligible employees regardless of this setting. Lowest Cost Plan Available to All: If the lowest cost plan is available to all, check this box. This check will tell the system that the least cost plan was available to all eligible employees. This is used in conjunction with the required waiver checkbox to determine if waivers are required or if the least cost plan is used by default Require Waiver: If you require waivers, the system will only give credit for offering coverage to covered employee or employees who have a documented waiver. If a company fails to get a waiver the software will assume that no coverage was made available Start of Month: When this checkbox is selected the Number of Months field becomes active. Otherwise the Waiting period day s field is active. Number of months: For many plans, full time employees become eligible on the first of the month following the date of hire. If full-time employees are eligible for enrollment the first of day of the next month after hire enter 0. (Zero) If they are eligible the first day after the first full month enter 1. First day after second full month enter 2, etc. This is different than waiting period days as waiting period days are tied to an employee s start date. Waiting Period Days: The number of days that new full-time employees (employees who are expected to work on average 30 or more hours per week from the start of their hire date) will have to wait for coverage. Waiting periods cannot be more than 90 days. Educational Organization: Check if you are an educational organization. This will affect the break in service and adjunct employee accounting. Government Entity: Check if your company is affiliated with a government entity and you need to include the entity information on your 1094-C for this company. Government Entity Name: Select the appropriate government entity from the list of available entities. This field is only enabled when the Government Entity checkbox is marked. Page
27 Credit Hours Based On: There are three option to indicate how hours are to be credited Spread over pay period - Allocates hours to the appropriate month when pay period transactions are spread over more than one month First day of pay period - Uses first day of the transaction s pay period for the month in which hours will be allocated. Pay periods must be consistently applied for each calendar month of the year. An employer would not be able to use this method if during the year they switched from a bi-weekly payroll to a semi monthly payroll schedule Last day of pay period - Uses last day of the transaction s pay period for the month in which hours will be allocated. Pay periods must be consistently applied for each calendar month of the year. An employer would not be able to use this method if during the year they switched from a bi-weekly payroll to a semi monthly payroll schedule Seasonal Worker Days: Input the days for which an employee will be classified as a seasonal worker. Currently 120 days. Break in Service Weeks: Input the number of weeks the ACA allows for a break in service determination to allow for classification of an employee as a new hire. Currently 13 weeks. Waiver Code While the ACA requires applicable large employers to offer affordable employer-provided health coverage, an employee is under no obligation to accept. The IRS has strongly advised that when an employee waives coverage, it be annotated that they waived and when that occurred. For variable-hour employees, a waiver is only good through the measurement period that was in place when the waiver was requested. An employer must open up coverage after each measurement period and all prior waivers are voided. You must resubmit waivers for every measurement period. To add a code click the Add New Waiver Code button. You can edit or delete existing codes as well. Waiver Code: Enter a waiver code you would like to use to track employees who refuse coverage. Description: Provide a description of the waiver code Page
28 ACA Plan Benefit Plan Setup focuses on three areas of the ACA Form 1095-C Box 14 and Box 16, affordability analysis, and safe harbor calculations. This setup information is also used to monitor least-cost plans and to identify the plan being offered as a self-insured plan. The first illustration below demonstrates the setup for a calendar year health plan. The second, illustrates a non-calendar year health plan setup that is self-insured with a Rate of Pay Safe Harbor. If you are unfamiliar with these plan concepts, consult your insurance broker for further guidance. They should be able to provide you the necessary guidance for filling out the selection options here. Health Care Benefit Plan: Input the Benefit ID. Lookup screen will provide a lookup of benefit plans that were checked during the Benefit Code Setup. Choose the Least Cost to the Employee Plan. Plan may span multiple years of coverage. For each year, a record is maintained for that specific plan date range as defined in the Start Date and End Date. For each plan year, a record needs to be entered. Qualifying Offer (1A): Drop-down list. Select Yes/No. A qualifying offer is an offer of minimum value coverage providing minimum value offered to full-time employee with employee contribution for self-only coverage equal to or less than 9.56% mainland single federal poverty line and at least minimum essential coverage offered to spouse and dependents. For calendar year 2016, the affordability percentage was raised to 9.66%. Using the mainland single federal poverty line, the employee contribution for self-only coverage in 2016 cannot exceed $94.75 per month. Page
29 PLAN PROVIDES (See the Glossary found on Page 98) Min Essential Coverage: Check if plan provides minimum essential coverage. Minimum essential coverage (MEC) is defined by the ACA as most group health plans offered by a large or small employer, or health coverage provided by the government. If a plan meets the requirement of being offered as group health coverage within a state, that plan usually offers minimum essential coverage. Min Value: Check if plan provides Minimum Value. Minimum Value is an ACA requirement that ensures health insurance policies and plans provide coverage at or above a threshold level. Minimum Value is met when a plan pays on average at least 60% of the actuarial value of the total allowed cost of benefits under the plan. Keep in mind that a plan may offer minimum essential coverage but not provide minimum value. PLAN COVERS These columns provide guidance on who is covered under this plan. Employee: Check if an employee is covered under this plan. Spouse: Check if a spouse is covered under this plan. Dependents: Check if a dependent, other than a spouse, is covered under this plan. Start Date: Input the start date of the plan year. For a non-calendar year plan, as shown in the example above input the start date of the year before the 2016 plan begins. Then add an additional record with the 2016 plan year dates. This is done to display the full 12 months of the current year s plan. End Date: Input the end date of the plan year. For a non-calendar year plan, as shown in the example above, input the end date of the year before the 2016 plan begins. Then add an additional record with the 2016 year dates. This is done to display the full 12 months of the current year s plan. Safe Harbor: Drop-down list. Select applicable safe harbor or none if no safe harbor is used for that plan year. Under the ACA, coverage is affordable if no full-time employee is required to pay more than 9.56% of his or her household income for self-only coverage under the employer s lowest-cost option that provides minimum value. This percentage is accurate for In 2016, it s 9.66%, and will continue to be adjusted on a yearly basis. Household income was initially defined in guidance as the employee s income in Box 1 on Form W-2. However, subsequent regulations (issued 12/28/2012) established three safe harbors an employer can opt to use to comply with the affordability test. In addition to affordability testing, safe harbors offer employers a way of avoiding some risk associated with variable-hour employees who may work less than 30 hours weeks during their stability period. Two of the safe harbors provide for employee deductions that are not tied to their hours worked. Page
30 The ACA does not allow a company to change a safe harbor option within a plan year. However, a company can change options when a new plan year starts. A company can also use a different safe harbor for different plans. By maintaining this information on a historical plan, you will be able to see how the plan may have changed over the years. None: Select if no safe harbor is used. W-2 Income (2F): Select if employer will be using Box 1, W-2 wages for determining affordability. When using this method, the W-2 Form for the current year is used. That is, the total W-2 compensation for 2016 (from a particular employer) determines the maximum monthly amount that employer can charge the employee for self-only coverage. Choosing this Safe Harbor will require that you upload nonhour $ amounts for bonuses, tips, and commissions as well as deductions for medical. Rate of Pay (2H): Select if employer will use Rate of Pay safe harbor for this plan. Under this safe harbor, employer provided coverage is treated as affordable for a calendar month if the employee s required contribution for the calendar month for the lowest-cost self-only coverage that provides minimum value does not exceed 9.66% of an amount equal to 130 hours multiplied by the lower of the employee s hourly rate of pay as of the first day of the coverage period (generally the first day of the plan year) or the employee s lowest hourly rate of pay during the calendar month. Under this rule, an employer can elect to use the