hr for me

I agree that you have to balance how quickly the data can be pulled from the prior recordkeeper (and you are facing the holiday season and the end of a lot of plan years) and then the upload/conversion to the new recordkeeper. I've seen most take 60-90 days unless there is something large/out of the ordinary that can't be mapped easily. But at 11/1 unless it was a really small plan, I wouldn't expect it to be able to be done by 1/1/18.

what investments are in the pooled account? How often are they valued? It's been a long time since I have seen a plan with annual accounting, so I do agree with My2Cents.... but if valuation is an issue, I could see how annually could be best.

Or an HCE/exec who wanted to bring in a large loan at hire.....

Agree that I would suggest reamortization, otherwise payroll is (probably) not going to be able to handle deductions on a differing schedule than its current pay frequency. I would suggest making the final payoff date slightly earlier if it at all was going to bump up to the 5 year max. Who thought this was a good idea without already having loans in the plan? I agree with Bird that you need a written loan policy even if this is just one rolled in loan.

why was everyone (including HR) patient for 6 months? were there extenuating circumstances? In this day and age, 2 weeks would be my maximum of "being patient" both from the HR side and the participant side unless you could tell me why it was being held up. So I can understand this lady's frustration. But in the end I would either pay this lady out through AP/Payroll or have the broker do it outside of the plan since those are the two entities that are responsible for the mess.

Other than her having full control of the money the whole time, I do have to wonder why she didn't go beyond the financial advisor/broker to others at the employer/HR if her request was being ignored. And how is she going to be able to prove what funds she would have chosen? I just rolled over a pension payout and my new brokerage firm (new account) wouldn't let me pick the funds until the money was in their bank. Does $140 sound reasonable based on the balance in question? Does the broker/financial advisor not have EPLI/E&O insurance? If the employer were to reimburse her in some way, I would expect the broker to cover it since it seems to be their mistake. Is this is a precedent you want to set? If anything this is something the broker should make right and I would consider working with them to see what they would do before doing anything as the employer.

OT: Flash from the past...It's been close to 20 years since I was trained on and used Omni ( I think it was pretty close to when it first came out), but I too loved the flexibility after having come from systems that were not flexible at all. I could program it to do just about any calculations.

I am not suggesting anything. You should still be able to COBRA health insurance, dental, etc. FSAs just have a few differences in COBRA when you have a negative balance.

Here's what SHRM has to say " For those who have ‘underspent’ accounts, COBRA must be offered, but it may be terminated at the end of the plan year in which the qualifying event occurs. COBRA coverage does not need to be offered to QBs who have ‘overspent’ their accounts at the time of the qualifying event. " (underline mine) https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-qa/pages/howdoescobraapplytohealthflexiblespendingarrangements.aspx I am unsure as to why you would even want to do so unless you are hoping to pay a few more premiums, but yet use up the last of your annual balance before paying your full annual balance. Any premiums paid would most likely be aftertax anyway, so you wouldn't be saving anything.

Interesting case of my inlaws in Michigan.....ex-step-MIL agreed to a pension QDRO that stated she would get x% of the monthly pension benefit when it commenced - at this point he had already terminated from that company but earned the pension while they were married. However no where in the QDRO did it state when my FIL had to commence and the plan didn't require him to commence on a specific date. She (and I guess her attorney) assumed that he would start at NRA. If he died before commencing, she got nothing. He didn't so she sued claiming that wasn't what was intended and tried to get the court to force him to commence. He would rather her get nothing than him get any part of it (insert noises from the peanut gallery) She lost. I doubt he will ever do anything more than he HAS to legally.

Congratulations!!! And thanks for all your wise advice over the years!

Here's just one picture that he got....DSLR attached to his telescope, but not his laptop (so he calls it manual..usually he sets up a timing sequence through laptop software but his laptop died morning of)

when I started mid-90s, we had mainframes and magnetic tapes...programs that you ran and then waited for result .... lots and lots of backups at different points in case a mistake was made. You documented each step on paper so if you had to go back and redo, you knew exactly where in the process you were. Sometimes that meant asking the guys in the data center to put on an older tape....got to know them too well. Honestly, while it was "slower", much less was immediately expected by clients and their employees. No instant anything! We usually had from 4-8 weeks from end of quarter to get all the clients processed. While there were a few 16+ hour days, there were also slow times to catch a breath.

Yes, it went by so fast. Yes, got to see Baily's beads. And yes, the resolution was much better than I suspected. It was an amazing experience all around (except for my sunburned neck and arms and the drive back through the mountains in the dark of night) I am hoping some of my son's pictures (through is telescope) will turn out well once he gets them processed. The "older" members in our astronomy club claim that once you have seen totality, you will then chase it the rest of your life!

Agree that communication is huge and being able to prove the "unrequested" deductions for those that neglect to re-enroll needs to be considered. But personally I like the proactive approach of a system that requires it and reminds in multiple different ways (OE packet, emails, separate letter possibly, note to boss, etc) Having been through OE 3 times with my spouse this last round (old company, new owner and then division selloff within about 4 months), the better the communication is, the more likely that things will happen well.

