What you can set up
Most reconciliation work happens one plan at a time. A few settings shape every reconciliation at your firm:
Lock policy decides what must be true before anyone can lock a plan year. It applies to your whole firm. Only firm admins can change it.
Accrual rules tell CX how to treat late-year payroll deposits on Accrual reconciliations. They apply to your whole firm. Only firm admins can change them.
Contract numbers on each plan let bulk upload send each record keeper file to the right plan on its own. This is a plan setting.
Locking and unlocking a reconciliation is also an admin task. See Confirming and Locking a Reconciliation.
[Image to add] đŹ GIF: Signed in as a firm admin, go to Settings > Plan Admin, scroll to Asset Reconciliation, open the lock policy dropdown, choose Outstanding work finished, and each money type within a dollar amount, type 5.00 in the amount box, click away, and show the "Lock policy saved" message. About 12 seconds.
Lock policy (firm admins)
The lock policy answers one question: before a plan year can be locked, what does Stax require? Your choice applies to every plan's reconciliation at your firm.
When a plan year is locked, its figures are frozen, and those figures carry to the Form 5500. A stricter policy means fewer surprises in the 5500. A looser policy gives your team more room to use their judgment.
Where to find it
Click Settings.
Click Plan Admin in the list on the left.
Scroll to the Asset Reconciliation section.
You see this section only if your team has Asset Reconciliation and you have Retirement access.
[Image to add] đ¸ SCREENSHOT: Settings > Plan Admin on the Cedar Ridge Excavating demo team, scrolled to the Asset Reconciliation section, with the lock policy dropdown showing the default choice and the $1.00 amount box.
The four choices
The dropdown is labeled Before a plan year can be locked, Stax requiresâŚ. Pick one:
Choice | What it means |
Nothing | Anyone who can lock can lock any plan year at any time. Unfinished work and differences are listed, but they don't stop the lock. |
Outstanding work to be finished | All the work must be done first: files read, rows matched, matches confirmed. Any difference from the census is fine. |
Outstanding work finished, and each money type within a dollar amount | The work must be done, and each money type must be within a set dollar amount of the census. This is the default. The default amount is $1.00. |
Outstanding work finished, and each money type within a percent | The work must be done, and each money type must be within a set percent of its census figure. |
Good to know:
The default is a dollar amount of $1.00. If no one at your firm has changed the setting, each money type must be within $1.00 of the census.
A tolerance applies to each money type on its own. Differences are never netted across the plan. A plus on one money type never cancels a minus on another.
A percent is of that money type's census figure. For example, at 0.5%, a money type with $100,000 in the census can be out by up to $500.
"Nothing" lets a plan year lock even while a file is still being read or its matches are unconfirmed. Whatever is locked is frozen, and those numbers carry to the Form 5500. Choose it with care.
One exception applies under every choice. An Accrual reconciliation can't be locked if CX can't read your firm's accrual rules at that moment.
Change the lock policy
Go to Settings > Plan Admin > Asset Reconciliation.
Open the Before a plan year can be locked, Stax requires⌠dropdown and choose an option.
⢠For Nothing or Outstanding work to be finished, the change saves right away. A message confirms "Lock policy saved".If you chose the dollar amount option, type the amount in the box that appears. Use dollars and cents, like 1.00. Zero is allowed and means each money type must tie exactly.
If you chose the percent option, type the percent in the box that appears. It must be more than 0 and no more than 100.
Click away from the box. The policy saves, and a message confirms "Lock policy saved".
If the value can't be used, CX tells you what to fix and your firm's policy stays as it was:
"Enter an amount like 1.00 (zero or more). Your firm's policy is unchanged until it saves."
"Enter a percent greater than 0 and at most 100. Your firm's policy is unchanged until it saves."
CX remembers the amount and the percent you last typed, even when the other choice is in use. If you switch back, your number is still there.
