Employer Decision Point: What to Do About Pay or Play
Delays, grace periods, and waffling media buzz. It’s no wonder so many employers are giving the oncoming Affordable Care Act (ACA) as much credibility as the boy who cried wolf. Oddly enough, the biggest ACA naysayers we often see are outgunned benefits specialists pouring honey in their clients ears about legislative repeals and House-majorities in the hopes that they’re not put on the spot to provide real solutions to complying with the new law of the land.
I know, we certainly will let the future be the judge, and if I am wrong I will gladly eat this ACA blog with fava beans and a nice Chianti. In the mean time we are approaching the end of month-one of mandatory ACA complaince for applicable large employers (ALEs). For ALEs lacking due-diligence, that means fines come next tax season.
If you are an ALE for 2015 and find yourself without a plan for Obamacare compliance, please…
Related Blog: How to Complete IRS Affordable Care Act 1095-C Forms
1) Get the Facts you need, Fast! And I am not talking about reading what the news blotters have to say about the latest rumblings in D.C. Get the facts about what you must do as an ALE to gather the applicable employee data that you need, put it through the proper tests, and get the feedback that you need to make potentially vital decisions for your organization. Register for a webinar! Attend a seminar! Subscribe to a blog!
Arguably, your best bet is to talk with an expert: there is a lot to learn in a short period of time. Schedule an appointment with your accountant or lawyer. Talk to a trusted benefits advisor. I really would be weary of those who a) tell you that the ACA is going away and not to worry, or b) are not able to give you a workable ACA solution.
2) Consider where you want to add further employee benefits and HR efficiencies. There is a lot of employee data to capture, and outdated paper tracking methods will continue to plague HR departments still using paper punch clocks and enrollments. Despite the vast success of the cloud and employee benefits portals, a number of employers have yet to make the jump and gain the efficiencies of moving from paper to online benefits enrollment.
A recent 2014 study by softwareadvice.com showed that 56% of benefits administration software shoppers reported that migrating from paper to an online enrollment process was their main motive for shopping. For many, the cumbersome data tracking required by the ACA may be the impetus needed to finally ditch the paper and go-green with the cloud.
Market trends in 2015 show an increase in demand for total workforce management software solutions, and integrated employee benefits and HR portals to track all employee data from a single platform. Given the nature of the employee data that the ACA requires for compliance testing, a non-silo’d integrated HR solution could be the best way forward for your organization.
And let’s face it, while Play or Pay just happens to be the compliance regulation getting all the press at the moment, employers and HR managers still have to tackle FMLA administration, annual equal opportunity and sexual harassment training, and countless other tedious, yet necessary functions that come with managing employees.
Point being, if you have the option of adding another silo’d software function to your cloud or making the jump to a fully integrated HR portal, consider all areas of workforce management and Human Resource compliance that could benefit from your ACA solution.
3) Make a decision! We had a saying in the Marines, “A 70% solution executed today is better than a 90% solution next month.” There are a number of payroll providers that are telling their clients, “Don’t worry, we got this.” Pry a little bit, and ask for the 5 W’s. Afterall, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and an expert in payroll does not automatically equal an expert in employee benefits administration and regulatory compliance.
There are a number of new compliance vendors that have hit the market in the past six months, but don’t expect to find any ACA software reviews for the next 6-12 months. The real evaluation won’t happen until January of 2016 when employers and individual carriers will have to present employees with section 6055/6056 IRS affordable care act reporting forms alongside their W2s.
Of course, we await the final version of these IRS affordable care act forms with bated breath. We’ll be pushing out the latest information we have about Obamacare IRS form reporting in an upcoming blog, so subscribe today and sign up for our ACA webinar going next month.
