ACA Filing Vendor Handoff Checklist

Write down the work each party will perform: source transformation, population reconciliation, form preparation, employer review, electronic filing, employee-statement support, and corrections. Treat these as questions to resolve in your agreement, not features every vendor necessarily provides.

Ask the vendor to identify its accepted formats, field definitions, cutoff dates, and error-reporting process. If your source systems do not match the preferred layout, agree on how mapping will be handled and who verifies the transformation. Do not manually flatten historical facts simply to make an unexplained column pass an upload check.

Establish a named contact on each side and a backup for time-sensitive decisions. The handoff is easier when the person who can explain source data is available during the vendor's first review.

Use controlled references for sensitive files. The general project email can identify the packet and its status without containing employee identifiers or full tax records.

Separate receipt from usability. Receipt means the files arrived. Intake acceptance means they can be read, their counts reconcile, and the agreed source periods are present. Draft readiness means the preparer has resolved the questions needed to create reviewable forms. Release approval is a later employer decision.

Agree on rejection reasons that produce a useful response: missing month, undefined field, unmatched internal identifier, or conflicting employer mapping. Require the vendor to identify affected records with a secure reference and explain the expected correction.

Keep these project labels separate from IRS transmission outcomes. The IRS AIR resources describe the electronic filing environment; a vendor's “import complete” message is a local processing event. Ask for the actual outcome evidence after filing instead of treating intake acceptance as completion.

Produce counts before transforming files, then compare them after transformation. Count raw rows, unique internal people, and distinct person-employer relationships. If a file is organized by month, state that its row count is monthly observations, not annual forms.

Add targeted totals for the packet: people appearing only in HR, only in benefits, or in both; records with incomplete periods; and resolved duplicates. These checks reveal an accidental filter or broken join without assuming that every source row belongs on a return.

Ask the vendor to return its own received counts. A mismatch should trigger investigation before coding work begins. Keep a short explanation for intentional differences, such as removing an exact duplicate export row while retaining both legitimate employment periods.

Fictional Maple Quay Services sends packet MQ-2025-v1 with 312 distinct employee records. The vendor identifies nine missing offer-history records. Benefits sends a nine-person update the following day.

The cover sheet labels that update as a supplement to v1, not a replacement. The preparer applies the update to the nine identified people and returns a count of 312 records. If the file had been mistaken for a full replacement, 303 people could have disappeared from the working population.

The employer then receives draft v2 and resolves two address questions. Its approval identifies v3 after those changes. All counts are fictional, but the control is practical: state whether every delivered file replaces the full packet, replaces a data family, or updates named records.

Approve a version, an employer, a year, and a scope of action. If the vendor changes material data after approval, ask for the affected differences and refresh the relevant review. A standing email saying “looks good” cannot establish which regenerated file was approved.

Define what comes back after the work: prepared forms, a count reconciliation, applicable filing outcome references, unresolved errors, and information needed for employee inquiries or corrections. The IRS employer reporting overview provides the statutory context; your return checklist should describe the actual deliverables agreed with the preparer.

Use the downloadable handoff checklist before the first full export. The most useful test is whether a colleague unfamiliar with the project can identify the correct packet, understand its known exceptions, and find the person who can authorize its next step.