lowest paid employee wage as the base for the calculation or can use the minimum wage rate in effect at the first day of the plan year. For example, $11.00 per hr. X.0966 x130=$138.14/mo. as the self-only cost to the employee. Federal Poverty Line (2G): Select if the employer will use the federal poverty line to determine affordability. Under this safe harbor, employer-provided coverage is treated as affordable if the employee s required contribution for the calendar month for the lowest-cost self- only coverage that provides minimum value does not exceed 9.56% of a monthly amount determined as the federal poverty line for a single individual for the applicable calendar year, divided by 12. (Again, this percentage is accurate for It rises to 9.66% in 2016 and will continue to be adjusted yearly.) This safe harbor is intended to provide employers a predetermined maximum amount of employee contribution that in all cases will result in the coverage being deemed affordable Federal Poverty Line Maximum deduction per month 48 states and District of Columbia: $11,770 (11,770 x 9.66%) / 12 = $ per month Alaska: $14,580 (14,580 x 9.66%) / 12 = $ per month Hawaii: $13,420 (13,420 x 9.66%) / 12 = $ per month The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issues the federal poverty guidelines annually to determine financial eligibility for certain federal programs and benefits. These guidelines can change from year to year. The safe harbor deduction for the plan year is based on the federal poverty level on the first day of the plan year. Multi-Employer IR (2E): The Multi-Employer Interim Guidance applies to an applicable large employer member that is required by a collective bargaining agreement or an appropriate related participation agreement to make contributions, with respect to some or all of its employees. Union contracts often call for employers to contribute to member health coverage. Page
31 Validate Safe Harbor: This is for a future release. Least Cost Plan: Check this box if this is the only plan being offered for employer provided health coverage or if this plan represents the least-cost plan option provided by the employer if multiple plans are provided. Self-Insured: Check this box if this plan is a self-insured plan. By selecting this option you will be required to keep information on all Dependents who are covered under the plan. The information for all individuals will include, at a minimum, first name, last name, relationship to employee, individual s SSN and birthdate. Self Only Cost: Enter the cost for self-only employee coverage for the plan year. Percentage: Enter the percentage of the affordability testing. For 2015, it is 9.56%. For 2016, it is 9.66%. This percentage may be adjusted each year by the IRS. The percentage used for the entire year is the percentage in place on the start date of the plan. If a plan spans multiple years, the rate used at the start date of the plan remains in effect until the next plan year. Exclude Active Employee and Waived Employees The exclude active employee window is used to define which employees will be exempt from the ACA calculation even though they are active employees. To add an employee click the Add new record button. You can also edit or delete a record. Employee ID: Once the Employee ID is selected, the first name and last name will automatically populate. Waiver Date: Specify a date for the waiver. Waiver Code: Specify a waiver code for this employee. The waiver code is the code(s) that were set up during waiver code setup will appear as choices in the drop down list. Page
32 Print: Clicking the print button will display the Exclude Active Employee report, depicted below. There are several export options to save as, (ie. PDF or Excel) Exclusion of people is optional for most ACA reporting. The only time it must be done is when you have fewer than 50 employees and are applying for a Small Business Health Care Tax Credit. The following individuals are not considered employees for purposes of full-time equivalent calculation: owners of the small business, such as sole proprietors, partners, shareholders owning more than 2% of an S corporation or more than 5% of a C corporation a spouse of an owner family members of an owner, including: a child a grandchild a sibling or step-sibling a parent or ancestor of a parent a stepparent a niece or nephew an aunt or uncle a son-in-law, daughter-in-law, father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law or sister-in-law a spouse of any family member listed above Page
33 Control Group The Affordable Care Act has placed new emphasis on the need to determine when and if related organizations must be treated as a single employer for purposes of meeting various ACA requirements. Simply setting up different companies under separate tax ID numbers does not relieve related employers from being treated as a single employer under controlled group rules. The ACA Compliance Solution when purchased as Multi Entity allows commonly controlled groups and affiliated groups to report as a single entity. This option will allow you to choose which companies will be consolidated for reporting and tracking purposes. If you need to consolidate multiple companies into a single reporting entity, you just need to set up a common Control Group ID and associate the different companies to this Control Group ID. To create a group click Add New Control Group and specify a Control Group ID and Company. You may delete a group by clicking delete. We have as an example below COMBINED as a common Control Group ID. Page
34 A good practice is to set up a single Control Group ID for each company. This way, you will be able to track and report on either a combined basis or for each individual company. In the example above each company has its own control group but each company also belongs to a common control group (COMBINED). This allows the user to report on each company separately or as a combine group. Control Group ID: Input a GroupID Company ID: Select the company name from the drop down. This list is populated form the companies you have already set up in Company Setup. Page
35 Government Entities This page allows you to create one or more government entity records. Such records are only needed if your company is associated with such an entity for reporting purposes. The government entity information will appear on the 1094-C form, if it is specified here AND you have marked the Government Entity checkbox in Company Setup with the Entity ID selected in the drop down. Select an entity from the Entity ID drop down or select to create new. You will then be presented with the existing entity data or have the option to define it for a new entity. Click save to save the record and delete to remove the entity. Clicking clear will undo changes and cancel the operation, returning you to the page as if you first arrived. Page
36 Field Information The following fields are part of the record information. Additional detail provided in parenthesis Entity ID Entity Name (appears on 1094-C) EIN (appears on 1094-C) Phone Number (appears on 1094-C) Address1 (appears on 1094-C) Address2 (appears on 1094-C) City (appears on 1094-C) State (appears on 1094-C) Zip (appears on 1094-C) Country (appears on 1094-C) First Name (Will be combined with Middle, Last, and Suffix for 1094-C) Middle Name (Will be combined with First, Last, and Suffix for 1094-C) Last Name (Will be combined with First, Middle, and Suffix for 1094-C) Suffix (Will be combined with First, Middle, and Last for 1094-C) If you are part of a larger government unit and are reporting on your entity you will need to associate yourself with the larger designated government entity. In doing so, you will only be required to submit your information and the designated government entity will be required to include your totals in Part III and IV of their 1094-C submission. An example of this scenario is a State agency who processes and reports their payroll separately. The State of Illinois will be required to include the employee total count information in their 1094-C. In this case, when you check the Government Entity box in the ACA Company Setup, the system will fill in the State of Illinois information from the Government Entity window onto Part I, line 9-16, of the 1094-C. Page
37 Part 3: Utilities & Maintenance ACA Maintenance ACA Compliance Solution s maintenance tools are used to manage employees, benefits, employee dependents and transactions. It is imperative that this information be as accurate as possible, especially the transactions which are used to ascertain employee work times, hours, and deduction / benefit amounts for affordability. Equally important are the edit tools for 1094-C and 1095-C records. These serve as an edit tool as well as check for the year end close process. Edit 1095-C This utility is used to make modifications to an employee s 1095-C information which will eventually be displayed on the 1095-C report. The system supports one 1095-C record per combination of Employee ID, Company and Year. The Edit 1095-C Information window serves as a final check to view or edit the information for a given employee which will appear on the printed report. (Or electronic IRS submission). The data for the record is populated by the year end close process. The user can make modification and these modification will appear on the printed form without having to reclose the year. Once the Employee is selected, select the Company, change the Year if need to, and check the Edited box below the Company. Part II allows you to change the Codes and Values on Line 14, 15, 16 of the 1095-C. Part III allows you to edit or add a Dependent. Part III is for self-insured documentation of coverage. Fully insured companies are not required to track dependents for ACA. Note that once data is edited for a given record the system will require you to purposefully overwrite edits during year end close if you wish to repopulate this data. An example would be overwriting a test run or processing new data when corrections to transactions are uploaded. Additionally, Part I and II are simply links to the existing Company and Employee forms in the ACA solution. The print process for 1095-C will reference the fields on those pages for the most recent Page
