Affordable Care Act (ACA) reporting

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For payroll compliance (annually licensed)

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly referred to as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), is a United States federal statute signed into law on March 23, 2010. The Affordable Care Act includes numerous provisions that take effect between 2010 and 2020.

One of the most significant provisions is the employer mandate, which states that employers who have 50 or more full-time equivalent (FTE) employees, and who do not provide affordable health care coverage, may be assessed a penalty if at least one full-time employee qualifies for a premium tax credit and uses it to purchase coverage in the health insurance exchange. In addition, the law requires that employers provide prescribed health coverage and penalizes employers who fail to offer what is defined by the law as "affordable coverage."

Reporting for 2015 (filing year 2014 forms) is voluntary, but will be mandatory in 2016 for employers that meet certain criteria.

Do I need to report?

We have designed the Average Full-Time Employees Worksheet and the Average Hours Worksheet reports to provide information for Affordable Care Act reporting. These can be helpful to determine if reporting is optional or mandatory for an employer.

We have made forms 1094-C and 1095-C available for processing in the Actions > Edit Payroll Tax Forms screen. See the Processing Forms 1095-C & 1094-C section of this topic for more information.

See also: Standard reports list

Average Full-Time Employees Worksheet

This report can help determine if a client is considered to be a large employer by calculating the average number of full-time employees. It lists the number of full-time employees, the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) employees, the total number of full-time employees for each month included in the selected date range, and the average number of full-time employees across the selected date range.

report-avg-fulltime-emp-worksheet

The Average Full-Time Employees Worksheet calculates if the employees for a client should be considered full-time or part-time based on the selection that is made in the Employment status field in the Affordable Care Act Information section on the Personal tab of the Setup > Employees screen.

  • If an employee has the Employment status field set to Full-time, the employee will be included in the Full-Time Employees count for every month that they have received a check.
  • If an employee has the Employment status field set to Exempt, the employee will not count towards any totals.
  • If an employee has the Employment status field set to Variable hour (default), the report will determine if the employee should be considered full-time based on the hours worked.
    • If an employee worked 130 or more hours for a month they will be considered full-time and will be included in the Full-Time Employees count for that month.
    • If an employee worked less than 130 hours for a month they will be considered part-time and their hours worked will be included in the calculation of the Full-Time Equivalents count for that month.
    • To calculate the full-time equivalents for each month, the report will take the sum of all part-time employees’ hours, capped at 120 hours per employee, and divide the total by 120.
  • The report will sum the number of Full-Time Employees and the number of Full-Time Equivalents for each month to calculate the monthly Total.
  • The report will then sum all of the monthly totals, divide that number by the number of months included in the date range specified, and truncate the decimal from the final result to provide the average number of full-time employees.

Note: The report assumes an employee worked standard hours if all of the following conditions are true.

  • The employee used a pay item with a Salaried amount calculation type.
  • The Salaried amount pay item has an amount associated with it on the check.
  • The Salaried amount pay item has 0 regular hours recorded on the check.

If all of these conditions are true, the report assumes that the employee worked the following standard hours based on the payroll check’s pay frequency:

Pay Frequency Standard Hours
Weekly 40
Biweekly 80
Semimonthly 86.6667
Monthly 173.3333
Quarterly 520
Semiannually 1,040
Annually 2,080

If one or more of these conditions are not true, the report will use the actual hours as recorded on the check.

Average Hours Worksheet

This report can help determine which employees are considered full-time by calculating the average hours worked per week or per month by each employee. It lists the average number of hours worked for all or selected employees, including the beginning date of the measurement period, the ending date of the measurement period, the number of weeks or months in the measurement period, the number of hours worked, and the average number of hours worked per week or month.

report-avg-hours-worksheet

The report prints the total number of hours worked for each employee in the date range specified.

