Summary

Organizations that employee more than 50 full-time equivalent employees, and some smaller entities, must provide Affordable Care Act (ACA) reports to the IRS and organization employees. Springbrook is leveraging the power of the cloud to help Springbrook, KVS and SoftRight clients generate the required 1094-C export files and 1095-C printed reports.

To learn more about the Affordable Care Act process, please log in to Success Community and visit the Affordable Care Act Playbook.

Step by Step

1     Create a new ACA batch.

• Select the Affordable Care Act palette in PR> Affordable Care Act. This will expand the ACA palette and display the steps of the ACA process.
• Select New from the ACA batch number drop-down menu to create a new batch. This will open the New Batch window.
  • If there are open batches in the ACA process, you can create a new batch without affecting the open batches.
• Enter a common name for the batch in the Name field. This name will appear next to the batch number on the My Batches window. This will allow you to recognize particular batches without relying on batch numbers.
• Use the Group Security drop-down menu if you would like to limit access to this batch to a particular user group. User groups are created and maintained on the User Group Maintenance window (SS> Security> User Group).
  • The Name and Group Security fields will automatically populate with the details specified the last time the current user created a new batch for the same process.
• Enter a Batch Month and Batch Year. These fields default to the current calendar period and are for reference only.
• Click the Generate icon   to populate the Batch Number field with the next available batch number. Batch numbers are limited to five digits and must be unique within the batch month of the batch year.
  • You can also manually create a new batch by entering a Batch Number and clicking the Save icon  .
• You can delete batches by selecting a batch and pressing DELETE.

2     Import ACA data.

• Open the Import window (PR> Affordable Care Act> Import).
• The Import step is used to import Springbrook data into the ACA tool. Organizations will often use this step to import dependent data that is not in Springbrook, to import custom employee data files, or to import correction batch data.
  • Click the Display icon   to view format and content information related to these import files.
• The Employee File field is used to import an employee data file.
  • The data included in the Employee file can be edited on the Edit Employees step after being imported.
• The Dependent File field is used to import a dependent data file.
  • The data included in the Dependent file can be edited on the Edit Employees step after being imported.
• The Coverage File field is used to import the Coverage File generated by the Export step in a prior Affordable Care Act batch.
• Any combination of these three files can be imported and all the imported data can be edited later in the process. Click the field labels to browse to the desired import files.
• The Employment Cutoff Date field is used to limit the employees included in the batch to only those that were employed AFTER the specified date. For example, if you are processing ACA reports for 2022, you would enter 01/01/2022 in this field to filter out employees that left the organization earlier.
• Click the Display icon   to view format and content information related to these import files.
• Check the Resubmission toggle if you are importing corrections through a resubmission batch.
  • This will enable the Resubmission ID field where you will enter the receipt ID that was provided by the IRS when the ACA site accepted the original submission.
• Click the Confirm icon when complete to import the specified files.

3     Generate the ACA batch.

• Open the Generate window (PR> Affordable Care Act> Generate).
• If you imported your ACA data in the previous step, skip the Generate step and proceed to the Edit Employees step below.
• The Generate step is used to generate the initial ACA coverage values and to pull ACA employee and dependent data from existing employee information in the database. This data can be edited in the following steps.
• Enter the Calendar Year you would like to process for the ACA.
• Click the Confirm icon to generate the ACA coverage values and data.

4     View and edit the Employee information included in the ACA batch.

• Open the Edit Employees window (PR> Affordable Care Act> Edit Employees).
• The Edit Employees step is used to view and edit the employee and dependent data that will populate the 1095-C printed reports.
• The Employees section will display all of the employee data imported into the process. Highlight an employee record and the Dependents section below will display any dependent data associated with the employee record.
• Click the Create icon   drop-down menu and select New Employee to add employees to the batch that were not included in the import file.
  • This will open the Employee Selection window. Enter the employee details in the Search Criteria section and click the Refresh icon   to display the search results in the data grid below.
  • Highlight an employee and click the Confirm icon   to add that employee to the ACA batch.
• Once the employee record appears in the Employees section, each column can be edited. You can also click the plus icon next to the employee to expand the coverage details associated with that employee. Those coverage details can also be edited.
  • If you would like to apply the same Coverage Value, Code Series 1 and Code Series 2 to every month on an employee record, you can edit the All line, month number 13, and all 12 months above will be populated with those values once the Edit step is saved.
  • Alternatively, you can highlight an employee record and click the Modify icon   to edit the employee's coverage details on the Coverage window.
  • In order to update the ACA coverage and code information on multiple employees, check the Select column for all the desired employees and click the Modify icon  . This will open the Coverage window where you can select the months and enter the coverage amount, coverage type code and safe harbor code that should be associated with all the selected employees. Click the Confirm icon   and all the selected employee records will be updated.
    • You can also use the Select All   and Deselect All   icons to select and deselect multiple employees.
• Highlight an employee and click the Create icon   drop-down menu and select New Dependent to add a dependent to the highlighted employee.
  • This will create a new line item in the Dependents section below. Each column on the dependent line item can be edited.
• Click the Create icon   drop-down menu and select New External Employee to add an employee that has retired or left the organization.
  • Because external employees are not included in the Employee Maintenance window, this option will create a new row that will need to be manually completed for the external employee.
• Use the Delete icon to remove selected employees or dependents from the window.
• Once all the desired employees are added to the data grid and all the coverage and dependent data is accurate, click the Save icon   to proceed.

