When an employee is terminated, it is important to update the information being sent to Forma to properly remove account access and keep accurate records.
Employer-sponsored accounts
To remove access to employer-sponsored accounts, remove the employee record from the full demographic file on or after their termination date and upload the file to the /to_twic SFTP folder. The employee will be terminated by omission, meaning that once they’re removed from the file and it’s processed, they will lose access to all employer-sponsored accounts immediately.
Including the employee on the file and sending a ‘Termination Date’ will NOT remove access. The record must be omitted.
Pre-tax accounts
Send employee termination information to Forma using the pre-tax demographic and election files. Pre-tax records cannot be terminated by omission, so simply removing the employee record will not terminate them in Forma. Below are more details about how to send termination information on both files.
Pre-tax Demographic File
When an employee is terminated and loses access to all pre-tax accounts, the termination information must be sent on the pre-tax demographic file. There are two ways to send termination information:
Option 1
- Set ‘Employee Status’ to Terminated and upload the file to the pretax/demographics SFTP folder on or after the employee’s termination date. The file processing date will be used as the Termination Date.
Option 2
- Include the termination date in the optional ‘Termination Date’ field. If the termination date is in the future, leave the ‘Employee Status’ as ‘Active’, otherwise, the employee record will be terminated when the file is processed.
- If providing a future termination date, the employee will be terminated in the Forma system on that future date.
- If you include the ’Termination Date’ and it is the current day or in the past, the employee will be terminated when the file is processed.
Pre-tax Election File
When an employee is terminated and loses access to some or all accounts because they are no longer eligible, remove account access through the pre-tax elections file.
Option 1
- Set ‘Account Status’ to Terminated and upload the file to the pretax/elections SFTP folder once the account coverage ends. The file processing date will be used as the account end date.
Option 2
- Include the end date in the optional ‘Account End Date’ field.
If the ‘Account End Date’ is in the future, the account will end in the Forma system on that date.
If the ‘Account End Date’ is the current day or in the past, the account will end when the file is processed.
What does ‘Account End Date’ mean?
- The ‘Account End Date’ indicates when coverage should end for a given pre-tax account. After the account end date employees cannot incur any new expenses where service date or purchase date is after the account end date. For example, if the account end date is 2025-04-17, expenses incurred on 2025-04-18 or later will be ineligible.
- Grace period, if provided, does not apply to terminated accounts. Account end date is the last date of coverage.
- If you offer a post-termination run-out period, the employee can continue to submit claims, but the account end date is the last day they can incur expenses. For example, if there is a 90-day post-termination run-out period, employees have until 2025-07-16 to submit claims for an account with an end date of 2025-04-17.
- During the post-termination run-out period, you will see a ‘Temporarily Inactive’ account status on account reports with an ‘Account End Date’ in the past.
Once the post-termination run-out period ends, the account will be updated to ‘Terminated’ on reports.
Cards will no longer work after the account end date. The card will be disconnected from the account at 23:59:59 PT.
Auto-deposit will not be posted. Contribution files can still be processed.
Notes
- When provided, it is very important to send the same date in the ‘Termination Date’ field on the demographic file and ‘Account End Date’ field on the election file.
- Employee ‘Termination Date’ takes precedence when ending an account.
- If you intend to only remove certain account access for an active employee, do not provide the termination record in the demographic file.
- If you offer coverage extensions, you can find more information in the article How do I send data in files for terminated employees with coverage extensions?