Though the HR department often steers an organization’s path toward Affordable Care Act compliance, it’s another department that lights the way for this benefits-driven effort:

Yes, the Payroll department is where every organization’s ACA compliance starts!

Whether employers with 50 or more full-time employees and full-time equivalents are focused solely on 1095-C/1094-C submissions – or if they focus first on who to cover and then on IRS submissions, payroll data is the information they have to mine.

That’s why, during National Payroll Week, we’re happy to point out that our ACA solution – trusted for its robustness  and known for its ease of use – works comprehensively with payroll data.

And for our system to accept payroll data for processing, it now does not matter where that data sits. Once an enhancement only for the payroll module of Microsoft Dynamics® GP, Integrity Data’s ACA Compliance Solution has evolved to work with all standalone payroll systems, as well as the payroll module of any ERP system.

So if you’re on Microsoft Dynamics® AX, NAV, SL or GP, don’t sweat:

• Where you run payroll. In-house or outsourced, your payroll data can interface with our ACA tracking and reporting engine so that population of IRS Forms 1095-C and 1094-C won’t be an issue.
• Lead time for a lengthy deployment. Because our solution works without any need for energy-consuming HR setups, deployment can be in a single day.

If you are on Microsoft Dynamics® GP, don’t sweat:

• What GP version you’re on. We’re compatible with all supported versions of GP.
• When your staff will find the time to implement the HR module. For the all-out ACA tracking that we do, we do not require implementation of the HR module. (If you use HR for other reasons, no problem.)

To learn more about Integrity Data’s ACA Compliance Solution, sign up for our next webinar.

To learn more about the differences in functionality between our ACA Compliance Solution and what you have out-of-the-box with Dynamics GP, download this comparison fact sheet.

To connect with a member of our ACA compliance team, email Sales@integrity-data.com or call 888.786.6162.

By Helen Karakoudas | ACA Education Director at Integrity Data

by Integrity Data

The post Affordable Care Act Compliance in the Payroll Department appeared first on ERP Software Blog.

The clock is ticking, with the first deadline for new Affordable Care Act forms just weeks away. You may be confused about exactly what all the ACA buzz means for you.

Here you may be coasting along and thinking: “This isn’t my issue; I have just 25 full-time employees and a handful of part-timers. I even added part-timers just so I wouldn’t be required to give health benefits. I am *far* from the 50 FTE threshold I keep hearing about!”

Well, that may be true, but you still could be an “Applicable Large Employer” – ALE for short – that has to comply with the ACA.

Here’s how:

If, in the previous calendar year, your business met IRS rules for companies that are related in a certain way – and the total head count of all these related companies in that year was 50 or more – then you’re an ALE member of an ALE Group. Now, how do you know if you are in a group of companies that needs to check their combined head count?

• Are there common owners?
• Do the companies provide services to one another?
• Do these companies jointly provide services to others?

Should your answer be “yes” to any of the above questions, tune in to a short educational video using Santa (and what we imagine are his U.S. companies) as an example: Confused about whether you Company Has to Comply with the Affordable Care? Santa Is Trying to Figure This Out, Too! This video also addresses exclusions that can be taken from an individual company’s ALE head count that may bring the combined head count under the 50 threshold.

When these considerations apply to your business, be aware that:

• IRS penalties are steep: $500 per required return if you don’t file.
• Time to get ready is running out: 1095-C forms are due to employees February 1, the same day as W-2s.

If – based on all this – you have determined that you are an ALE, it’s time to act if you haven’t already.

So, what’s your next step?

Integrity Data has a simple ACA tracking and reporting solution that can help, no matter what payroll or ERP system your business uses. There is still time to implement this solution and get on the right track to ACA compliance. Sign up for a webinar here.

By Integrity Data, an ACA compliance vendor still taking orders

The post The Heat Is On: ACA Is No Myth for Some Small U.S. Businesses appeared first on ERP Software Blog.

You have done the calculations and have determined that your company is actually considered an ALE (Applicable Large Employer) – the classification for a business that has to comply with the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Santa realized he was an ALE as well when we reviewed his Claus Resources operations.

So what now?

You need to be aware that there are two levels to compliance:

1. Offering health insurance of a certain quality to full-time employees
2. Proving the right offer was made to the right employee at the right time.

That’s easy, right?

