5500 transmission of filing, filing stopped error

[doombuggy]

I have gotten this for aobut 4 clients. It says that the plan administrator's [and plan sponsor's in a seperate error code I-104SF] userid and pin are missing or invalid. The filing must contain this valid information.

In 2 instances of mine, the client/trustee did not have the same email address that I used to send them the published link, etc in their filing credentials. In the other 2 instances they did, and we can't figure out why the transmission was stopped. Of course, not being there with the client actually does the e-signing to know whether they are doing it correctly can be a hinderance. But they must be doing something correctly, as they e-sing it and I receive notification that is it signed and ready to be transmitted.

Anyone else have these frustrating problems? thoughts on this !@#$% issue?

[ESOP Guy]

Two things:

1) I have found the DOL’s EFAST2 help phone line very helpful in figuring out errors. You can call and they will talk to you about the error and give you some insight as to what the problem is.

2) This sounds like a problem I have a few times last filing season and once so far this year. When the person set up their user id, PIN and password they did not finish all the steps. In all the cases they got their user id and PIN then stopped and did not set up a password. The fix was for them to go to EFAST2 website and get a password. The way to do that was to try and log in and say you forgot your password. They will have to answer their challenge ?. After that they can make a new password.

But a PIN is not valid if they don’t have a valid user id, and password.

Best bet is to call DOL number and ask for help to determine how to fix the error message. So far I have gotten the right advice every time.

EFAST help desk # 1.866.463.3278