IRS Notification letter number for line 12 5500-SF

This is new for 2023 and it is covered in the 5500 instructions.  In case I missed something, I thought I'd ask - it isn't optional right?   

Thanks Tom

The reason I asked is, we filed one in January without the IRS letter number and date and it sailed through to the DOL and no validation warning in the 5500 system.  I reviewed this with my staff in January but when came time to review, it blew right past me.  I asked the 5500 software provider and they were surprised the filing went through with no error. They gave me the DOL help line number to call which I wil do.  Regardless we will amend.  Not taking any chances on a 5500 filing.

Tom

EFAST2 does not have a validation edit for the compliance question asking for the Pre-approved Plan Opinion Letter number and there are plans that are individually-designed plans that don't have an Opinion Letter, so it is not a surprise that the filing DOL accepted the filing.

Some software providers have added an edit check on the field at least to generate warning if the field is left blank, and some even go further to check the syntax (first character "Q" followed by 6 numerics, a maybe even a trailing character "a").  This seems like a prudent edit since around 90% of plans use a pre-approved plan document, and particularly because this question was not on last year's form and may not yet be incorporated into a preparer's routine.