By Carl L. Williams Sr.

At present, all large employers with 50 or more employees (also known as ALEs) are still under the compliance and reporting mandates of the Affordable Care Act – despite movement in Washington for repeal and replace. In fact, until there is new legislation in place, the law still applies for the reporting year of 2016. Additionally, employers still have to track employees and offer coverage to employees to meet the full-time status of 130 hour a month or 30 hours a week.

Despite the current “Repeal and Replace” movement of the Trump Administration, PSST is confident the employer reporting requirements of the ACA will be in play for at least one more year, if not longer.  Even if the ACA were repealed tomorrow, experts in the industry speculate the law will mostly likely stay in force for employer reporting through 2018.

Most immediately, this means ALEs must have provided all of their employees with 1095-c forms indicating their health insurance offer and coverage status by March 2, 2017. Those who failed to submit on time will incur IRS penalties, and those who do not submit at all will incur even higher IRS penalties.

Subsequent to 1095-c forms, ALEs must also file 1094-c forms with the IRS, which are due March 31. Again, failure to submit these forms or late submissions will be met with penalties.

The IRS has indicated it will begin following through with notifications of fines to employers for the 2015 ACA reporting year in early 2017.  Now all of that is a simplification of what can be a complicated process for most employers because each of these forms requires aggregating data from several employee information sources, such as payroll, benefits and human resources systems. Most often those systems are not integrated, so pulling the data together and putting it in a usable format for reporting to the IRS is beyond the scope of the employer’s existing technology.

PSST’s ACA-Track™ pulls the data together, populates the necessary forms, sends it to the IRS, and works with the employer to correct any errors returned by the IRS.

Again, this is a greatly simplified overview of what employers are still required under the ACA mandate.

PSST LLC, which has been a provider of data integration solutions for Kentucky’s K12 market for nearly 27 years, has become a leading player in the compliance solution market with its ACA-Track™ software.  ACA-Track is a software compliance solution for the compliance and reporting requirements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The Louisville-based company, whose products are used by nearly 80 percent of all Kentucky school districts, now has more than 600 clients nationwide using ACA-Track. These clients include third party brokers who resell the software, as well as direct users, which are companies with 500+ employees and K12 school districts. Among its school district clients are Jefferson County Public Schools, the largest school system in Kentucky with 20,000 employees, and Ft. Worth Independent School District, the fifth largest district in Texas with more than 15,500 employees.

ACA-Track tracks employee hours throughout the year and flags those employees who are nearing or have reached qualifying thresholds based on actual hours worked. The software also assists employers with electronic filing of required employer IRS Forms 1094c and 1095c.

Commercial Market Potential

The development of ACA-Track as a solution for the commercial market as well as K12 districts has allowed PSST to expand its market areas. The company now has clients in 36 states. In addition to expanding PSST’s market area, ACA-Track has opened the doors to new strategic partnerships and the development of expanded products.

Further Commercial Expansion Expected for PSST in HR

“PSST is growing into a comprehensive provider of data integration and compliance solutions,” Williams explained. “We currently partner with other regional and national providers, such as American Fidelity, Frontline Education, Akunaware, to offer clients complete human capital management solutions that are electronic and seamless.”

Regardless of the future of ACA, Williams says PSST is well poised to continue its expansion in the K12 market.

Since the company began in 1992, PSST has built a solid reputation as an integration solution for integration with Munis.  Munis is a financial management system used by every school district in Kentucky, and it is also utilized by hundreds of other districts throughout the United States.  Our integration and related K12 products allow districts to maximize their experience with Munis by moving data bi-directionally and intelligently in real time.

Our PSST professionals have more than 200 years’ combined experience at the district level in HR, finance, payroll and benefits.

-Carl L. Williams, Sr. is the Chief Operations Officer of PSST.  PSST LLC is a Louisville-based provider of data integration and compliance solutions for commercial and K12 markets nationwide.