  • When printing the Average Hours per Week region (default), the report will calculate the number of weeks included in the date range specified for the report and divide the employee’s total hours by the number of weeks to calculate their average.
    • If an employee has the Employment status field set to Full-time, the report will indicate that the employee is a full-time employee.
    • If an employee has the Employment status field set to Exempt, the employee will not be included on the report.
    • If an employee has the Employment status field set to Variable hour (default), the report will determine if the employee should be considered full-time based on the hours worked.
      • If the Average Hours per Week is greater than or equal to 30 hours, the report will indicate the employee is a full-time employee.
      • If the Average Hours per Week is less than 30 hours, the report will indicate the employee is not a full-time employee.
  • When printing the Average Hours per Month region, the report will calculate the number of months included in the date range specified for the report and divide the employee’s total hours by the number of months to calculate their average.
    • If an employee has the Employment status field set to Full-time, the report will indicate that the employee is a full-time employee.
    • If an employee has the Employment status field set to Exempt, the employee will not be included on the report.
    • If an employee has the Employment status field set to Variable hour (default), the report will determine if the employee should be considered full-time based on the hours worked.
      • If the Average Hours per Month is greater than or equal to 130, the report will indicate the employee is a full-time employee.
      • If the Average Hours per Month is less than 130, the report will indicate the employee is not a full-time employee.

Note: The report assumes an employee worked standard hours if all of the following conditions are true.

  • The employee used a pay item with a Salaried amount calculation type.
  • The Salaried amount pay item has an amount associated with it on the check.
  • The Salaried amount pay item has 0 regular hours recorded on the check.

If all of these conditions are true, the report assumes that the employee worked the following standard hours based on the payroll check’s pay frequency:

Pay Frequency Standard Hours
Weekly 40
Biweekly 80
Semimonthly 86.6667
Monthly 173.3333
Quarterly 520
Semiannually 1,040
Annually 2,080

If one or more of these conditions are not true, the report will use the actual hours as recorded on the check.

Gathering and entering information for Part II and Part III of Form 1095-C

Your client's medical benefit provider must provide the information to be entered in Parts II and III of Form 1095-C. We have provided a template spreadsheet to send to your client's benefit provider that you can easily import into Accounting CS when they have populated and returned it. For more information on importing the template spreadsheet, see Spreadsheet import - Form 1095-C.

Alternatively, you can enter the 1095-C information manually by following the steps below.

  1. Choose Setup > Employees and click the Personal tab.
  2. If the same information applies to multiple employees, you can click the Edit Multiple Employees link at the bottom of the screen and follow the steps in the wizard.
  3. Click the 1095-C Part II: Offer and Coverage button in the Affordable Care Act Information section to open the 1095-C Part II: Offer and Coverage dialog.
  4. Select the reporting year, Box 14 coverage code, enter the Box 15 premium amount, and select the Box 16 Safe Harbor code (if applicable).

    Note: If any of that information changes from month to month, click the Ellipsis ellipsis button button to open the January - December Monthly Information dialog, and enter the monthly information.

  5. Once you have entered the Box 14, 15, 16 and 17 information, click OK.
  6. If the employer provided self-insured coverage during the reporting year, click the 1095-C Part III: Self-Insured button to open the 1095-C Part III: Self Insured dialog.
  7. For each individual who is covered under the self-insured employee's insurance plan, select the reporting year, enter the individual's information, and mark the checkboxes indicating the coverage availability for the year.
  8. Once you have entered all covered individuals, click OK to save the changes.

Processing Forms 1095-C & 1094-C

Once you have entered 1095-C Part II and Part III information, follow the steps below to make sure your clients are set to process the forms.

  1. Choose Setup > Clients and click the Payroll Taxes tab.
  2. Select the client and then click the Edit button.
  3. In the Forms section, scroll down to the Form 1095-C grid and click the Additional Information button.
  4. Select a taxpayer and contact for Form 1094-C.
  5. Select the Healthcare plan start month.
  6. Select the appropriate filing method for the Agency Copy/1094-C and Employee Copy.
  7. The Do Not File checkbox is marked by default. Clear the checkbox and then click Enter to save your changes.

Use the topics below to help you edit and process the forms.

Note: The Affordable Care Act tab in the Setup > Clients screen enables you to set up applicable large employer (ALE) aggregate groups for Part IV of Form 1094-C. You can select other clients in the database that belong to the same ALE group to include them in Part IV when you process the form. You can also enter additional aggregate group members who are not in the database from the Additional Group Members dialog.

Troubleshooting

Total employee count is less than full time employee count

This error refers to the data on Form 1094-C Part III. The application calculates the totals in the Full-Time Employee Count and Total Employee Count columns based on information in the Average Full-Time Employees Worksheet report. However, you can override these totals in Actions > Edit Payroll Tax Forms > 1095-C > Client Data tab.

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