REIMBURSEMENT PAYMENT OPTIONS
Q. If
I am a third-party administrator, do I need a separate checking account for each flex-plan I administer? What
if the client company wants to use their own checking account for reimbursement payments? What reimbursement payment
options do I have with Fast-Flex Plus?
A.
With Fast-Flex Plus, you have many options in the way you choose to handle payments for the reimbursement of flex-plan
participant's qualified expenditures.
Fast-Flex Plus can print reimbursement checks to standard, Quickbooks compatible check stock that you can customize with your company name and logo.
It is a standard 3-part check with the check
at the top and then two "stub" sections below:
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Most Sec. 125 TPA's (Third Party Administrators)
administer their clients out of a single checking account that they own. Each pay day, they collect the paycheck-withheld
funds from the client employers, deposit it all into their own checking account, and issue reimbursement checks that are drawn
on this checking account to all flex-plan participants with their (the TPA's) name and logo on the reimbursement
checks. This is the way Fast-Flex Plus is usually operated. It keeps everything straight between client companies
and employee participants, even though there is only a single checking account.
The bottom line: it is not
a requirement that you have separate check stock or a checking account for each client company that you administer.
In fact, your TPA operation will likely be more efficient if you administer all of your client's reimbursement plans
out of a single checking account.
For example, are you going to have a separate checking account, and separate
reimbursement check stock, for even a small client with only 10 flex-plan participants? If the client wants
to "own" the checking account, are they going to feel any more secure if you are issuing (printing) checks from
their checking account than if you owned the checking account?
Still, some clients will prefer
that you print the reimbursement checks for their employees on check stock that the client company supplies to you, and they
will want to be the one to sign and distribute the checks to their employees. Other companies will just want
you to tell them what the reimbursement amounts should be and then they will want to print and distribute the checks.
That is all fine, and Fast-Flex Plus will work in all of these cases. (It's just more work for the client company if
they want to deal with printing reimbursement checks themselves.)
If you want or need to have separate check
stock and a separate checking account for each client's FSA plan, Fast-Flex Plus can export its data in the Quicken *.QIF
format that can then be imported into Versacheck Premium, an inexpensive piece of software that will create completed
reimbursement checks from blank paper in one pass. For more information, see: http://www.versacheck.com/web/vc_quickbooksX1.asp
So we do have a way for you to create client-specific check stock on-the-fly, and several of our
customers do this rather than keeping dozens of sets of pre-printed checks on hand. Refer to Exporting
to Quicken, p. 105 in our User's manual, for more information on interfacing to Versacheck.
Another very convenient reimbursement payment option is direct deposit into any participating
employee's own bank account. Select the "ACH" option on our "Print Reimbursement Checks"
screen to automatically create a file that can be imported by Easy
ACH File Creator®. This will quickly convert your reimbursement check data into an ACH/NACHA
format to send to your bank for direct deposit processing. More information about the Easy ACH File Creator®
software and its pricing is available here: http://www.ezdd.com/products/onlinebanking/easyachfilecreator.html