Miles Leech

1 hour ago, BG5150 said:

I miss the "good ol' days" when we could call Jacksonville and get an answer in 5 mins.  From people who actually used the software.  Not some guy in the programming department.

When I first started working at a TPA/Recordkeeper a couple months ago I was so frustrated with the terrible layout of the software and lack of documentation, and I refused to just take "I'm not sure how to do it so I'll do it manually" as an answer, so in my first two or three months I opened I think about 50-60 tickets asking for documentation 😂. It actually got so bad they have my tickets being automatically forwarded from their "off-shores" team directly to two of their head support members here in the states because my questions are always too in-depth for the offshores people. Those two have been great to work with; it's such a shame they have people who know the system but route most people to the team that knows how to copy-and-paste from manuals they don't understand.

16 hours ago, austin3515 said:

I will tell you I spoke to the team at ASC about their software and was very impressed. I would give them  a look.

My issue with Relius has really been on the service side. Many of you likely remember the "goo old days" where you would submit an incident and some incredible relius genius would call you back, do screen sharing, take control and fix whatever was wrong.  IT was a sight to behold.

personally I am very reliant on Crystal Reports. I  have done a ton  of custom reports. I don;t think any other packages are as flexible in that category.  Definitely a big advantage for Relius for me.

Are people aware that within 5 years Relius will no longer exist as thy are phasing it out?

I've heard good things about the ASC software; we actually use them for documents and are quite happy with it, but for some reason I was under the impression that they had sunset their recordkeeping software. Is that not the case?

I'm aware Relius is theoretically being sunset, that's why we're looking at other programs in the first place. I figure if we're going to have to switch anyway, we may as well take the opportunity to see if there's something out there better than Relius. Based on the things I saw and heard and Randug as well as my personal communications with Relius the past month or so, I highly doubt the system is actually going to be sunset on their given timeline, we're definitely some time out...

Crystal reports is a good point, I use it heavily as well, it's a lifesaver especially this time of year for Safe Harbor Match auditing and the like. Given that it's software that is independent of Relius (not developed or owned by FIS) and it's used by plenty of other industries for reporting, all it needs is access to a database. I'd be curious if you could just license a personal copy of Crystal Reports and use it with any other software.

1 hour ago, BG5150 said:

I'm sure Datai would be happy to share some screenshots and overviews and other marketing material.

I used Datair in the past and I liked it.  Less powerful than relius, but who really uses it to its capacity as a TPA?  Unless you are a daily shop and need pricing and transactions at market, there are other options that are just as good but cheaper.

See, that's the thing, we're a TPA/Recordkeeper, so we really do use Relius on a level I think a lot of other firms aren't... We don't want to lose functionality but we're also sick of carrying 20 years of duct tape and superglue on a clunky system. Honestly I'm shocked there's no modernized, good software alternative in this day and age. 

Our firm has used Relius for a very long time and we're... Unhappy, to say the least. I've heard a lot of good things here about Datair. Does anyone have any experience with both programs with any notable differences in your experience? Also, I really have no scale of how outdated and clunky Datair is, and Relius is incredibly outdated and hard to use. Would someone mind sending me just a screenshot or two of the general Datair interface (with any firm-specific details blanked out, obviously)? It'd be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

23 hours ago, Pam Shoup said:

I recommend that you look at RVUG.org.  This is a group that primarily uses Relius for recordkeeping.  I would at least sign up as a free user.  You will receive invitations to seminars about using Relius that are either free or low cost (something like $25 for the webinar).  If you do a paid membership, you can access more information and ask questions, etc.  

To answer your question directly, every firm that I have spoken too uses Relius tools differently, with some using them extensively and some firms building tools outside of Relius to do a lot of tracking, etc.  

Please keep in mind that Relius will be sunsetting in the next few years and will be replaced by the FIS Retirement Platform (FRP).  This takes the current FIS Omni software and adds some of the features in Relius to Omni.  The decision makers at your company should be looking into the new platform and making some decisions about if you will migrate to that software or use a competitor and when you would be making the switch.  It is not too early for them to start their decision-making process about the new software.

 

I've just signed up for RVUG, waiting on being confirmed but it looks like an awesome resource, thanks.

I've heard about them sunsetting the system. A few folks from my firm were at Randug this year and attended some presentations about it and we're not exactly impressed... it sounds like it's going to very quickly accumulate the same extensive issues Relius has with less useability in some areas and a higher cost. Unfortunately it seems most other software options are nearly as clunky, outdated, and overall unworkable... Honestly, with my mild knowledge of programming I get closer and closer to just creating my own competing software every day 😂

Well, that makes this a world easier (and less legally sketchy), thanks!