38 information. If you wish to modify those values for sake of the 1095-C you will need to change the data on those pages. If changes are made to the content of an employee s 1095-C record, the record will be marked as edited by the system and changes will be locked in. Even if the year-end process is run again, the system will not modify this 1095-C record. The only way to overwrite these changes during a year end close is to select the overwrite edits option during the year end close. You may also remove the record entirely and re-run year end close to populate a new one. Edit 1094-C This utility is used to make modifications to a company s 1094-C information which will eventually be displayed on the 1094-C report. The system supports one 1094-C record per combination of Company and Year. The edit 1094-C window serves as a final check to view or edit the information for a given company, which will appear on the printed report. (Or electronic IRS submission). The data for the record is populated by the year end close process. The user can make modification and these modification will appear on the printed form. Note that Part I contains links to the existing Company and Government Entity forms in the ACA solution. The print process for 1094-C will reference the fields on those pages for the most recent information. If you wish to modify those values for sake of the 1094-C you will need to change the data on those pages. Note that once data is edited for a given record the system will require you to purposefully overwrite edits during year end close if you wish to repopulate this data. An example would be overwriting a test run or processing new data when corrections to transactions are uploaded. The edit 1094-C page is large and is displayed as two separate images below. Parts I & II are depicted first followed by Parts III & IV Page
40 1094-C Prerequisites This utility is used prior to the year-end close process. The system will generate 1094-C and 1095-C data based in part on answers to the questions listed and the data elements provided. If changes to the YES/NO fields are made for a given year the user will be required to re-run the year end close process to ensure that the resultant 1094-C and 1095-C edit tables are populated correctly, Year: Enter the reporting year. Last Name: Enter the last name of the contact person First: Enter the first name of the contact person Middle: Enter the middle name or initial of the contact person Suffix: Enter the suffix of the contact person if applicable i.e., JR, DR, etc. Phone: Enter the phone number of the contact person The phone number will be printed on Line 10 of the IRS Form 1095-C which is distributed to the individual employees. This telephone number is for the person to contact whom the recipient may call about the information reported on the form. This contact person information is reported and submitted to the IRS on Form 1094-C. Signature Title: Enter the business title of the contact person i.e., controller, HR Director Signature Name: Reenter the First, Middle, & Last Name Page
41 Each individual entity will report their own information to the IRS through generation of IRS Forms 1095-C and the IRS Form 1094-C submittal. When all the individual entities have processed their year-end files and reports, one of the entities will be designated as the authoritative ALE member. By selecting Yes and generating the IRS Form 1094-C report, that transmission will be the aggregate numbers for all the individual entities and will only be a IRS Form 1094-C with no IRS Form 1095-C attached. Click Here to read from the IRS 1095-C, 1094-C Instructions for further guidance. Is ALE member of an Aggregated ALE Group? If you are a single entity not part of a commonly controlled or affiliated group and you are processing your payroll on one company database select No. If you are a member of a commonly controlled or affiliated group you are required to identify other members within your group select Yes. If you select Yes as a member of an aggregated ALE group the Database Group ID field will become editable. Select the Database Group ID that represents all the members of the group. You are eligible for a qualifying offer method, do you want to claim it? Selecting this option allows you to enter the Qualifying Offer code 1A on Form 1095-C, line 14, for any month for which you made a Qualifying Offer to an employee, even if the employee did not receive a Qualifying Offer for all 12 calendar months. This generally comes into play when you have non-calendar year plans where in one part of the year a plan was a Qualifying Offer while in other parts of the year the plan was not a Qualifying Offer. Was a Qualifying Offer for one or more months of the calendar year made to at least 95% of your full - time employees? This is referred to as the Qualifying Offer Method Transition Relief for To be eligible to use this option, you are certifying that you made a Qualifying Offer for one or more months of calendar year 2015 to at least 95% of our full-time eligible employees. Using this option, you will not report on Line 15 any information for any months of the calendar year and will use a code 1A for any months that a qualifying offer was available and 1L for months in which it was not available. Code 1L is the Qualifying Offer Method Transition Relief for 2015 and no penalties will be assessed. You have fewer than 100 full time employees and are eligible for appear to have transition relief? Checking this option will indicate that the employer is eligible for section 4980H Transition Relief and therefore no penalty will exist for calendar year This is a one year relief. If you are a member of a common control or affiliated group and the aggregate total of eligible employees exceeds 100 full time employees, you cannot claim this relief. You have more than 100 full-time employees, are you claiming Transition Relief for Calculation of Assessable Payments under Section 4980H(a)? For each month in calendar year 2015, and for noncalendar year plans the portion of the plan year that falls in 2016, if the ALE or Aggregated ALE group had more than 100 full-time employees on business days in 2014, the calculation of penalties will exempt the first 80 employees under this relief. After this relief the exemptions will be 30 for Page
42 For all months of the calendar year did you offer affordable health coverage providing minimum v alue to at least 98%? To be eligible to use the 98% Offer Method, an employer must certify that taking into account all months during which the individuals were eligible for coverage, the employer offered affordable health coverage providing minimum value to at least 98% of its eligible employees and offered minimum essential coverage to these employee s dependents. Employees This page is used to create and manage employees. An import process (see Upload & Import utility) is also support for batch import. To create a new employee click the Add New Employee button. This field can also be used to update existing employee fields. An example would be to record an address change. Simply choose the employee and press the Edit button. Page
43 The fields below are available when creating an employee. The required fields are indicated with an asterisks: Employee ID * First Name * Middle Name Last Name * SSN * Address1 * Address2 City * State * Zip * Birthdate * Department Job Title SUTA State * Employment Type * Hire Date * Adjusted hire Date * Terminated Date * User Defined Inactive Date Inactivated Page
44 The highlighted portion in the example below only needs to be filled out if the C feature is being used. To use this feature, the C production needs to be purchased or you must have the Integrity Data product Employee Suite. Additional information regarding the C functionality is in Part 6 of this document. Page
45 Employee Document Information This maintenance window is used only if you have purchased the C feature. To use this feature, the C production needs to be purchased or you must have the Integrity Data product Employee Suite. Additional information regarding the C functionality is in Part 6 of this document. This window allows you to add the two fields manually for each employee that is opting in. If you use this window it will transfer the Opt in fields to the employee card. It may be faster for you to add these in the Employee Excel file upload using the template given in Part 6. Page
46 Employee Company Exceptions (Shared Employees) There are situations in which an employee may work for more than one company in a given aggregated employer group. This can impact reports and forms for that employee. In order to accommodate data which may change for an employee across companies the user can specify one or more company exception records for an employee. This will then generate a 1095-C for each company the employee worked in as required by law for aggregated employer groups. If you are self-insured you will need to set up the Dependent Exception in the Dependent Exception window. This will then fill Part III of the 1095-C for each company. The Payroll Company Exception Maintenance window depicted below, is used to create the exception record. The most often cited information is displayed in the grid row and the detail is accessible via the edit button. Clicking Delete will remove the row. Clicking Add will display the detail window and allow the user to define the exception data. A common example of when to create and exception maintenance would be to record different hire and termination dates for an employee across different companies in an ALE group. Page