But I could do ANYTHING in FoxPro... I so miss it now -- I was out of the industry for 7 years and couldn't believe when I came back that it no longer existed!

Drove over 500 miles each to get as close to the longest totality possible in the US (Hopkinsville KY was one of the "sweet spots" camping in the middle of a private corn field). Yes, you could definitely see at least Jupiter and a few stars. Could have driven about 100 miles and gotten a shorter totality. But dang it, if you are going to do this, it must be done the best way per dear son the astrophotographer (and hey who doesnt' like going on a road trip and living out of the car for 3 day with a teenage boy LOL-- by the end of the third day we both stunk like teenage boys!) It is an amazing experience and one that I would add to a bucket list. My son is already planning 2024....He got some pictures but hasn't been able to upload them yet due to marching band practice (and honestly getting home last night at 1:15 am and then having to get his braces removed at 9:20 am)

I officially feel old..... Balance forward....Basis formulas, reconciliations, trust earnings, quarterly participant statements, quarterly processing, etc. Those were the good ol' days.... I remember daily valuations and units seemed so new and honestly so weird.... I actually had the pleasure of programming a very weird balance forward basis formula in FoxPro back in the day because it didnt' fit into any system we currently had. Each contribution was actually weighted based on the # days in the trust for the quarter (usually it was beginning balance + 1/2 contributions + 1/2 loan payments for those that had loans - distributions -loans for the quarter in most formulas that we saw). The client wanted to keep the formula and pay us to program a new system rather than change their basis formula....crazy, it was! Some days I wish for those good ol' days....

I will address this multiple standpoints: From a payroll standpoint. It is always good to get new elections each year especially if the cost is changing. (have you ever tried to go back and find those original election forms from someone who has stayed the same for the last x years?) It is in all essence a voluntary deduction and you generally want an up-to-date authorization, again especially if there have been major changes to your plan (increased premiums, different carriers, etc). State wage law might also have something to say on this, so if you are an employer in multiple states, it might be easier to pick the one that is most confining, which is probably requiring new paperwork each year. From a Section 125 viewpoint, no one can claim they forgot or wanted to decline etc later on after OE. Instead you get a required employee action that creates the consequences. From a communication standpoint, it is easier to tell ALL ees that they must do something rather than just some-- we all know how we people listen and what they sometimes hear (yep, I can be cynical right?). And you have some way of knowing/auditing who has NOT responded to followup. If you don't require a response, you are then left to wonder why someone didn't respond -- did they really want future coverage, did they forget to turn in the form, but meant to, etc and do you still follow up? If you assume they haven't because they don't want to change, you might be wrong. And corrections later (if possible) tend to make both sides grumpy. Personally I think requiring all ees to affirmatively review all their benefits 1 time per year is not a bad thing (especially coming from payroll where it always surprises me who never looks at a paycheck stub until it is much too late)

And with the caveat that if one is a former employer, they may or may not allow terminated employees to take a loan from any 401k balance left in the plan or to continue loan payments after they are terminated.

From SHRM: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-qa/pages/healthcarebenefitsmilitaryleave.aspx: If the employee’s military leave is for 30 days or less, then an employer does need to continue health benefits as if the employee is actively working. If the employee’s military leave is for a period of 31 days or more, the employer is able to terminate benefits and offer COBRA-like benefits. The benefits cannot cost more than 102% of total premium cost per month, similar to other COBRA events, but USERRA requires that coverage be provided for up to 24 months. USERRA final regulations begin discussion of health benefits at Section 1002.163. USERRA is one of those laws that seems to always err on the side of the reservist/employee and I don't see how you can argue these short leaves are combined to be more than 30 days. I'd have to be very very comfortable with legal counsel agreeing to move them to COBRA. But I do not see where that is an option based on this schedule.

Problem in #3 is often the PEO is not involved in the business strategy/M&A talks, assets vs stock sales and only hears later some of the details from the employer that are decided at a very high level. Sometimes internal HR would be included, but not always. Generally they are also hesitant to give advice for a time period where they are no longer the employer. But each PEO is different and some would possibly have more knowledge than others, depending on whether they had been through this scenario before. But if term'd prior to the closing, I would expect the PEO to help handle that part but with possibly an appropriate increased fee to do so. But there is nothing that I know of that requires the termination rather than plan-to-plan transfer. And honestly I suspect they deal a whole lot more with plan-to-plan transfers.

agree that it is going to be state specific. If you post your state, hopefully someone can help you out specifically.

agree that you need to amend you 401k plan to allow for mid-year changes that are allowed by that section (h) if that is what the employer wishes to actually have happen. Generally most 401k plans as far as I have seen, even back to the old balance forward plans, allow for mid-year changes at least quarterly (and sometimes on the daily plans much more often than that)

I am not understanding how owners/supervisors could possibly be part of the bargaining unit? That goes against everything I have read/studied on union/bargaining unit membership. I'd run far away from this one...