Wrong:

There are plenty of complexities to consider, such as who is “full-time” according to ACA classifications and what offers of health plans meet ACA standards. There also are plenty of consequences: If you don’t comply with the first level, there are coverage penalties. If you don’t comply with the second level, there is an IRS non-filing penalty. None of the penalties can be deducted as business expenses.

But there is some hope. For Tax Year 2015, the IRS is not going to assess coverage penalties to companies that have 50-99 full-time employees (including equivalents). But, to be considered ACA-compliant for Tax Year 2015, all companies that are ALEs must:

1. Produce statements for full-time employees about what type of coverage was or was not offered. This form is called a 1095-C.
2. File copies of these statements with the IRS. The transmittal form is called a 1094-C.

There is a quirk to producing and filing these statements: This is not just a trip down to the local library to pick up a booklet with the proper forms in it. The 1095-C form, which is the most detailed form ever required of U.S. employers by the IRS, breaks down a year’s worth of payroll and benefits data by month.

The only similarity to a W-2 is the date it must be given out. For companies that are fully insured, this means providing a 1095-C form to every full-time employee. For companies that are self-insured, this means providing a 1095-C form to every covered employee.

The recordkeeping that goes into producing 1095-Cs accurately is not a job for spreadsheets.

To quickly find out what exactly you need to do, and by when – just as Santa has to for his Claus Resources – tune in to this short, educational ACA reporting video because:

• IRS penalties are steep: $500 per required return if you don't file.
• The clock is ticking: 1095-C forms are due to employees February 1, 2016 (the same day as W-2s).

One call to Integrity Data can do all the heavy lifting for this new compliance burden. We have a simple-to-use ACA tracking and reporting solution that can produce the forms for your employees and the IRS, no matter what payroll or ERP system your business uses. Beyond the yearly reporting needed for regulatory compliance, our system does deep internal monthly reporting for ACA penalty risk management.

To see how we simplify Affordable Care Act compliance, sign up for a webinar here.

By Integrity Data, a developer and vendor of ACA tracking and reporting software

The post 1095-C Forms Due to Employees by February 1 – Are You ACA-Ready? appeared first on ERP Software Blog.

Though the HR department often steers an organization’s path toward Affordable Care Act compliance, it’s another department that lights the way for this benefits-driven effort:

Yes, the Payroll department is where every organization’s ACA compliance starts!

Whether employers with 50 or more full-time employees and full-time equivalents are focused solely on 1095-C/1094-C submissions – or if they focus first on who to cover and then on IRS submissions, payroll data is the information they have to mine.

That’s why, during National Payroll Week, we’re happy to point out that our ACA solution – trusted for its robustness  and known for its ease of use – works comprehensively with payroll data.

And for our system to accept payroll data for processing, it now does not matter where that data sits. Once an enhancement only for the payroll module of Microsoft Dynamics® GP, Integrity Data’s ACA Compliance Solution has evolved to work with all standalone payroll systems, as well as the payroll module of any ERP system.

So if you’re on Microsoft Dynamics® AX, NAV, SL or GP, don’t sweat:

• Where you run payroll. In-house or outsourced, your payroll data can interface with our ACA tracking and reporting engine so that population of IRS Forms 1095-C and 1094-C won’t be an issue.
• Lead time for a lengthy deployment. Because our solution works without any need for energy-consuming HR setups, deployment can be in a single day.

If you are on Microsoft Dynamics® GP, don’t sweat:

• What GP version you’re on. We’re compatible with all supported versions of GP.
• When your staff will find the time to implement the HR module. For the all-out ACA tracking that we do, we do not require implementation of the HR module. (If you use HR for other reasons, no problem.)

To learn more about Integrity Data’s ACA Compliance Solution, sign up for our next webinar.

To learn more about the differences in functionality between our ACA Compliance Solution and what you have out-of-the-box with Dynamics GP, download this comparison fact sheet.

To connect with a member of our ACA compliance team, email Sales@integrity-data.com or call 888.786.6162.

By Helen Karakoudas | ACA Education Director at Integrity Data

by Integrity Data

The post Affordable Care Act Compliance in the Payroll Department appeared first on ERP Software Blog.

The clock is ticking, with the first deadline for new Affordable Care Act forms just weeks away. You may be confused about exactly what all the ACA buzz means for you.

