PensionPro is designed to help the user identify multiple employer plans and those plans that are linked to the "MEP Master." The MEP master is the sponsoring entity or the entity that will satisfy the government reporting on behalf of the plan and all its adopting employers.
MEPs function operationally in different ways:
- MEP arrangements where all census and data collection come from a single entity, or
- MEP arrangements where data collection comes from adopting employers
- A bit of both
MEP masters and members should be set up as separate clients and plans. The master should be identified by editing the General Plan Information on the Home > General tab and selecting the Edit button then selecting the MEP Master checkbox. Once a MEP is indicated as a MEP Master, it will automatically be added for selection in the dropdown.
MEP members can be linked by editing the information on the General Plan Information > General tab by clicking the Edit icon. From the Edit General Plan Information pop-up, select the Plan from the Linked Multiple Employer Plan dropdown. Users can also designate whether or not the plan is the MEP Master by selecting the MEP Master checkbox. Contacts should be entered and linked to the MEP master depending on the contacts involvement with each plan. Personnel for the MEP master would be connected to all members of the MEP so that they would have access to enter and complete data. If some data is being submitted by MEP members, they would only have access to their own plan and not be linked to the MEP master or other members.
Creating projects for MEPs is easy. The MEP master would start with the basic administration project for that plan type and add the task or task items that instruct the user to include the information for the other members. It is possible to even create the project in a way that the names of the members are listed in the project as task items with checkboxes to help the user know which members have been completed and which haven't. The name of the MEP master could be included in the project name or description.
MEP members utilize normal administration projects for their plan type less the tasks associated with government filings. This can be accomplished by copying the original project and editing/removing unnecessary tasks and task items.
For MEP projects enabled on PlanSponsorLink for annual data collection, the data collection arrangement will need to match the project design. For MEP arrangements that operate as described in number 1 above, the project for the MEP master will collect information on its own entity for the tasks labeled as follows:
- General
- Company
- Principals
- Family
- Businesses
- Contact
- Plan
- 5500
Additionally, on the task for Employees, the MEP master would upload all census information for the MEP master and MEP members as one file. Since the information for tasks General through 5500 are unique per employer, the personnel from the MEP Master would have data collection tasks launched to PlanSponsorLink for each member and would verify the information in steps General through 5500 and would skip the census step for the members.
For MEPs who collect data in the arrangement described in number 2 above, it is important to remember to link all appropriate contacts to the members in a role entitled MEP census contact or similar. This will allow you to identify the contacts for Blast Email purposes when projects are launched.