Is the administration and/or communication of your ESOP taking up too much of your time or becoming too much of a burden on your staff? If so, outsourcing your ESOP administration requirements and your employee communication needs to Menke ESOPOnline Services℠ may be just the answer you have been looking for.
Menke ESOPOnline Services℠ has been designed specifically for the purpose of enabling ESOP companies to outsource and offload as much of their ESOP administration requirements and their employee communication needs as possible, thus saving you and your staff much time and effort.
How the Menke/BSI ESOPOnline Services℠ Program Makes Your ESOP Administration Easier
The Menke ESOPOnline Services℠ program makes your ESOP administration easier in a number of ways.
First, with this program, your designated internal contact person can send us your yearend payroll records online, and our program will automatically determine who is eligible to participate that year.
Second, once the allocation runs have been completed, we will post them to your web portal. Your internal contact person can review and revise these allocation runs online within minutes, thus greatly speeding up the time needed to complete the administration.
Third, employee contact information, employee consent and election forms, employee beneficiary designation forms and other documents can be completed online. Similarly, communications with employees regarding their distribution and diversifications options and alternatives can be made through the online system.
Fourth, you can post copies of plan documents, summary plan descriptions, election forms and other such documents online, thus saving staff time otherwise needed to provide these documents.
Fifth, if you so choose, the Menke ESOPOnline Services℠ program will write and mail distribution checks to all plan participants, withhold federal and state income taxes on plan distributions where necessary, and file the necessary federal tax returns for withheld taxes.
Sixth, the Menke ESOPOnline Services℠ program automatically saves each year’s administration records and documents in a separate folder so that all of your records are preserved in one place for future reference.
How the Menke/BSI ESOPOnline Services℠ Program Can Be Used to Communicate the Value of Your ESOP and Educate Your Employees about ESOPs in General
With the Menke/BSI ESOPOnline Services℠ program, you can:
- Advise participants of their most recent account balances
- Send important announcements regarding actions participants must take or elections they must make to receive their plan benefits
- Send ESOP-related news releases regarding business or legislative developments that affect ESOPs or ESOP participants
- Post videos, flyers, news stories, and technical articles about the benefits that ESOPs provide to plan participants
- Post quarterly financial statements or other company information that gives employees feedback as to how the company is doing
- Post quarterly or annual letters from the company president regarding how the company is doing and the importance of employee productivity and employee ownership
- Post answers to frequently asked questions or other educational materials designed to increase employees’ awareness and understanding of ESOPs.
How the Menke/BSI ESOPOnline Services℠ Program Benefits Your Plan Participants
The Menke ESOPOnline Services℠ program benefits your Plan Participants in a number of ways.
First, each of your plan participants will be given a separate password which will enable them to not only view and/or download their most recent account balances, but also to view and/or download and compare their account balances from all prior years. This access can be obtained at any time and from any desktop computer or any mobile device.
Second, your employees will be able to download copies of plan documents and election forms without having to bother your staff for copies of these documents.
Third, your employees will be able to complete most election forms online without having to fill out paper forms and mail them to your staff.
Fourth, your employees will be able to submit written questions about their accounts or about how the ESOP operates online without having to telephone or meet with your staff.
Fifth, your employees will receive announcements, news releases, ESOP articles and other employee communications materials that will greatly increase their understanding of how ESOPs operate in general and how they will benefit from your ESOP in particular.
Sixth, your employees can use the Plan Benefit Calculator to project what their individual account balances may be in 5, 10, 15 or 20 years based upon various assumptions selected by each participant