47 For Shared Employees between companies it is important that you have the same Employee ID in all companies. The best is to use the SSN for the shared employees. Because the employee ID cannot be edited, most companies that share employees will use the SSN for all employees. Note that not all employee demographic data is available for edit in the exception window. The system only tracks company information for an employee which is likely to be different across multiple companies. Demographic data such as Employee Address or Birth Date are examples of data that are predominantly static in nature and hence do not appear. Company Exception records will be automatically created during the employee import process if you have more than one instance of your employee in the upload file that instance has the company column populated. The import routine will process the records in the order in which it receives them. The last record it encounters for an employee will also have its information populate the main employee maintenance record as well. For this reason it is recommended to structure your import file so that employee exception records are created first and the main employee record is created last. Click Here to find KB14-30 How do I setup and report for Shared Employees Between Companies Page
48 Transactions The payroll transaction maintenance page displays a comprehensive list of all payroll transactions which the system will use for its calculations of affordability and eligibility. The only method for entering the transactions is via the import process (see Upload & Import utility). However, there are multiple methods for removing single entries or a range of entries using the delete function. A single line entry can be deleted by pressing the Delete button at the end of the line. In addition each column has a filter key. You can filter more than one column at a time. When the filtered transactions appear then they can be deleted by pressing the Delete all viewable records key. Watch the number of items listed in the lower right corner to gage what is being deleted. After deletion is complete you will have to press the transactions key in the main menu to restore remaining transaction data. Page
49 Dependent Benefit The section is applicable ONLY for employees enrolled in employer-sponsored self-insured health coverage. If an employer is not self-insured, you do not need to keep track of dependent information for ACA reporting purposes. The information maintained here is for covered dependents. After you upload the Dependent information it will fill this window when you select the employee. From this window you can also add new dependents for an employee without going through an upload or edit information if needed. Employee ID: Select an Employee ID. The Employee name will auto populate. Plan ID: This is the Plan ID that the employee is enrolled in. The selection here will default into the Plan field for the row records when you add them. However the fields for each row can be modified separately. Under ACA Plan Setup in Configuration, the least cost Plan ID has to be checked as being self-insured. Deduction Code: This is the deduction code for family coverage reimbursement. This is not a mandatory field at this time. The selection here will default into the Deduction field for the row records when you add them. However the fields for each row can be modified separately First Name: Dependent First Name. Last Name: Dependent Last Name. Spouse: Check only if relationship to employee is spouse. SSN: Social Security Number of dependent. IRS requires SSN. In the case of a newborn child, the birthdate is accepted without a SSN. Birthdate: Dependent s birth date. Start Date: Start date of plan coverage for this dependent. End Date: If coverage terminates, end date of coverage. Leave blank if no end date. Plan: See Plan ID above Page
50 Deduction: See Deduction Code above For an employee or dependent to be credited with having coverage in any single month, they must have been covered the entire month. During the year-end close, the start date and end date will be used to determine which monthly check box is to be checked on IRS Form 1095-C. If there is a break in coverage where a dependent loses coverage for a period of time and then regains it later, you will enter the coverage periods as two records. Dependent Exception: This is used in conjunction with the Company Exception window and is for those employees that work for a time at one company and then transfer to another. This will append the dependent information to Part III of each 1095-C Update and then Save: Both need to be done. Benefits The import of your Transactions will pin a benefit or benefits to the employee. Benefit Maintenance is used primarily to edit the start date of the benefit for a specific employee. It could also be used to define one or more benefits to be associated with an employee. To create an association, click Add new record. Enter the Employee ID and Benefit Code. An end date is not required as a benefits may still be in effect for the employee. Marking a benefit as Inactive will exclude it from ACA calculations run by the system. Page
51 ACA Utilities These screens are used to import and manipulate data which will affect how an employee appears in the subsequent ACA reporting. The most common is the upload / import utility which is responsible for bringing in the data. Secondarily the utility and rehire are used to modify fulltime vs. part time Upload & Import This screen allows the user to import three different types of data sets: Employees Dependents (Only if Self Insured) Transactions You will need to set your data up in an EXCEL spreadsheet exactly as the example templates and then save as a Text (Tab delimited) file before importing. There is a Knowledge Base article detailing what needs to be imported for each type of data sets. It also has links to example Excel documents with more detailed notes for import format. Save these three files into your system and use them as you build the spreadsheet. Another example of an import file layout for each category is obtained by clicking the Download Sample File link. To import data for a given category, click the select files button. Navigate to the saved text file and click open. The system will display the file name in the box. Once selected you must click the Upload Import button. The system will display a progress indicator while it processes your file. When finished the system will display an indication that a successful upload took place. See green text above. Page
52 The Dependent import can be processed without the SSN if a birthdate is present. This is used when a newborn child is without a SSN. The example below shows this in the yellow empty SSN cell. If an error occurs during upload/import the system will display red text. Clicking on it will provide a report showing which line item(s) in the file caused the errors. If an error occurs, the import process will abort and WILL NOT import any data on all three import types (e.g. Employees, Dependents & Payroll Transactions). You must correct the import file and reattempt the upload. The system is an all or nothing approach with one exception: Transactions that error with Employee ID Not Found will upload all other transactions where the ID is found. Page
53 Year End Close We recommend that you sign up and view our Webinars held every week for a detailed explanation of the Year End Close and IRS Forms. It can be found on Integrity Data Website This page is used to run the year end close process which is necessary for the generation of the 1094-C and 1095-C data. Once the process is run the user will be able to see data in the IRS Reports windows and if necessary edit 1094-C and 1095-C records for that year. A year end process can be run multiple times for the same year and will regenerate the data each time. To run a year end close, specify the company and year, then click process. For reference, the last date the year end process was run for a given combination of year and company is displayed in the Last Closing Date field. You can close the year as many times as you want. Year to close: Enter the year to close Overwrite Edits: If you check this box, during the year end close process any edits you made to the individual IRS Form 1095-C edit window will be overwritten. If you do not check this box, only the fields automatically populated with the year-end close will be updated. For calendar year 2015 only, the Eligible for CY2015 non-calendar year transition relief? will need to be checked if you qualify and the date of the beginning of your plan year entered. An employer that sponsored a non-calendar year health plan as of December 27, 2012 (or two or more health plans with the same non-calendar year plan year), may be eligible for transition relief. The relief applies for some or all of its employees for the period during 2015 before the beginning of the 2015 plan year. The pre-2015 eligibility transition relief provides that for any employees (whenever hired) who are eligible for coverage on the first day of the 2015 plan year under the eligibility terms of the plan as of Feb. 9, 2014, (whether or not they take the coverage) and who are offered affordable coverage that provides minimum value effective no later than the first day of the 2015 plan year, the employer will not be subject to a potential Employer Shared Responsibility payment until the first day of the 2015 plan year. Process: The process button on the bottom will perform the year end close. A status indicator bar at the bottom will alert you when the close is done. Page