[Image to add] đ¸ SCREENSHOT: The Asset Reconciliation section with the percent option chosen and 0.5 typed in the percent box.
How the policy shows up in a reconciliation
In the Confirm reconciliation dialog, CX tells the person locking whether the plan's difference is within your firm's policy. If it isn't, the lock is stopped and the money types out of tolerance are listed.
On the Plan tab, a money type inside your tolerance shows its small difference, with a note that it's within your firm's lock tolerance.
For the full lock steps, see Confirming and Locking a Reconciliation.
If you aren't a firm admin
Anyone with Retirement access can see the policy. If you aren't a firm admin, the section shows the current choice as a sentence instead of a dropdown, followed by "Only firm admins can change the lock policy."
If the policy can't be loaded, you'll see "The lock policy could not be loaded, so it can't be changed right now. Reload to try again."
Accrual rules (firm admins)
An accrual rule says: when a payroll run lands in the final months of a plan year, and its total for a money type is at least a set amount, count it as belonging to this plan year even though the record keeper books it next year. CX then fills the Current Yr Accrual column this year and the Prior Yr Accrual column on next year's reconciliation.
Open any plan's reconciliation and choose Accrual.
Click Accrual rules. The Accrual rules dialog opens. Everyone can view the rules. Only firm admins can change them; others see "Only firm admins can change accrual rules."
Click + Add rule and choose a Money type.
Enter Run total at least (a dollar amount) and Final months of plan year (1 to 12).
Make sure the rule's On checkbox is checked so the rule is on.
Click Save rules. A message confirms "Accrual rules saved".
The Save rules button stays grayed out until the current rules finish loading. If the rules can't be loaded, the dialog says so and you can't save. Close it and try again. This keeps a save from replacing your firm's real rules with an empty list.
[Image to add] đ¸ SCREENSHOT: The Accrual rules dialog with two rules filled in (EE Pre-Tax and ER Match), showing the On, Money type, Run total at least, and Final months of plan year columns.
Good to know:
Rules are firm wide. A change affects every unlocked Accrual reconciliation at your firm.
Locked plan years keep the rule amounts they had when they were locked. Changing a rule later doesn't change a locked year. To apply new rules to a locked year, an admin unlocks it and locks it again.
An accrual you type on the Plan tab, or an override, takes priority over a rule.
Rules need payroll records in CX for the plan year.
For the full picture, see Cash vs Accrual and Accrual Rules.
Contract numbers on plans
When you bulk upload record keeper files, CX reads the plan number printed inside each file and matches it to a plan's contract number. Saving each plan's contract number ahead of time means fewer files to place by hand.
Open the plan from Plan Admin.
Find the Record-keeper card on the plan page.
⢠If no record keeper is linked yet, click + Link recordkeeper.
⢠If one is already linked, click the edit icon on the card.
âThe Record-keeper dialog opens.
Choose the Record-keeper if it isn't set.
Enter the number in Account/Contract Number. Type it the way the record keeper prints it.
Click Save Changes. The number shows as Account Number on the Record-keeper card.
[Image to add] đ¸ SCREENSHOT: The Record-keeper dialog on the Cedar Ridge Excavating 401(k) Plan, with the Account/Contract Number field filled in.
Good to know:
CX ignores spaces, dashes, capital letters, and leading zeros when it compares numbers. "558213-01" and "55821301" match.
Each contract number should belong to one plan. If two plans share a number, bulk upload won't guess. It shows "More than one plan has this contract #" and asks you to choose.
When you place a file by hand during bulk upload, CX can save the file's number to that plan for you. The review table shows "Saves 558213-01 as this plan's contract #" next to the file.
Some record keeper files don't print a plan number. For those, CX tries the file name and then the company folder.
For the full upload steps, see Bulk Uploading Record Keeper Files.
Related articles
Confirming and Locking a Reconciliation
Cash vs Accrual and Accrual Rules
Bulk Uploading Record Keeper Files