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EZCheck Provides One-Step Welfare and Pension
Payment Solution for Fox Valley Laborers Fund
THE BACKGROUND
After their years of hard work, retirees have a right to expect
that their pension checks will arrive on time and that they’ll
be correct. Similarly, when union workers or their
dependents are ill or fall on hard times, they need to know
that their benefit plans are ready and able to help with their
problems in a timely fashion. In a Northern Illinois
community, an ACOM payments solution is helping Pat
Shales make sure these things happen.
Shales is the administrator of the Fox Valley Laborers Fund,
which serves some 2,100 members of three Fox Valley
building and road workers local unions. With their families,
the number of beneficiaries of the medical and welfare
benefits covered by the welfare fund numbers about 6,000,
with about 4,400 also having a vested interest in the
pension fund.
When Shales left her position as manager of pensions and
collections at Independent Employee Benefits Corporation
(IEBC) -- a respected third party benefits program
administrator in Geneva, Illinois -- to set up the
administrative facility for the Fox Valley Laborers Fund, one
of her initial moves was to acquire two of the most useful
and dependable tools she had used at IEBC.
THE SOLUTION
The tools included benefit fund administration software from
Innovative Software Solutions, Inc. (ISSI) and EZCheck, a
MICR laser payment processing solution from ISSI’s
business partner ACOM Solutions, Inc.
ISSI provides software solutions for multi-employer benefit
fund clients ranging from modest sized operations like Fox
Valley Laborers Fund, to large district councils and TPAs
supporting thousands of members. ACOM is the leading
provider of back office process output management
solutions for payments, electronic documents and ecommerce
integration.
Compatible with all ERP and financial management
software, EZCheck replaces preprinted check forms with
electronically stored digitized check forms. When Shales
schedules a check run, EZCheck polls the ISSI system for
the data file, merges the data with the required check
template and spools the merged data file out for printing on
a MICR-enhanced laser printer. The complete, signed
checks are generated on blank security check stock in a
seamless, one-step process. After a pass through a Formax
folder-stuffer, the checks are ready for the mail.
Located in Elgin, Illinois, Fox Valley Laborers Fund had
been a client of IEBC for many years, when Fund trustees
decided that they wanted to perform their own benefits and
pension administration. So amicable was the withdrawal
from the IEBC client ranks, says Shales, that the TPA gave
its full blessing when the Fund proposed to hire her, one of
IEBC’s key employees, to organize and run the new facility.
The office now issues about 150 pension checks monthly to
retirees, and about 1,200 claim checks each week for
medical vision and dental services.
“There was no dissatisfaction with the previous
arrangement” she says, “the trustees simply concluded that
after 30 years, they wanted their own office, customized to
the special interests of their own membership versus a
program that was more generic in nature.”
THE IMPLEMENTATION
The payment solution Shales acquired from ACOM
included:
- EZCheck software
- 21 page-per-minute Xerox DocuPrint N2125 MICRenhanced
Laser Printer from ACOM
- EZCheck design tool
- Professional services for the implementation of two
check templates
- MICR toner engineered by ACOM specifically for the
N2125 printer
- Maintenance contract
(Following union policy, she obtained blank security check
stock from a local union printer. However, ACOM also
offers blank security check stock.)
In setting up the office, Shales installed an IBM RS6000
computer, which houses the ISSI software, and a Microsoft
NT network, where EZCheck software resides on a Dell
server. In order to remain consistent with the expectations
of the unions’ membership, Shales chose to emulate, as
nearly as possible, the checks that the members had been
receiving from the third party administrator. For the
implementation process, she obtained existing forms from
IEBC, and sent them to ACOM along with her own sample
data file.
SUCCESS
“It was so painless, it was almost scary,” Shales says. “And
when we installed the system, the training was
straightforward and very complete. The ACOM trainer was
wonderful, and since the training, we have been able to
modify our templates in the software on our own, whenever
we need to. Recently, we had to change the address, and
we simply went into the computer and changed it. With
preprinted stock there would have been a big problem with
wasted forms.”
Shales and her associates run benefit checks twice a week,
in runs of about 750 checks that take about one-half hour.
The much smaller pension check runs take place monthly.
And not only is EZCheck getting the checks out quickly and
inexpensively, it provides powerful security and efficiency
benefits as well.
“Our costs are contained, since we only buy the paper,”
Shales says. “We eliminate printing charges and almost all
of the post-processing activity. And we are able to greatly
increase our payment efficiency to certain providers.
Medical payments are an example. Ordinarily, multiple
checks might be sent to a single entity. With EZCheck and
ISSI we are now trying to consolidate all of these payments
into a single check, which will save additional time and
money on our end and will probably result in greater
convenience for our payees.
The security issue has not been a problem in the Fund
office’s brief existence, but Shales and her trustees are fully
aware of the potential for check fraud, and of the value that
MICR laser check printing provides as a deterrent.
“With preprinted check forms, you not only have the
expensive printing, but the forms must be inventoried
securely and every form must be accounted for. There are
liability issues because people can do anything with those
checks and auditors don’t want to hear about such
problems.”
ACOM makes everything easy, Shales says. “When I
acquired the system, they asked a few questions and
provided me with exactly what I needed. Support has been
great too. When a screw fell out of a toner cartridge, they
said ‘no problem,’ and simply sent out a new one overnight.
I really appreciate the no-hassle approach. ”
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