54 If you have previously made edits to any 1094-C or 1095-C records for the year you are about to close then you must check Overwrite Edits in order to overwrite those changes. Otherwise the system will NOT modify previous edits to those forms. This is especially important if you are reclosing the year in order to reflect new changes, make corrections or overwrite test runs of the year end close. Before running the year end close please ensure you have completed a 1094-C prerequisite record for this company and year. The year-end close process depends upon the data to accurately close the year. Generate IRS Files This page is used to create the electronic submission of forms 1094-C and 1095-C to the IRS. In order to do so the user must selects a company and year, then press the process button. Once complete the system will generate an entry in the File History table. Each entry in the file history table consists of the following: Name of the Manifest File (an XML document) Name of the Request File (an XML document) Created Date and Time IRS Status IRS Log (Hyperlink to a log file report) Clicking on the file name will prompt you to specify a location to save the file Actions Delete When pressed will delete the row record and files associated with it If you intend to submit the XML documents manually via the IRS web interface tool, you may need to have your own TCC identification number. Consult your ACA compliance officer before taking this approach. Page
55 Utility If an employee is reasonably expected to work at least 30 hours per week, they must be classified as a full-time employee. (See employee maintenance) For purposes of ACA compliance, you will need to designate employees as being either Full Time Regular (eligible for employer health care coverage within 90 days of hire) or as Part Time Regular (variable-hour employees who will be evaluated within a measurement period). This designation is important as it determines who will be included in the measurement period census. This utility will analyze the classification of employees based on how many hours of service they are providing and then will allow you to change the Employment Type field if appropriate. Column Description and Logic Start Date: Enter a starting date for your analysis. End Date: Enter an ending date for your analysis. Control Group ID: Enter the control group to determine which employees to analyze. Employment Type: Set to All, Full Time or Part Time Redisplay: When pressed will perform the calculations and display a range of employees by SSN and name, along with their current Employment Type Status. Recommend: When clicked, it will do the analysis on what the current Employment Type is and what the ACA Type will be. Change Type: If you want to update the Employment Type field on an employee, press the include button. Process: Based on the Change Type field, click this function to update the Employment Type field on the Employee Master table to what is indicated on the ACA Type suggestion. Page
56 Rehire The Rehire Utility uses the ACA rules for determining when an employer may consider an employee as being a new hire based on breaks in service. The utility recognizes both the standard absence of service rule of 13 weeks (26 weeks for educational organization) or the rule of parity in determining if employees may be viewed as new hires. This reclassification to as a new hire is at the sole discretion of the employer. The advantage of this utility would be to identify employees who are on their initial measurement period and have breaks in service that would constitute a restart of this measurement period. For employees on standard measurement period testing, the employer has to see whether or not that employee, not reclassified, would work the number of hours. If an employee is in a standard measurement period and an employer reclassified them as a rehire, that employee will immediately begin their initial measurement period as any new hire. ACA Rehire displays employee data as read only with the only editable field being the confirm checkbox. The ACA rehire utility s function, is to identify gaps in service on a per employee basis. This is done by selecting a data range and then redisplay button. If the system determines that a gap exists which causes the employee to need a change to their adjusted hire date per ACA regulatory requirements, then the employee will be listed. The adjusted hire date field is the adjusted hire date as currently exists for the employee. The calculated new date, is the date which the system has calculated should apply to the employee as their new adjusted hire date. To adopt the recommended changes suggested by the system you must check the confirm checkbox for all applicable employees and then click the process button. The system will then apply the changes to the employee maintenance record Click Here for Knowledge Base article on Rehire Page
57 Part 4: Alerts & Report Generation Report Interface All reports for ACA Compliance Solution reporting are generated from the ACA Reports window. Reports are separated into categories as listed below. Once the categories is selected a drop-down list for Report Name will be displayed allowing you to select which report you want to run. As soon as a selection is made, more fields will be displayed representing the applicable report parameters which will need to be completed. The reports in the list are categorized as follows: Eligibility Full Time Employee and Equivalents Initial Measurement Period Analysis Monthly Initial Measurement Eligibility Stability Measurement Period Analysis Employee Health Coverage Standard Measurement Period Analysis Employee Employee Monthly hours Breakdown ACA Full-Time Employee Health Care Coverage Report ACA Full-Time Employee without Health Care Coverage Report IRS 1095-C 1095-C-Envelope 1094-C Page
58 Eligibility Reports For the following reports, the user has the ability to specify certain options / parameters (as seen below); Page
59 Full-Time Employees and Full-Time Equivalents This report is used to monitor the total number of full-time employees and full-time equivalents. An employer with 50 or more full-time employees and full-time equivalents is considered a large employer according to the ACA. This report can be run at any time. It will provide real-time information on how many ACA-defined fulltime employees and full-time equivalents an employer has. At the end of every year, this information, broken down by month, will be submitted to the IRS. It is part of the employer reporting requirements of the ACA. Column Definition and Logic Full-Time Employee: A full-time employee is someone who, when hired, was reasonably expected to work 30 hours or more a week. An employee in this category is to be offered health care coverage (if the employer is an ACA-defined large employer) no more than 90 days from his or her hire date. Variable/Seasonal Employee Hours [Hours>=130 hrs.]: This category of employees includes employees for whom, at the time of their hire, it was unclear whether they would work 30 hours a week. The ACA calls this employee a variable-hour employee. The employees in this column are variable-hour employees who have worked 130 or more hours in that month. For the purpose of ACA, they would be considered full-time for the month in which they worked 130 hours or above. The important distinction here is that any employee that worked 130 hours or more in one month will be counted only once. Variable/Seasonal Employee Hours [Hours <130 hrs.]: This is the cumulative hours of all employees who worked less than 130 hours in that month. These hours are calculated by using the pay codes that were imported from the Transactions. Seasonal Hour Adjustment: The ACA allows you to deduct employee hours if an employee is deemed to be seasonal. Page
60 A seasonal employee exception applies if, during the prior calendar year, (1) an employer s full-time employee workforce (including FTEs) exceeded 50 employees on only 120 or fewer days, and (2) seasonal workers were the only reason the 50-employee threshold was exceeded during this period. This exception may also be applied on the basis of 4 or fewer calendar months. In either event, the days or months need not be consecutive. An employer can exclude entirely all seasonal employees who were employed on no more than 120 days during the prior calendar year. Full-Time Equivalent: The formula is [(Variable/Seasonal Employee Hours < 130 hrs.) (Seasonal Hour Adjustment)]/120. Fractions are disregarded. A result of would equate to 19 FTE. Total Full-Time ACA Employees: This is the total of full-time employees plus Variable/Seasonal employees at 130 hours or more plus Full-Time Equivalents. Page
61 Standard Measurement Period Analysis This report provides a detailed breakdown for each employee and forecasts the ACA Status based on how their hours are trending. Some parameters to consider: Period ID: A drop down list is available. The ACA allows you to have different measurement periods based on types of employee (salaried vs. hourly) and location. In setting up your Period ID, you may have elected to have multiple IDs. These would be run separately. Start Measurement Date: This will default to the current measurement period start date. State: This will default from the period selected Cut-off Date: This is the cut-off date for payroll activity. By selecting a cut-off date, you are able to isolate a specific period of time for your analysis. Year: Not applicable in this report grayed out. After selection parameters, click on the Print button. Page