5     View and edit the Employer information included in the ACA batch.

• Open the Edit Employer window (PR> Affordable Care Act> Edit Employer).
• The Edit Employer step is used to edit the employer ACA data that must be submitted to the IRS via the 1094-C export file.
• The details entered in the Employer and Contact tabs and the Applicable Large Employer section will differ from organization to organization. Please refer to the IRS document https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i109495c.pdf - for details regarding how your organization should update these sections.
• Once all the employer data is updated and accurate, click the Save icon   to proceed.

6     Print a Proof List.

• Open the Proof List window (PR> Affordable Care Act> Proof List).
• The Proof List includes the data that will be displayed in the 1095-C report. It will display the Name, Employee Number, SSN, Address, City, State and Zip associated with each employee record included in the batch. The report will also display the Coverage Amount, Coverage Type and Safe Harbor status for every month included in the year specified above.
• The SSN Format drop-down menu is used to specify how the social security numbers on the employee records will display on the report.
  • Select Do not print if the social security numbers should not display on the report. The SSN column will still display on the report, but the social security numbers will display as ***-**-****.
  • Select Print Full SSN if the entire social security number should display on the report.
  • Select Print Last 4 Digits if the last four digits of each employee record should display on the report.
• Check the Page Break toggle to include a page break after each employee record.
• Click the Print icon   to process the report immediately or enter a date and time in the field next to the Print icon to schedule the report to generate at a later time. You can view the progress of the report on the Job Viewer window (SS> Utilities> Show Scheduled Jobs).
  • Click the Print icon drop-down menu and select Print Preview to preview the report before printing.
  • Click the Print icon drop-down menu and select Excel to export the report data to an Excel spreadsheet as unformatted data.
  • Click the Print icon drop-down menu and select Excel (Formatted) to export the report data to an Excel spreadsheet that includes much of the Springbrook formatting found on the printed version of the report.
  • Once the report is generated, you can also display the report using the View Reports window (SS> Utilities> View Report).
• Review the Proof List Report and return to the Edit ACA step to modify the values if necessary. If all of the ACA records are correct, proceed to the Forms step to generate the forms.

7     Print the 1095-C Forms.

• Open the Print ACA Forms window (PR> Affordable Care Act> Forms).
• The Organization Information section will automatically populate with the general organization information specified on the SS System Setup window. This information can be edited.
• The 1095-C report consists of two pages for every employee included in the batch. The system will print the entire 1095-C report, so you will not need to order form stock before processing these forms.
• Click the Print icon   to process the report immediately or enter a date and time in the field next to the Print icon to schedule the report to generate at a later time. You can view the progress of the report on the Job Viewer window (SS> Utilities> Show Scheduled Jobs).
  • Click the Print icon drop-down menu and select Print Preview to preview the report before printing.
  • Click the Print icon drop-down menu and select Excel to export the report data to an Excel spreadsheet as unformatted data.
  • Click the Print icon drop-down menu and select Excel (Formatted) to export the report data to an Excel spreadsheet that includes much of the Springbrook formatting found on the printed version of the report.
  • Once the report is generated, you can also display the report using the View Reports window (SS> Utilities> View Report).

8     Generate the 1094-C export files.

• Open the Export ACA window (PR> Affordable Care Act> Export).
• The export step generates four export files:
  • One ACA 1094-C .xml file that your organization will need to submit to the IRS.
    • Please refer to the IRS Affordable Care Act Tax Provisions for Employers website - https://www.irs.gov/Affordable-Care-Act/Employers - for format or content details related to this file.
  • Three .csv files that include employee, dependent and coverage details. These files are for your records. They can also be imported back into the ACA process through the Import step should you need to run the ACA process again.
    • Click the Display icon   to view format and content information related to these files.
• Enter the Calendar Year for the ACA export file.
• Click the Confirm icon to create the export files.
  • You can view the progress of the export on the Job Viewer window (SS> Utilities> Show Scheduled Jobs).
• Once the export has finished processing, the Export Settings window will open. This window is used to specify the export path for the ACA files.
  • Check the Open toggle if you would like to open the exported files after they are saved locally.
  • Enter the export path locations and click the Save icon   to export the files to the local paths.

9     Commit the ACA batch.

• After you have printed the 1095-C forms and generated the 1094-C files, commit the batch to complete the process.
• Open the Commit window (PR> Affordable Care Act> Commit).
• Click the OK button to commit the batch.