BPAS

Top 10 Most Useful Reports for Plan Sponsors

The BPAS website contains many useful reports that should be checked on a periodic basis. These reports are available to help keep clients abreast of participant activity within their plan and to assist in ensuring that employees are taking full advantage of the benefit that your plan offers.

Apr 21, 2014

BPAS-4-21-14-Reports on tablet

Many clients forget that the BPAS website contains many useful reports that should be checked on a periodic basis.  These reports are available to help keep clients  abreast of participant activity within their plan and to assist in ensuring that employees are taking full advantage of the benefit that your plan offers.  Some reports are provided to help in the compliant operation of your plan.

Some of the available reports that you should review, along with a brief description of these reports, are detailed below. Please note, not all reports are available to all plans depending on the provisions of the plan and if anyone met the qualifying criteria:

  1. Address Changes – This report lists any recent address changes that are received by BPAS. All address changes which are received in a manner separate from the census file require a 10-day hold be placed on the participant’s account. This allows for procedures to be followed to verify that the participant is the person who initiated the address change.
  2. Changes to Contribution Rates – This report lists the changes to contribution rates to individual accounts. It should be checked prior to each payroll run if your plan has elected a form of online enrollment. Failure to check this and update any participant directed changes could result in corrective contributions needing to be paid to the plan by the employer.
  3. Contribution Posting History – Beneficial to review as you can keep track of when the contributions you submitted to the plan were actually deposited to the plan. Allows you to make sure you are depositing deferral contributions and loan payments in a timely manner and that the amount deposited matches the amount you withheld from payroll.
  4. Invalid Addresses – Contains a listing of people for whom we have had mail returned. This allows you to assist in getting updated addresses to guarantee statements and all required notices are being delivered.
  5. Loans Nearing Default – Once a loan is defaulted it becomes taxable to the participant and they are not allowed to take another loan until the defaulted loan and accrued interest are paid back. Reviewing this will help “keep them in line” with the terms of their loan.
  6. Missing Participant Data – The information we provide is only as good as the information we receive.  Clients should review this often and supply us with the updated information. This will allow our reports to be more accurate along with easing or eliminating the year end request for missing data that a lot of clients receive.
  7. New Loan Issues – Sometimes amortization schedules and loan letters get lost in the mail. This is good to review to ensure that you do not miss starting any payroll deducted loans. All of the amortization schedules are available online if you should run across this issue.
  8. Participants Without Investment Direction – This contains a list of people who have never chosen investment allocations, but instead have just allowed all of their money to go into the default fund. They should be encouraged to talk to the plan’s investment advisor and chose a line up of funds that best suites their retirement needs.
  9. Suspension Hardship Files – Sometimes your employees come across a time in life that requires them to take a hardship distribution. This file keeps you up to date on those who have taken one, when to start the 6 month suspension, and when to end it and allow the participant to contribute again.
  10. Eligibility Reports – This lists the employees who become eligible for the different type of contributions in the plan for the current quarter and the following quarter.

The above is just a sampling of the reports available on the website. For a guided tour of our Plan Sponsor website, click here.  As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact your BPAS consultant.