62 Column Description and Logic SSN#: This is the tax identification number (TIN), commonly referred to as the Social Security Number of an employee. First Name As shown Last Name As shown Employee Classification: This is the current classification of a particular employee. An employee will be classified as either FT (Full Time) or PT (Part Time) Actual Hours: For employees designated as PT (Part Time), this is the accumulated number of hours this employee has worked from the start of the standard measurement period to the cut-off date. Unpaid Leave/FMLA: This is for any unpaid leaves such as FMLA, Jury Duty, Military Deployments and are entered into the FMLA Setup window under Configuration. If there is a pay code that tracks hours for all or some of the leave, then only use this window for the remaining that is untracked and unpaid leave. This column is hours calculated from the FMLA window. Forecasted ACA Status: Based on the accumulated hours worked and the time-frame of the standard measurement period, this designation represents the calculated status of an employee at the end of the standard measurement period test. An employee with an employee classification of PT and a Forecasted ACA Status of FT means that this employee is working enough hours during the current standard measurement period to be designated as a full-time employee. Health care coverage must be offered during the administrative period and if accepted by the employee they begin their subsequent stability period regardless of the number of hours they work during the stability period. Only employees who have a hire date prior to the start date of the selected measurement period will be included in this report. The standard measurement period only applies to employees who were employed at the start of the measurement period. The initial measurement period report will identify those employees who were hired after the start date for the standard measurement period. Click Here for Knowledge Base Article on SMP Page
63 Initial Measurement Period Analysis This report provides you a listing of Part Time employees who are being tracked within their initial measurement period. These employees were hired after the start date of the standard measurement period. Under the ACA, employers must provide them health care coverage if during their initial measurement period they are deemed to be at full-time status. This coverage will be extended through their initial stability period regardless of the number of hours they work. Once they have worked in one full cycle of a standard measurement period, they will be tested as any other employee would be. The IMP is used as a tool for the company to manage the hours of those forecasted to be FT status (1560 hrs.) at the end of the 12 month test. The Monthly Initial Measurement Eligibility Report will tell you those who have completed the assessment in a particular month and if you need to offer them insurance. If an employee is deemed to be full-time after their initial measurement period, they will be extended health coverage during their initial stability period. They will be tested again with the rest of the employees when they have completed one full standard measurement period. If during the first standard measurement period they are deemed to not be a full-time employee, health care coverage must remain while they complete their initial stability period. Once they have completed their initial stability period, the employer has no legal obligation to continue health care coverage. Click Here for Knowledge Base Article on IMP & SMP Page
64 Monthly Initial Measurement Eligibility Report: The Monthly Initial Measurement Eligibility Report provides a list of PT Employees who have completed their Initial Measurement Period in a certain month. This report will need to be run during each month to see who needs to be offered health insurance as they have worked FT hours in the past 12 month IMP. Below is an example and explained here. Select SM2015. Change the Cut Off Date to the first of any month, for example starting at 11/1/2015. Choose the control group and print. If the report is empty then no one finished their IMP in November. Move the cut off date up by a month to 12/1/2015 to see who finished in Dec, then 1/1 then 2/1, etc. You will need hours imported up to the last pay period to get accurate reports for this year. You have 1 month, Administrative Period for IMP, from the first of the next month, for you to get the measured FT employees to accept or waive the offer of insurance. Those that accept will then begin their Stability Period. Page
65 Stability Measurement Period Analysis Report Tracks individual stability periods in order to manage who no longer qualifies for health coverage or for individuals that completed their first standard measurement period without qualifying but still have access to health coverage through their overlapping initial stability period. Employee Classification: Disregard this classification. Start Date: This is the start date of the Stability Period for the Standard Measurement Period (SM2018), in our example 1/1/2018. End Date: This is the end date of the Stability Period for the Standard Measurement Period (SM2018), in our example 12/31/2018. Hours > 130: This pertains to whether an employee had greater than 130 hours per month when being tested in their Standard Measurement Period. If Yes generates, then the employee tested positive (>130) in the Standard Measurement Period selected. If No generates, then the employee did not test positive in the Standard Measurement Period selected. Page
66 P. SM/IM: P represents Previous IM/SM represents Initial Measurement Period and Standard Measurement Period. In this column either an IM, SM or No will appear. See screen shot and explanations below. Cov. Date: Cov. Represents coverage date ends. This column will either have a coverage date representing a date when the employee s coverage could end. *Important* to note that this does not always mean that the date listed is when the coverage will end for that employee. Please see explanations below. Variable Hours: The number of hours the employee has during the standard measurement period based off of the transaction data that is imported into the software. Forecasted ACA Status: Disregard this status. Page
67 This report can depict 4 different scenarios of coverage for the employee. They are highlighted in the example below. Example 1 (Highlighted Yellow): In this scenario, the stability period ends in 12/31/2018. However the Employee had more than 130 hours in the Standard Measurement period (Hours >130) Yes, and was not tested during an Initial Measurement Period (P. IM/SM) No. This means that since the employee did not test in a previous Initial Measurement Period prior to the completion of their first Standard Measurement Period, then there is no Initial Measurement Stability period. The employee would have coverage starting on 1/1/2018 and running until 12/31/2018. Example 2 (Highlighted Green): In this scenario, the stability period ends in 12/31/2018. The Employee tested positive in the Standard Measurement Period (Hours >130) Yes, and was tested during their Initial Measurement Period (P.IM/SM) IM as also being eligible. The end coverage date of that Initial Measurement Period was 1/31/2018. However since the employee was tested in a Standard Measurement Period and continues to be eligible, the Stability Period end date of the Standard Measurement period (12/31/2018), is when the employee s coverage would end. The end date of the Standard Measurement Period (12/31/2018) overrides the Initial Measurement Period end date of 1/31/2018. Example 3 (Highlighted Blue): In this scenario, the stability period ends on 12/31/2018. The employee did not exceed 130 hours during their Standard Measurement Period, (Hours >130), NO. They also were not eligible upon completion of their Initial Measurement Period, (P. IM/SM), No. This employee would not be made an offer of coverage in this scenario or have a coverage end date. Example 4 (Highlighted Brown): In this scenario, the employee was not eligible based on the Standard Measurement period test as they did not have, on average, at least 130 hours per month during the testing period. However, they had tested eligible in their initial measurement period. This employee must be offered continuing coverage under their Initial Stability period until 3/31/2018. Page
68 Employee Health Coverage Report: Provides a list of PT employees who are not signed up for coverage and what Measurement Period they are in or if they are terminated. Page
69 Employee Reports For the following reports, the user has the ability to specify certain options / parameters (as seen below) according to the following: You can select starting and ending Employee IDs for individual employee reporting or select ALL for everyone. You can select starting and ending Department IDs for individual departments or select ALL for all departments. You can designate a starting or ending date for the full-time coverage reports. You enter a year for the 12 month breakdown. Page
70 Employee Monthly Hours Breakdown: Provides a month-by-month total of employees for any calendar year. It adds hours up to the last uploaded pay period. This is a good report to run after you think you are done with uploading of transactions. The total hours for a full time employee should be around 2080 hours. If it is double or more than this, you have duplicated transactions during the upload. Delete all of them and upload again. ACA Full-Time Employee Health Care Coverage Report: Provides a list of full-time employees who are signed up for coverage Page
71 ACA Full-Time Employee without Health Care Coverage Report: Provides a list of full-time employees who are not signed up for coverage Page
