All of the following are done from the “Transactions” option in the Compliance Menu at the top right of the screen or the side tabs. This part of the software is where you can import or add information about participant account balances and financial activity. Transactions are added in “batches” and each batch may only include one transaction type.
Q.S. Tip: Always complete setting up sources, and investment accounts if using, prior to adding or uploading transaction batches; see Plan Specifications for details. |
All batches, whether added manually, from allocations, or via upload, will go to the “Pending Batches” area. From there you can edit them, delete them or post them; only when posted does the information feed to participant statements and financial reports or to the Top Heavy test. There are several ways to add transaction batches:
- Having the software create a batch.
From the Compliance menu, select Transactions, then Transactions/Statements. If you have a previous plan year in the system and have an ending balances batch posted in that year, in the link to create a beginning balance, you will see a link to create a beginning balance batch from the prior year’s ending balance; otherwise you can select either to create the batch from sources, or a manual batch. Selecting the “from sources” option will add a batch populated with participants and sources/accounts to the pending area. You can enter amounts into this batch, or download it to a .csv file, add the numbers and upload the file. If you have already calculated the contributions as discussed in section 4.1 of this QS Guide you will see links to create a batch from the allocation for each contribution type. Click these links to add the batches. If you have a beginning balances batch added and no ending balances batch, you will see a link to allocate Bal Frwd earnings. Click this link, enter the amount to be allocated and click on “Update” then “Create Batch”.
Q.S. Tip: If the account type is “Brokerage” you will have the option to enter an earnings amount by participant. |
- Adding a manual batch.
To create your own batch, click on “Create New Batch”. You will be taken to the “Create Batch” page where you can select the transaction type from a drop-down box; add a description in the box provided and then click on “Add Batch”. The Batch will now appear as a pending batch in the pending batches area. You may add transactions to a batch via an upload or by manually entering them for each applicable participant on the batch data entry grid.
Once you have contribution transactions posted you’ll see other options on the Transactions screen, including options to compare numbers in the transaction batches with numbers in the allocation on the testing side. This is useful e.g. if the numbers used on the testing side came from the client and you uploaded the transaction data from the asset custodian; the compare feature allows you to see what the differences are. Also there are options to push data from the contribution batches to the testing side – doing this will replace any data there already. For example if you click “Create $10,000.00 Allocations” – you may see a caution message indicating, e.g., that this will overwrite $11,000.00 of Allocations”. This means that there’s a 401(k) contribution batch posted with a total of $10,000.00 in deferrals. If you click the link indicated, the software will replace the 401(k) contributions on the census, totaling $11,000.00, with the numbers from the transaction batch. The message also indicates that you will need to run the scrub and allocation on the testing side, and alerts you that an allocation override will be set.
If the plan assets are with a vendor that ftwilliam.com has an upload link for, you can go to that vendor’s TPA website and download a transaction file for the period you want. If you have added the vendor and the plan ID (under Plan Specifications/Sources & Investment Accounts) you can go to Transactions=>Vendor Uploads to see a link to upload the file. There are also links to download the last file uploaded, and to map sources - note that you will need to map sources prior to uploading a file for the first time.
Q.S. Tip: See the full User Guide or contact support@ftwilliam.com for a list of vendors and file types. There’s also a list posted in the User Forum under “Transactions”. |
Q.S. Tip: When you have finished processing for the current year you should create and post an ending balance batch to prepare for the next plan year.an ending balance batch to prepare for the next plan year. |
Detailed instructions for tracking loans using the ftwilliam.com compliance software are in the User Guide or the loan module user guide.
This screen allows you to select a single participant and view all transactions associated with that participant, either pending transactions, posted transactions, or all.
All transaction batches need to be posted for the data to feed to the financial reports, participant statements, and other software calculations. You can select the date range for statements and reports at the top of the Transactions /Statements screen; the dates will default to the plan year but you can change them to any date range within the plan year. These dates also control the period over which balance forward earnings are calculated.
To select and run participant statements and financial reports, go to Transactions => Reports; you can select a report from this screen by clicking on one of the icons. Note that there are two styles for participant statements with space for custom messaging - see the section below on the printing parameters for more information. In addition, several plan level financial reports can be selected from this part of the software.
