Perform an ACA Status Bulk Update

Note: The ACAClosed Affordable Care Act covers W-2 employees, not 1099 contractors. This tab lists only those employee records that have the Miscellaneous tab > Tax Form field with a W2 value.

Note: If the Company is not an Applicable Large Employer they are not subjected to the ACA and therefore do not need to identify or test ACA Status.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires that Applicable Large Employers file annual reports to provide information to the government about their full-time employees and their eligibility status for Medical insurance. The company must also provide all full-time employees with an annual statement (IRSClosed Internal Revenue Service Form 1095-C).

Each employee’s ACA status must be identified as either full-time or part-time by their employer.

The ACA Status Bulk Update feature allows authorized users to update employees in bulk so updating tens or hundreds of individual employees is not necessary. For more on the tab and its fields, see EE ACA Status Bulk Update.

Note: In each use case (example), you are the payroll administrator for the ACME Company, responsible for performing the steps explained here.

Use Case 1

Bulk Load All Employees for the First Time

Assume you have not yet updated your employee’s ACA status and you need to retrieve this information so that:

  • You know who is eligible for insurance.
  • The statuses are correct for year-end reporting.

Perform the following steps:

  1. Log in to Millennium® 3.
  2. Select the [company] > Company Maintenance > Company Setup > EE ACA Status Bulk Update tab.

The system displays the EE ACA Status Bulk Update page:

The default value for Effective Date is today’s date. The other five filter fields in the page header default to the values shown in the image above.

Therefore, according to the default filter settings, the items list displays all employees that are not terminated as of the effective date (today).

  1. Enter the appropriate Effective Date.

The “effective date” is the start date of the new ACA Status record. In this example, you want the ACA status record to start as of 1/1/2014.

Note: When you change the effective date field, the employee list refreshes and may not include all employees that are not terminated as of 1/1/2014.

  1. Select the appropriate filter values in the remaining page header fields.

In this example, you want to see all employees, regardless of their ACA status; therefore, you do not change the ACA Status filter value.

You filter your list of employees even more by using the Filter1 and Filter2 filters.

Note: If you select the same value for Filter1 and Filter2, the list of employees will include employees that meet either Value1 or Value2. If the values of the Filter1 and Filter2 drop-down lists are not the same, then the list of employees includes any employee that meets both filter values.

You know that all hourly employees at ACME are considered to be part-time for the ACA.

  1. You select Auto Pay for Filter1.
  2. You select Hours for Value1.

The items list is refreshed, showing only those employees that have an “Auto Pay” filter with a value of “Hours.”

  1. You only want to update employees that not terminated as of your effective date; therefore, you do not change Filter2 or Value2.

If the employee:

  • Has a current ACA Status record (as of the effective date), the record for the employee displays with their ACA status, whether they are a variable hour employee, a seasonal employee, and the effective dates of the record
  • Does not have a record, the employee will be displayed with an ACA status of “No Status” and all other fields are blank

All ACME employees do not have a current ACA Status record, so the items list shows all hourly employees and that they do not have a record. You want to update all employees in the grid to part-time and none of them variable hours or seasonal; so, you continue with the steps that follow.

  1. Click the Select All button in the page footer.

All employees in the items list are selected.

  1. Select Part Time from the New Status drop-down list in the page footer.
  2. To be safe, select No from the Variable Hour drop-down list.
  3. Again, select No from the Seasonal drop-down list.
  4. Click the Update Selected button.

The system creates a new ACA Status record for all employees in the list, then refreshes the screen. It displays employees in the list according to the values of the filters in the page header. Employees that were updated show the new record values.

Each new record’s start date is the effective date entered by the user, and its end date defaults to 12/31/2100

  • If the employee was hired after the effective date, the start date equals the employee’s hire date.
  • If the employee was terminated after the effective date, the end date equals the employee’s termination date.

Use Case 2

This example follows the same scenario as Use Case 1; however, when you populate the items list with your desired employees, you know that one employee—John Smith—should be identified as a variable hour employee.

Therefore, you follow these steps:

  1. Select every employee in the items list by clicking the Select All button in the page footer.
  2. Hold down the Ctrl key, then left-click on John Smith to deselect him.
  3. Click the Select All button in the page footer to update only the selected employees (all except John Smith).
  4. Once the screen refreshes, select (left-click) John Smith so that his line is highlighted.
  5. Set New Status to Part Time and Variable Hours to Yes.
  6. Click the Update Selected button in the page footer.

The system updates only John Smith and his record will indicate that he is a variable hour employee.

Use Case 3

At the end of the 2015, you want to ensure that all employees at ACME have a valid ACA status for the calendar year.

Therefore, you follow these steps:

  1. Select No Status in the ACA Status drop-down list.

The grid should populate with all employees that do not have a status for ACA as of the effective date.

  1. Run the audit and select the ACA Status value Unknown and repeat the audit.