72 IRS Forms We recommend that you sign up and view Integrity Data s User Group Lessons Webinars (held monthly year-round and weekly during reporting season) for a detailed explanation of the Year End Close and IRS Forms. Lindy Belley to make sure you re on the ACA notification list. These forms populate after doing the Year End Close in Utilities C Provides the IRS 1095-C report for the selected range of employees. The following report parameters can be defined: Starting Employee ID Ending Employee ID Cut Off Year Company Order Records by: This dictates 1095-C order of printing. It defaults to last name, first name but you can choose 3 other ways to print these forms. When you are done entering parameters click Print and the system will generate a 1095-C for each employee. The 1095-C will generate on this report only after the 1094-C Prerequisite is filled out and then the Year End Close is run! Page
74 1095-C Envelope Page
75 The 1095-C Envelope size will generate on this report only after the 1094-C Prerequisite is filled out and then the Year End Close is run! itself. This Envelope size 1095-C is designed to be include with a W-2 in a window address envelope or by See the link below for ordering the proper size C envelope.docx IRS CODES EXPLANATIONS: The following link will bring you to Integrity Data s slides of DEEP DIVE INTO GENERATION OF IRS FORM 1095-C. corrected _Deep Dive into IRS Form 1095-C_ACA User Group.pdf Page
76 1094-C Provides the IRS 1094-C report for the selected company. The report parameters can be defined as shown in the figure below: Note: Checking the government entity checkbox will include the information for the government entity defined for the company; if applicable (see company setup). Page
79 ACA Alerts Alerts are collected and displayed in the Alert Log as depicted below. The alert log can be filtered or sorted according to available criteria in the header row. General characteristics are as follows: Alerts are color coded by severity where red is critical, yellow is warning, and green is informational Alerts are bold type until they are viewed, at which point they revert to normal font Alerts are global and are viewable for all users but you can control which ones are visible to you via the My Alerts Filter in the upper left area of the alert log You can perform the following actions: o Dismiss This will hide the alert from view for the current user. The only way to view dismissed alerts is to set the filter to All Alerts o Complete This sets the status of the alert to closed and will also hide it from view. Completed alerts are also hidden from the All Alerts Filter. (To make them visible you will need to expose the Status column) You can view the detail for an alert by clicking the Details button You can enter a comment when dismissing or completing an alert (see below) Page
80 When you press the Dismiss or Complete buttons (upper right) you will be prompted to add a note. To select more than one alert to take action upon, simply mark the checkbox to the right of the alert. The image below depicts how a note/comment is added to a given alert. When you click the Details button, the system will present a detail window with an explanation as to what the alert is describing. This is a read only window for purposes of additional information. Click Ok to dismiss the window. Page
81 The following alerts are currently included in the ACA compliance solution: Employee Eligible for Insurance This alert is intended to inform the user when an employee who has tested as eligible for insurance enters into the administration period and needs to be offered coverage. Employee Insurance not affordable if current trend holds This alert is intended to inform the user when the cost of an ACA plan grows too large with respect to an employee s earnings. The alert is set to Consider Plans with a rate of pay safe harbor Consider the time period between the start for the plan and the current system date Alert the user when the cost is within 2% of the percentage specified in the plan attributes Example: User earns $10,000 for the time period described above. Plan safe harbor specifies 9.56% as the threshold of unaffordability. If the cost of the coverage in the time period above rises above $756 (7.56%) then the alert will fire. NOTE** to determine the cost ($756) the system will multiply the number of months in the time period by the numerical value of the field "Self Only Cost in the Plan setup. Employee Insurance not affordable This alert is intended to inform the user when the cost of an ACA plan grows too large with respect to an employee s earnings. The alert is identical to the Employee Insurance not affordable if current trend holds with exception that the threshold has now been reached or exceeded. Eligible Variable Hour Employee becomes ineligible This alert is intended to inform the user when an employee who has coverage currently, may no longer be eligible for that coverage and may need to be re-evaluated. Said employees may have coverage illegitimately OR may have coverage for a while yet, due to being protected by a stability period which hasn't expired yet. In any case, the alert draws attention to employees who may need to be double checked. Full Time Employee completes waiting period This alert is intended to inform the user when a new employee (assumed and expected to be full time) has completed the waiting period. The user is reminded to offer coverage soon. For sake of determining waiting period the system uses the values defined in company setup in the Full Time Employee Eligibility section. Page
82 Part 5: Dashboard This section appears as its own navigation element (Home Icon) with no submenu. It contains management data pertaining to ACA application as a whole and conveys an overall At-a-Glance Status of the system. Many of the dashboard KPIs make use of the transactions uploaded to the system. It is recommended that you refresh the dashboard after the latest transactions have been uploaded. Key Performance Indicator Tiles The ACA Compliance Solution can be tracked using the included KPIs which are described below: Alerts This KPI shows how many new or updated alerts have been added since the last refresh. The view alerts button takes you directly to the alert log. Page
83 Percentage of Employees Covered This KPI shows which employees are considered covered for health insurance, expressed as a percentage of the overall workforce. Threshold below 70% will display in red color (for year 2015 only). As regulations change, the color indicators for given thresholds may update to reflect new requirements. Clicking on the view report button will take you directly to the report. ALE FTE Count This KPI displays the current Full Time Equivalents count for purposes of status as an Applicable Large Employer. The word after the colon indicates for which reporting group the KPI is referencing. If more than one control group has been defined for the system, the KP will display the group with the largest number of member companies. Clicking on the view report button will take you directly to the report. Number of FTEs without Coverage This KPI indicates how many employees are considered Full Time (and hence eligible for coverage) but are currently without coverage. Clicking on the view report button will take you directly to the report Page
84 Minimum Essential Coverage Cost indicator This KPI displays a dollar figure which represents the cost of coverage for the employer. It is calculated by adding the cost of each plan offered ($ amount from Benefit codes entered in last transaction upload; if 0 was uploaded then this display will not function) divided by the number of employees for the last month of the transactions uploaded. Days Remaining This KPI displays a number representing the number of days remaining in the current administrative period for the ongoing standard measurement period. This essentially allows the user to know how much time remains before coverage needs to be in place for all employees eligible to receive it. When this period ends the next stability period is set to being. For reference, the name of the standard measurement period record being measured is displayed in bold. More information about the period can be obtained in ACA Setup > Standard Measurement Period. Note: If two admin periods are occurring at the same time, this window will show the soonest to expire. If there are no current administration periods running, then it will default to days remaining in SMP that is ongoing. Reference and Contact Columns The information at the bottom of the screen is for reference and communication purposes. It allows for quick access to the latest information pertaining to the ACA Compliance Solution. Various contact information and communication options exist, including traditional methods and social media. The blog column provides a way to stay abreast of the latest information pertaining to ACA as a whole. Page
85 Part 6: C C is an additional feature that can be purchased if you want to electronically distribute your 1095-C. If you would like to purchase this module, please contact Step 1: Employee Data Import The system requires the employees be imported using the Import utility. If you already have the Employee data imported there are four additional fields to include. You can add these fields to the existing Employee Excel file and upload the file. The system will update any new/modified information. The system does not delete or update unchanged information. If you have an employee file with these additional fields ready to import proceed to step 2. Importing Employees The import process for employees supports 4 optional columns to import file to accommodate the fields mentioned above. An example is provided below in excel format as an example. Remember that the actual import file must be a tab delimited text file. Excel import do not work. This image is provided only as a sample to show the fields and proper spelling of the column headers. The employee import process also supports an -only feature. Also known as the mini import. In this mode the system will accept a file containing only two columns EMPLOYEEID and ADDRESS. This is most often used to update existing employees in the system with an address. Importing a list of employees that are already in the system will only update the employees and add the address. It will not damage or alter any existing data for that employee as part of the mini import. It will also not create new employees which don t yet exist. IF any employees in the file are not already in the system then the process will abort and error will be logged. An example tab delimited file is shown below: Page
