Affordable Care Act: Your Questions Answered
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is no secret. Everyone has heard of it by now, but many companies have yet to fully understand the impact it will have on their business. ACA presents significant challenges to payroll, HR, benefits, and financial departments, impacting everyone in an organization. With so much data needed from company records, systems and databases, being compliant with ACA standards can be a big challenge for businesses of any size. The IRS recently increased the penalty for businesses that are not ACA compliant, so it’s more important than ever to find answers to your ACA questions:
Is it too late to implement ACA compliant processes? What about historical information?
Any employee who works more than 30 hours of service per week or 130 hours of service per month over the course of their measurement period is considered a full-time employee for the purposes of ACA, so historical data is essential. The form 1095-C that is issued to these employees, also presents complications because a historical offer of coverage needs to be tracked continuously throughout the year to have a full scope of what to report on the form 1095-C at year end. Greenshades Software pulls your historical payroll and HR data from Microsoft Dynamics GP, and calculates the full-time status for employees to capture historical coverage details with minimal edits. It’s not too late, but it’s important that your business reacts as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the more complicated this process becomes.
I want to go green. What electronic options does the IRS offer for ACA?
The IRS offers various ways to go paperless; some voluntary and some mandatory. Any business that is filing more than 250 1095-C records to the IRS must file the 1094-C transmittal electronically. If a business is filing less than 250 1095-C records, they have the option to file electronically with the IRS. Please note: if you already have a Transmittal Control Code (TCC) for filing other 1099s electronically, you must register for a new TCC with the Affordable Care Act Information Reporting (AIR) program to file your 1094/1095 electronically. By using the Greenshades applications, you can avoid this registration process; one less headache! The IRS also allows the 1095-C form to be issued electronically to the recipient, as long as the recipient explicitly agrees to receive this form electronically. The Greenshades Year End Forms module will track this consent process for you, saving you both time and money in January 2016 by avoiding the need to print and mail paper 1095-Cs to recipients.
Our employees have enrolled in self-insured plans, can you help?
Self-insured coverage presents additional challenges with the Affordable Care Act, but nothing that cannot be tackled with the appropriate resources. Because self-insured companies will not have an insurance carrier to issue a form 1095-B to all covered individuals, an employer that offers health coverage through an employer-sponsored self-insured health plan must complete form 1095-C, Parts 1, 2, and 3. This is true for any employee who enrolls in the health coverage, whether or not the employee is a full-time employee for any month of the calendar year. Part 3 includes information about which dependents were covered throughout the year. This means that a business must take additional steps in ensuring that dependent election data is collected and stored throughout the year. Coverage offered to non-employees must also be reported, however, this will be reported on form 1095-B.
An employer that offers employer-sponsored self-insured health coverage but is not an applicable large employer subject to the employer shared responsibility provisions under section 4980H, should not file forms 1094-C and 1095-C, but should instead file forms 1094-B and 1095-B to report information for employees who enrolled in the employer-sponsored self-insured health coverage.
Greenshades has full support for employers with self-insured plans, and will support both the form 1094/1095-C, as well as the 1094/1095-B. Greenshades will also assist in tracking and storing the dependent elections throughout the year making completion of 1095-C Part 3 easy at year end.
What versions of Microsoft Dynamics GP can Greenshades help with?
Greenshades offers support for all versions of Dynamics GP, including some versions of Dynamics that are no longer officially supported by Microsoft (such as GP 10.0, or GP 2010 as of October 2015).
I’m not processing Payroll in Microsoft Dynamics GP. Is that a problem?
Many businesses who outsource their payroll have come to the unpleasant truth that their payroll providers may not be offering any support for the Affordable Care Act, unless they are prepared to use a large amount of financial and personnel resources to implement an entire Human Resources suite. Not to worry, Greenshades can help. Greenshades offers an Excel template that can be used at year end for populating employee and coverage details, which will be used for populating form 1095-C or 1095-B in January. Greenshades will assist with the electronic reporting to the IRS as well.
The IRS tells me I’m part of an Aggregated ALE Group. Can Greenshades help with that?
As a business associated with an Aggregated ALE Group, it’s key that employee level data is properly accessible and tracked throughout the year, especially if you have an employee who works across multiple employer groups. Any hours of service accumulated throughout the measurement period for the employee must be aggregated across all of the reporting companies. Just because the employee does not work more than 30 hours of service per week in any one particular company, it does not mean the employee is not a full-time employee. In addition to tracking employee hours across multiple companies, the companies in question must also work together for reporting the form 1095-C at year end to determine which company should be responsible for reporting in January. Greenshades provides businesses with the ability to setup Aggregated ALE Groups to make employee tracking very manageable throughout the year and all required logic will be applied by Greenshades reporting at year end to keep you and your business in compliance.
Written by: Chris Hadden, CPP, Greenshades Software
It is more important than ever for your business to be ACA compliant. Tidestone Solutions and Greenshades Software can help. Contact us today to learn more about the solutions available to you that will ensure your business is ACA compliant!
TIdestone Solutions | info@tidestonesolutions.com | 207-761-2133
