ACA reporting will be mandatory beginning on January 1, 2016

With the latest year-end/payroll tax update come changes that affect the collection of data for ACA (Affordable Care Act) reporting.  There are new windows and fields added with this update.  ACA reporting will be mandatory beginning on January 1, 2016, however, you may be required to begin accumulating data effective January 1, 2015 so the time is very soon to get this completed.  GP 2010 will NOT have these changes reflected, so if that is your version, you need to schedule time to speak with us as soon as possible so that we can discuss an upgrade (especially if you have more than 50 employees!).

Two Internal Revenue Service forms will play a major part in the tracking of employee health care coverage for companies with more than 50 full-time staff members. Because the forms won’t be due from employers until the end of the 2015 fiscal year, they haven’t been completely finalized. Form 1095-C was described by the blog as similar to a W2, in the sense that its intended recipient is an employee and the purpose of the form is to indicate benefits received, in this case an offer of health insurance coverage. Form 1094-C is a summary of all the 1095-C forms, and is sent by a business to the IRS along with 1094-C forms.

Year-end updates to Microsoft Dynamics GP, released at the end of November, include the functionality for ACA-related reporting. The updates cover Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and GP 2015 Only with new tables and windows introduced for both GP 2013 and GP 2015 to aid staff members in efficiently filling out health insurance coverage forms, along with updates to a few existing ones. A month-by-month benefit tracking system will allow organizations to fulfill their reporting obligations, although businesses will need to have the system set up by early January to avoid the additional work of editing data to match actual records for 2015.

The functionality will only be available in the Human Resources module of Dynamics GP, not in the Payroll module. The licensing for the Human Resources model is included with GP 2013 and beyond, so it’s likely that there will be few problems for businesses not on this version because Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 and prior versions will not get the ACA changes, but they will still get the regular year end update changes.  Tax and Year-end changes for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 will end on October 13, 2015 so it’s important to work with us to get your business properly situated with both the ACA and tax/year-end changes.  Employers not actively using the Human Resources module will need to start doing so to track employee health care records unless they are using another Payroll/HR external service which will provide this functionality.

The TM Group will be providing training for clients who want assistance with this data collection.  Training should take only 1.5-2 hours, but we are fixing the cost to our clients at a flat fee of $250.  If you are interested, please complete our contact us form and include GP ACA Reporting in comments.