I started working at a TPA/Recordkeeping firm this past fall, I'm completely new to this industry as a whole so it's been quite a process. One thing I found very quickly was that the firm I work for was doing lot of manual data entry, as well as other things manually. I've spent a good portion of the last few months learning all the ins and outs of the system with things like automating things in Job queue, setting up file imports / exports for balancing, distributions, ACH Pulls, etc, and custom reports. It's such a small industry I really have no reference online for what other people are doing, so I'm curious, how many of the extensive features of Relius do you actually use?

I'm (attempting) to create a kind of decision tree / flowchart to easily figure out what tests need to be run on a given plan. That said, it's quite nuanced and I'm by no means an expert. I've added a picture of my progress so far. My company works exclusively with DC plans, over half of which are safe harbor. This is my first year doing testing so I very well could be mistaken about some things. Generally I've had my boss looking over things with me and helping me with what plans need what tests on a kind of case-by-case basis, but I'd love to just have a nice algorithmic way to figure it out. Any thoughts? Things I have wrong or need to add?

1 hour ago, Bri said:

Iffy's not the word.

But why not adopt a 4% SH at this point for last year?

Is it possible to retroactively amend the plan document for that? My assumption was that you can't amend a plan document after the plan year has ended but I'm fairly new to this industry as a whole, hence me running anything questionable by the smart folks here when I can.

I've run into an issue testing one of the plans that came on with us this year. I don't know who wrote their plan document but they absolutely should be a safe harbor, but they aren't. It's just 5 people , three of which are owners (one of them is the owner's son who didn't actually work at all or make anything though). Anyway, the ADP/ACP is... bad. The two owners deferred 23k and 12k (40% and 23% respectively I believe) and as such the ADP is roughly 17.5% vs 1.06% for the NHCEs. The options are either a QNEC, which would be roughly 7.5k in order to pass, or returning almost all their deferrals to them. 

So here's our proposed creative solution: The only HCEs who need money returned are both owners of the company who choose their own pay, and as such the line between their money and the business's money is really just up to how they want to receive it. Because it's only the two owners, we want to do a "corrective distribution" on paper so they pass ADP/ACP, then use that money to do a profit sharing contribution to give both the owners that exact amount back (obviously, we'd discuss this with the owners before actually doing it). As the plan is new comp / cross tested and there's only 2 NHCEs, the cost they'd need to give to them would be far less than a QNEC and the owners would still get to keep the money they put in.

So, my questions: From a legal standpoint, is this iffy? It seems fine to me as it's no different than distributing that money back and then the employer "deciding" to do a year end profit sharing, except we don't actually buy and sell those assets. Second: One of the two owners is over 50. The IRS page on ADP ACP corrections says that "If the Plan provides for catch-up contributions, the refund may be recharacterized as a catch-up contribution (up to the catch-up limit)". How would this rule factor in / be utilized to solve this?

And yes, we're already in the process of writing an amendment to make them a Safe Harbor NE for this year, we just can't retroactively do that. 

I'm doing testing right now and a plan of ours fails the top-heavy test. Normally, my understanding is that the correction is a 3% employer contribution to all employees eligible for salary deferrals. However, I've run into an interesting scenario: This plan is not a safe harbor plan, and they don't allow salary deferrals at all under the plan document, it's only profit sharing, with eligibility of 1 year and 21. It's pro-rata. Essentially, everyone who is eligible for for profit sharing (and therefore the plan as a whole technically) has gotten a 3% employer contribution. Do they need to make a corrective 3% contribution to the employees not eligible for profit sharing?

1 hour ago, Lou S. said:

It sounds like you did everything correct.  If the distribution is bieng processed in 2025 and the loan is being off set in 2025, it will be taxable income in 2025. You will presumably send her two 2025 1099-R one for the distribution of cash and one for the offset of the loan since they have separate 1099-R codes. 

Thank you!

We have a participant who just took a full distribution for termination and she had an outstanding loan balance. She wanted us to withhold taxes for the outstanding loan balance as well as her distribution so she wouldn't have to pay them. What we did is put the distribution in at Schwab with the total gross balance as the entire vested balance plus the outstanding loan, then calculated federal and state taxes based on that number, then put the outstanding loan balance in "less loan balance" to offset the actual payment amount to be correct. The partipant's accountant is asking whether the loan balance, which is now a distribution and being taxed, is going to be taxed as a part of 2025, when this total distribution happened, or as 2024, when she took out the loan. Will it be a seperate 1099 for 2024 with the loan balance or will it all be part of the 2025 distribution?