Sue H

Ah, but the true irony is that the majority of these are similes, not metaphors! Couldn't resist... Sue

Dunno about NIPA but I think C3 was about comparable in effort to C2DB for me. Then again, I had to "unlearn" some of the things I did when administering DB plans in order to follow the methods being used in the study materials. The weekend course was a huge help. Not being in a direct administration position (I test benefits software) it's hard to keep in touch and the concepts C3 covered gave me a lot of insight into what people are doing "out there" and why. Started readings for C4 but got sidetracked, guess that will have to wait for another year. Now THAT's a ton of reading!!! Sue

Take the weekend course in November. I didn't take it for this test, but did for C-3 and was really impressed. You do need to get through all the material beforehand, but it helped me focus on what to expect from the test & also helped me find my weak spots. Good luck! Sue

Hi Bill, Have you tried using the Estimate prior entry dates option on the eligibility transaction? Might still need to adjust from time to time but on the whole it would be easier than overriding everyone's entry date -- particularly since you do a lot of takeovers. Sue

Hi Bill, Except in a takeover year, the half/whole year/not computed option will not affect service calculations. This option only dictates how to calculate service when none exists (service, vesting and participation years are all zero). Sue

Hi Dan, Eligibility uses the payroll end date as the date on which the ee met the hours requirement. An ee is considered to have met entry requirements on the latest of three dates: the day they meet age, the day they meet hours & the day they meet wait. Once this date is determined, eligibility compares it to the entry definition (single date, dual, etc.) to set the actual entry date. If you use an annual payroll period & don't use a retroactive entry definition, most ees will not enter mid-year. For example, in a plan with no waiting period but a 1000 hour requirement that uses annual payroll, eligibility would not consider any of the ees to have met the hours requirement until the end of that payroll period. Even if the ee has 2000 hours for the plan year, Relius has no way to know on what date the 1000th hour was worked and therefore must use payroll end date. However, an ee who has a year of service is considered to have already met the hours requirement & eligibility will therefore only look at age & wait if this is the case. Hope this helps! Sue

Hi Tom, You are correct, the cite you list was overlooked when some adjustments were made to "tweak" the calcs. A correction is being tested now. If you have a particular plan you'd like us to look at, feel free to send it along. Thanks for letting us know. Sue

No, there isn't really an "easy" way to convert your reports, but it isn't absolutely necessary to do -- just "suggested." If you have "verify on every print" turned on in a report, then Crystal will verify it automatically when you run it. The biggest potential problem is that if there have been a large number of changes to the database, Crystal could get an error during the process due to the volume of changes. Crystal could also error if you are using a field in the report that no longer exists in the database. Updating the report with "verify" and resaving is a method to verify that all fields in the report are valid in the new database. Verifying your reports and saving them also speeds up the report running time if changes have been made to the database fields.

When an employee terminates, only the status date should be entered. Relius uses the Term Date field to distinguish between terminated participants (who entered the plan and then terminated) from terminated non-participants. Also, if the reason not eligible is other than hours, age or service, the nondiscrimination reports may not properly exclude the ee from testing. You might want to customize the census report in order to show these ees as terminated instead.

If you are on v5.1 or higher, you should be able to find the FASB 87 summary report on the Defined Benefit menu under Reporting. There is also a detailed employee report available, by selecting the Internal Actuarial Data Report on the Reporting|Defined Benefit, and selecting the FASB 87 checkbox at the bottom of the screen.

Line 6 includes employees who: 1) Enter on the plan year beginning date, OR 2) Entered in a prior year AND EITHER a) Are still active OR b) Terminated AND EITHER i) Had a vested balance on PYB OR ii) Was active and terminated during the current year (Sorry, I couldn't get it to format the above nicely, it is easier to follow if you indent the a) & b) below 2), and the i) and ii) below the b).) The determination uses current plan category (not necessarily status), entry date, status date, and vested balance as of PYB. If the only remaining balance is to be forfeit, then their vested balance should be zero & they should be excluded. Hope that helps.

Re: 5500 counts Actually there are two other fixes that will be in the next service pack. Item 7h may include employees who terminated in a prior plan year, if they were coded with status Z (term & pd) in the current plan year. Item 7g may include an employee incorrectly due to a rounding error (fairly rare). This should all be on the website shortly. Sue

Changing the "past years" option would not affect how elapsed time years calculate -- this calculation is performed each time eligibility is posted, regardless of whether or not there is a number there already. Perhaps something in plan specs or census (for this employee) that was changed since the last time eligibility was posted, for example is the method "elapsed time" or "elapsed time (rounded)"? Sue

No, that info is only included in the optional "preparer" section. However, since all answers are included in the 2d code (the big one), if you answer the "preparer" questions the info would be included there.

The printed form should have two barcodes at the bottom. The first (larger) code contains data entered on the form. The second (smaller) barcode contains ID info about the form, the software vendor, and indicates the form is machine printed (as opposed to the hand-print forms). They are called "2-d" and "1-d", respectively. Sue

The fix corrects both the "hanging" issue and a situation where forms were not being created for certain distribution codes.

Just a clarification, you only need to do the Processing|Distribution Data step if you want the system to calculate withholding (you need to select the checkbox on the transaction prior to posting in order to have this calculated). You do not need to do this step if you are not calculating withholding, the Compute Peak 1099 process will still pick up the data as it did at 4.1.

Dan's advice is great. One trick I found very helpful in using the old exams was to break down my correct/incorrect ratio by chapter. This gave me terrific insight into what I was strong on and what topics I really needed to focus my studying on. When you only have a few weeks to study, that can make a huge difference. Tom Poje has another helpful approach. He will take several years' exams, and group all the questions on a specific chapter together. It's very revealing when you see the same question asked (in different ways) over several exams--it's a good bet you'll see that question on your exam, and you will be ready for it! Good luck! Sue

If an employee's recoverable contributions exceed the amount being distributed from post-tax accounts, is the recovered basis limited to the amount distributed from these accounts or can the participant recover the full amount? For example, Jim has $1000 in recoverable contributions, but lost money in those accts so his ending balance is only $800. However, because his distribution includes pre-tax money, his total distribution is $2000. Would his taxable amount be $1200 or $1000? (Assume the $1000 has already been established as the amount eligible for tax-free distribution.) Thanks!

If "compensation" includes hours, it does matter--if the match has an hours requirement Eligible for Match would be No, so Exclude from ACP would be Yes. Just a clarification!