Here you may be coasting along and thinking: “This isn’t my issue; I have just 25 full-time employees and a handful of part-timers. I even added part-timers just so I wouldn’t be required to give health benefits. I am *far* from the 50 FTE threshold I keep hearing about!”

Well, that may be true, but you still could be an “Applicable Large Employer” – ALE for short – that has to comply with the ACA.

Here’s how:

If, in the previous calendar year, your business met IRS rules for companies that are related in a certain way – and the total head count of all these related companies in that year was 50 or more – then you’re an ALE member of an ALE Group. Now, how do you know if you are in a group of companies that needs to check their combined head count?

• Are there common owners?
• Do the companies provide services to one another?
• Do these companies jointly provide services to others?

Should your answer be “yes” to any of the above questions, tune in to a short educational video using Santa (and what we imagine are his U.S. companies) as an example: Confused about whether you Company Has to Comply with the Affordable Care? Santa Is Trying to Figure This Out, Too! This video also addresses exclusions that can be taken from an individual company’s ALE head count that may bring the combined head count under the 50 threshold.

When these considerations apply to your business, be aware that:

• IRS penalties are steep: $500 per required return if you don’t file.
• Time to get ready is running out: 1095-C forms are due to employees February 1, the same day as W-2s.

If – based on all this – you have determined that you are an ALE, it’s time to act if you haven’t already.

So, what’s your next step?

Integrity Data has a simple ACA tracking and reporting solution that can help, no matter what payroll or ERP system your business uses. There is still time to implement this solution and get on the right track to ACA compliance. Sign up for a webinar here.

By Integrity Data, an ACA compliance vendor still taking orders

The post The Heat Is On: ACA Is No Myth for Some Small U.S. Businesses appeared first on ERP Software Blog.

You have done the calculations and have determined that your company is actually considered an ALE (Applicable Large Employer) – the classification for a business that has to comply with the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Santa realized he was an ALE as well when we reviewed his Claus Resources operations.

So what now?

You need to be aware that there are two levels to compliance:

1. Offering health insurance of a certain quality to full-time employees
2. Proving the right offer was made to the right employee at the right time.

That’s easy, right?

Wrong:

There are plenty of complexities to consider, such as who is “full-time” according to ACA classifications and what offers of health plans meet ACA standards. There also are plenty of consequences: If you don’t comply with the first level, there are coverage penalties. If you don’t comply with the second level, there is an IRS non-filing penalty. None of the penalties can be deducted as business expenses.

But there is some hope. For Tax Year 2015, the IRS is not going to assess coverage penalties to companies that have 50-99 full-time employees (including equivalents). But, to be considered ACA-compliant for Tax Year 2015, all companies that are ALEs must:

1. Produce statements for full-time employees about what type of coverage was or was not offered. This form is called a 1095-C.
2. File copies of these statements with the IRS. The transmittal form is called a 1094-C.

There is a quirk to producing and filing these statements: This is not just a trip down to the local library to pick up a booklet with the proper forms in it. The 1095-C form, which is the most detailed form ever required of U.S. employers by the IRS, breaks down a year’s worth of payroll and benefits data by month.

The only similarity to a W-2 is the date it must be given out. For companies that are fully insured, this means providing a 1095-C form to every full-time employee. For companies that are self-insured, this means providing a 1095-C form to every covered employee.

The recordkeeping that goes into producing 1095-Cs accurately is not a job for spreadsheets.

To quickly find out what exactly you need to do, and by when – just as Santa has to for his Claus Resources – tune in to this short, educational ACA reporting video because:

• IRS penalties are steep: $500 per required return if you don't file.
• The clock is ticking: 1095-C forms are due to employees February 1, 2016 (the same day as W-2s).

One call to Integrity Data can do all the heavy lifting for this new compliance burden. We have a simple-to-use ACA tracking and reporting solution that can produce the forms for your employees and the IRS, no matter what payroll or ERP system your business uses. Beyond the yearly reporting needed for regulatory compliance, our system does deep internal monthly reporting for ACA penalty risk management.

To see how we simplify Affordable Care Act compliance, sign up for a webinar here.

By Integrity Data, a developer and vendor of ACA tracking and reporting software

The post 1095-C Forms Due to Employees by February 1 – Are You ACA-Ready? appeared first on ERP Software Blog.