86 When importing employee data (whether regular sized files or mini imports) the system allows the user to cancel the upload which is in progress. Since the cancel functionality essentially interrupts the update process of your import when it is trying to write to the database, there is a point in time after which the process cannot be stopped. Depending on the size of your upload file and the number of records, the cancel functionality may not have time to be invoked. During the window of time when a cancel is possible the Upload Import button changes to Cancel. You can attempt the cancelation during this time. After pressing the button, allow some time for the process to finish. When done the system will change the status of the upload to Cancelled appended with the Date and Time. You may have attempted to cancel the import but after waiting, the status does NOT say Canceled and instead it appears the import simply proceeded to completion. This can happen when the background database function was already committing records and could not process your cancellation request even though the user interface appeared to accept it. This can happen on small sized uploads where the window of time is very short and the system processes the upload too quickly for the user to react in time. Step 2: Import Employees The system will import a tab delimited text file in the Upload and Import Data window. Within Excel save the file as a Tab Delimited file. Within the C solution select the Select file option to upload the employee data. Page
87 Step 3: View Payroll Employee After the import, you can now review the employee data. An employee records contains many fields for demographic information but the four fields that are specific to the Employee functionality are: Address - This field is contains the address which will be used to correspond with the employee. Make sure to enter a valid address and confirm that this is the address the employee wishes to receive potentially sensitive information. address functionality is currently limited to 100 characters. If you elect to enter more than one address for an employee then you should: o Separate the with a semicolon (no extra spaces) o Ensure the aggregate character count doesn t exceed 100 for all lengths combined Attachment Password This field contains can contain an alphanumeric password (special characters are allowed) up to 20 characters Opt In W2 This checkbox is used to indicate whether the employee has elected to receive their W-2 electronically. When checked this option will be available during the Employee Process. [This function is currently reserved until a future release] Opt In 1095-C This checkbox is used to indicate whether the employee has elected to receive their 1095-C electronically. When checked this option will be available during the Employee Process. The figure below shows an example of the Payroll Employee user interface with the relevant fields highlighted. Page
89 Note the attachment password field s use of the eye icon. This will reveal the password in clear text to the user when entering a password for the first time or after clearing a password and typing a new one. It is used to provide confirmation the password was entered correctly. This function is invoke by clicking and holding the mouse on the icon. See the figure below for an example. For security reasons, once a password is entered and saved, this feature is not available. Note: When importing data for an employee please ensure that the address is valid. Also, passwords in the import file will be encrypted in the database during the import process and will not be visible in the Payroll Employee interface after import. They will instead be masked. Step 4: Templates This functionality allows the user to save a set of configuration information described above as a template, and assign it a name. When subsequent correspondence is sent via Employees the user will have the ability to either use an existing template or specify new criteria from scratch. The user is asked to make this choice when they visit the Employees page. If you are sending 1095-C for 2015, you may choose to create a C template. See below The user is only prompted to create a template from existing settings when an has been sent using the criteria. This happens during the Send process. See message below. Page
91 Step 5: Employees This utility is where the user will designate and restrict recipients, compose the actual correspondence to be sent, and determine which attachments to include. The main interface is depicted below followed by a more in depth discussion of the utility by section. Page
92 General This section allows the user to dictate the content of the and other attributes of the correspondence. Subject Contains the text that will be displayed in the subject line of the Body Contains the content of the that will be sent to the employees. There is a 250 character limit to the body content. BCC Contains the address of the recipient of the Blind Carbon Copy. This will not be visible to the employee and is typically a special address set up to receive the correspondence as proof that the was actually sent. Reply-To Address This address will be visible to the employee. If the employee elects to respond to the the address specified in this field will be the recipient of the reply. Typically, this is a dedicated account for the payroll department or for support. Page
93 1095-C and General Attachments This section allows the user to select whether or not to attach a 1095-C or other general attachments to the to the correspondence. More than one general attachment may be attached and more than one 1095-C may be specified. Attach 1095-C When checked, the system will expand the 1095-C data area to accommodate further configuration. Year This DDL allows the user to specify which year to use when selecting 1095-Cs to attach. The year refers to the calendar year for the 1095-C. Company This configuration option is a multi-select list which will allow the user to select one or more companies to include in the 1095-C selection. In this way, more than one 1095-C may be sent to an employee. Note that this option will only send multiple 1095-Cs to an employee if that employee actually has 1095-C data for more than one company AND those companies are selected in the list. Employees who do not have 1095-C data for a given company won t receive one for that company. Note: For the company list box to contain a list of companies, those companies must first be set up in the configuration section of the system Configuration > ACA Setup > Company Password This drop down list contains 3 options for password protection and are thusly explained: None The attachments will not be password protected Last 4 of Employee SSN The attachments will require the recipient to enter the last 4 digits of the recipients SSN to be accessed First 5 of Employee SSN The attachments will require the recipient to enter the first 5 digits of the recipients SSN to be accessed NOTE: The password protection applies to the 1095-C attachment only. General attachments are not subject to password protection Page
94 Important: If an employee has specified a custom password, then that password will be used during the process. Otherwise the settings specified in this password section shall prevail. Employee custom password always override the settings here. Include 1095-C Instructions Checking this box will cause the system to include an extra attachment to the correspondence, namely the instruction file for 1095-C. Download 1095-C Instructions This is a hyperlink to instruction file that will allow the user to preview the contents before deciding whether or not to attach it. See Include 1095-C Instructions above. Select Files Pressing this button will present a dialogue window to the user allowing him to select a file. The selected file will be attached to the correspondence as a general, non-password protected, attachment during the send event. The user may attach files which have any of the following file types:.pdf.txt.rtf.doc.docx.jpg.jpeg.png.gif.tiff.tif.ico Attachments are limited to 25MB in size (per attachment) If a user changes any of the criteria specified in the 105-C Data section of the form, the system will prompt to refresh the recipients list. This is because the pool of recipients may have changed or the system needs to re-factor the process to account for new password criteria. The message prompt in this circumstance appears as seen in the figure below. After pressing the Refresh Recipients List button the system message will disappear and the user may continue as before. Recipients List This section allows the user to define and constrain a subset of employees in the form of a recipient list. Restrictions are applied in the Restrict Recipients By section and then displayed in the grid below that. Finally, when the list is configured as desired and the attachments are selected, the user can select to send the or cancel and clear the form. Page