Pre-tax Contributions Files are used to maintain an up-to-date ledger of the deposit history for the benefit plans an employee has elected for a given plan year.
What pre-tax account types require contribution files to fund accounts?
- Dependent Care FSA (DCFSA) when you’re not using auto-deposit
- Health Savings Accounts (HSA)
- Commuter accounts (Parking, Transit) when you’re not using auto-deposit
What pre-tax account types do not require contribution files to fund accounts?
- Commuter accounts (Parking, Transit) if auto-deposit is turned on
- Dependent Care FSA (DCFSA) if auto-deposit is turned on
- It is optional to send for FSA or Limited Purpose FSA (LPFSA) records
How often should I send a contributions file?
We recommend aligning contribution file send with your payroll schedule. For instance, if you pay your employees semi-monthly, with payroll dates on the 15th and 30th, it's best to send contribution files on or before those corresponding dates.
Please keep in mind that you have the flexibility to send contribution files earlier, you can do so by adjusting the 'funding date' on the file to match your pay schedule. For more information about this field and how it works, refer to the article How does the 'funding date' field work on contributions files?
SFTP folder to process files
Upload pre-tax contributions files to the pretax/contributions SFTP folder. These are US-only benefits.
Process contributions files after the demographics and elections files have been processed to avoid errors.
File Naming
- Test files: TEST_YYYYMMDD_pretax_contributions.csv
- Finalized, production files: YYYYMMDD_pretax_contributions.csv
(Where “YYYYMMDD” is the date you upload the file)
File Template
Forma can only accept comma delimited (.csv) files.
Files must be valid UTF-8 encoded.
Review the Pre-tax Contributions File section of the File Integration Guide pages 18-19 for a file template and data specifications.
Balance transfer files
Refer to the article about Balance Transfer files for more details.
To transfer Commuter or FSA balances to Forma, you should use the pre-tax contributions file specifications. There are two differences when submitting a balance transfer file:
- Deposit type should be defined as "rollover" for all records
- The transfer amount should be added to the "employee deposit amount" and/or "employer deposit amount" field(s).
FAQs
- Can I change the order of the columns? Yes, as long as the column name is correct and mandatory fields are included
- Can I include fields/data not outlined in the file specifications? Additional fields/data will not cause processing errors. However, Forma will not store the additional information in the system so it cannot be used for reporting.
- Can I exclude optional columns? Yes. You can choose to exclude the entire optional column or keep the column and leave the data fields blank if not applicable.