The following information is to help employers prepare for the 2023 reconciliation process. Annual reconciliation is a time-sensitive project. Your assistance is required to ensure that your employees’ Wisconsin Retirement System Annual Statements of Benefits (issued in April) are accurate and complete. It is critical that you are available during annual reconciliation to resolve reporting-related issues in a timely fashion.
Deadlines
- December 18, 2023: Verify your active employee roster
- January 25, 2024: Submit your Annual Report (State Employers)
- January 31, 2024: Submit your Annual Report (Local Employers)
What is Annual Reconciliation?
Reconciliation is the process by which ETF compares the total earnings reported on your 12 WRS monthly remittance reports to the total earnings detail reported for each employee throughout the calendar year (e.g., terminations, leaves of absence, and the annual report). Additional contributions remitted on the WRS monthly remittance reports are also reconciled to any employee-paid additional and/or employer-paid additional contributions reported for your employees.
How To Prepare
Reviewing the reports available on the ETF Web Applications for Employers WRS Earnings Reports (ongoing) application will make the reconciliation process much more streamlined and less time-consuming. In order to get the most out of the review, we strongly encourage employers to read the instructions, register for an interactive pre-reconciliation tasks live webinar by accessing the training catalog, or view our recorded training, WRS Keeping Reported Information Up-To-Date, as these resources explain how to best use the reports for pre-reconciliation tasks.
Submitting the Annual Report
All employers are required to report their active, WRS-participating employees’ annual earnings and service hours detail electronically and must do so on or before the deadlines stated above. ETF cannot guarantee sufficient reconciliation assistance for annual reports submitted after the deadline.
Employers can submit their annual report either manually via the ETF Web Applications for Employers page's WRS Account Update application (instructions) or by uploading the information via the WRS Transaction Upload application (instructions).
Training
ETF will be offering interactive annual reconciliation and reporting training via both live and recorded webinar. You can register for a live training session by accessing the training catalog. A separate communication will be sent when the recorded version is available.
Statement of Benefits Addresses
ETF will distribute the Wisconsin Retirement System Annual Statements of Benefits directly to your active employees. The statements dated January 1, 2024 will be sent to employees following completion of the reconciliation process.
Prior to completing your annual report, please navigate to your active employee listing (active roster) report using the instructions and verify addresses for all of your active employees. If address corrections are needed, please submit P031 address change transactions. Review the pre-filled employee addresses again when submitting your annual report if using the WRS Account Update application or ETF’s prelist and update as necessary if address corrections are still needed. If you create your own annual report, please be sure to provide current addresses in the appropriate fields using the file specifications found in Appendix A of the WRS Administration Manual (ET-1127).
Additional Questions?
Chapter 10 of ETF’s WRS Administration Manual (ET-1127) describes all things related to annual reconciliation, and ETF’s annual reporting web page has a series of links dedicated to the process. Also, please feel free to call the Employer Communication Center at 1-877-533-5020 for assistance.