From the Compliance Menu at the top right of your screen, hover over “Census” and select “Edit” or use the side tab. This screen shows the primary census grid so you can see any census data already uploaded. Also, above the grid, is the name of the current primary census grid selected for the plan.
If you want to change the primary census grid for your plan, click the “Change” link to the right of the grid name, select the grid you want from the first drop-down box, and click “Set Census Grid”.
Q.S. Tip: The default grid for most customers is *ftw Primary 1 Census (comp and comp after elig) (c1eb549). If you want a different grid to be your default grid, please contact support@ftwilliam.com. |
Q.S. Tip: We strongly recommend that you start with one of our core grids which are as follows:
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Any grid whose name begins with “* ftw” is a “System” grid, which means it cannot be edited, only copied. If you want to modify the layout of a grid follow the steps below:
- From the Compliance Menu box at the top right of the screen, click on “Census”, then “Create/Edit Grids”.
- Select the grid you want to edit in the drop-down box and click “Copy” or “Edit”.
- Enter a name for the grid in the box labeled “Short Description”.
- To delete a column, select “None” from the “Field” drop-down box.
- To add a column, select the census field from the Field drop-down box; the Heading and HelpText boxes will auto-populate. Enter a new sequence number designed to place the new data field where you want it located; e.g. if you want the new data field between items with sequence numbers 180 and 190, you would give it a sequence number between 181 and 189.
- When you click the “Update” button the numbers will be re-sequenced and the fields will be added or deleted to the grid.
After creating the modified grid you will need to return to the census screen to select it.
Note that there is a full list of all available grids, together with a description of how they can be used, in Appendix I at the end of the Quick Start Guide.
Once you have selected the primary census grid, to load census data into the software, select Census=>Download=>Current. Open the spreadsheet and save it on your hard drive as a .csv file, then either key data into the worksheet, or copy and paste from another source. You do need to have all your data in the worksheet in the format specified; also the columns need to be in the order of the selected grid. Prior to uploading the data into the system, we highly recommend reviewing the census data to ensure it is complete and accurate. For example, all compensation fields on the census must have compensation data.
Q.S. Tip: Select “Census”, then “Edit” and add one participant to the Data Entry Grid screen that appears by entering the SSN and clicking the Add Participant button. You can then enter/select the rest of the fields and when you download the worksheet you’ll have one participant’s data added which will help in adding the rest. You will also see the help buttons for each data field within the grid and dropdown boxes for fields that need specific data. |
Once you have all of the participant data entered into the worksheet, save it, then, select Census=>Upload. You will see a screen where you can browse for the file and select it. You also need to indicate whether you want entry dates reset, typically “Yes”, and enter the number of rows to be uploaded.
Q.S. Tip: You may over-estimate the number of rows of data to submit. The system will stop uploading when a SSN/Employee ID is invalid or missing - e.g. when there’s a blank line or SSN format is incorrect. |
Click “Submit”; you will see a message indicating how many rows of data were uploaded. If you see an error message the most likely reason is that the file was in an incorrect format.
Q.S. Tip: The unique ID (e.g. c1eb549) associated with a grid is always in cell A3 on the worksheet that you download; when you upload, the software uses this to place the data in the correct system field. If the ID is not in the correct cell, or does not match, the upload will be aborted. |
For the first year that the plan is using the ftwilliam.com Compliance Module, the system assumes that prior year data, such as ownership, family attribution, hours and compensation, were the same as the current year. You may need to add additional data to correct any prior year differences that impact plan calculations; the easiest way to do this is to use a supplemental grid.
From the Compliance Menu at the top right of your screen, hover over “Census” and select “Other Import/Export/ Reports”; select “* ftw First Year Supplemental Census Grid” – this grid is generally added from the “UD Grid 1” drop-down box - and click “Save selections”. Click “Edit Data” to open the grid. You may need to add supplemental data in the following situations:
- The plan has a 1000 hours requirement and there are participants who worked fewer than 1000 in the current year but more than 1000 in prior years. You should enter the actual prior years of service, i.e. prior to the current year, for these individuals in each of the Prior YOS columns - for each contribution source and for vesting.
- There are compensation differences between the current and previous years that would impact HCE or Key Employee determination. Enter actual prior year compensation in the “Compensation Statutory Prior Year” column.
- If you are doing Top Heavy testing and there were in-service distributions taken in prior years. You can enter the amounts in the grid in the “TH Inserv Distrib Yr1, 2, etc” columns. Note that Year 1 is the current plan year.
- The plan is using the Top Paid Group (TPG) election for determining HCEs. You need to indicate who was in the TPG in the prior year - this is the third from last column on this supplemental grid.
- There are one or more former key employees on the census – you can tag someone as a former key by selecting Yes in the “Key_EE Prior Year” column. You can also code someone as a current key employee by selecting Yes in the “Key EE Determ Date” column.
Once you have all the necessary supplemental data added, return to the Compliance Menu; note that you do not have to enter data into all fields on the grid.
Q.S. Tip: If you have a large amount of supplemental data to enter you can download the grid to a worksheet, add the data to the worksheet, save as a .csv file and upload. |
Please note that the Other Import/Export/Reports menu can also be used to create custom reports. You can add any grid on this screen then download the data to Excel (click the Excel icon), or open in Word (click the Word icon). In addition if you want to see more detailed calculations you can add a grid to show these, e.g. add the “ ftw Self Employment Calculations” grid to see more detail on how the earned income amount was calculated.
