Merritt Business Solutions offers a variety of services to help run a business. We strive to assist clients in saving money while getting better quality services. In addition, our services can help save time by taking over the responsibilities of managing certain business functions.
Protect your business and gain confidence knowing that complex employment-related regulations and compliance are met and checked off.
Work with our compliance experts for industry-specialized guidance on employment-related rules and regulations to help you mitigate risk. Our expert guidance will help you stay on track whenever difficult or sensitive situations arise, so you can always make an informed decision. Stay up-to-date with ever-changing employment rules and regulations that can often take time away from growing your business.
Employee benefits administration is a good task to outsource, as it can be complex and time-consuming
Participate in courses on Workplace Harassment, HR Recordkeeping, Sales, and more.
Depending on your needs and business size, we can help you leverage data from your own workers — combined with our benchmarking data from millions of employees — to help you answer questions such as:
Employment laws protect employees from discrimination, wrongful termination, sexual harassment, and more. Though most employers try to treat employees fairly, no company is immune to legal challenges. EPLI is a cost-effective way to protect your business should a lawsuit arise. We’ll help you find the affordable coverage you need.
No more waiting on hold for a simple answer to a question. We don’t rely on an automated attendant for your payroll support, we offer a powerful, human connection.
We will calculate, file, deposit and reconcile your payroll taxes.
We’ll even respond to inquiries from taxing agencies regarding the deposits and the returns we file for you. Best of all, if we make a tax filing error, we pay the resulting fines or penalties imposed by the taxing authorities for you.
The quickest way to pay your employees. On payday, pay is automatically deposited in each employee’s account.
We offer an accessible mobile app for both Employees and Managers.
The mobile will allow managers and employees to:
Create a comprehensive, professional-quality employee handbook based on federal employment law in a few simple steps.
Receive phone and email access to a dedicated support team of HR professionals to help you navigate even your most complicated HR issues.
Properly complete everyday HR tasks, such as hiring and termination, with step-by-step, best-practice guidelines, essential forms and documents, and related policies.
Manage labor costs and compliance with easy Time & Attendance tools. For advanced capabilities, Workforce Management adds optimized scheduling, labor forecasting/budgeting, attendance policy, leave case management and more.
Receive detailed job descriptions from a library of more than 300 job titles and descriptions.
Manage premium payments efficiently and possibly eliminate your upfront premium deposit.
Only pay for what you owe — payments are based on real-time data each payroll cycle.
Reduce the risk of over or underpayment of your workers’ compensation premiums.
Your employees are your greatest investment.
Health insurance is a critical factor in retaining and recruiting employees, as well as maintaining productivity and satisfaction.
Offering the “right” health insurance plan is one of the most important decisions you can make – keeping employees happy and healthy benefits you in the long run. But making sense of the complex health care system has become increasingly difficult for employers.
Our plans help you save money on health care costs and keep your employees informed, healthy and happy. And healthier employees mean a healthier bottom line.
Our plans also are efficient to manage, so you can focus on what you do best – running your business.
At its most basic, life insurance is a contract between you and an insurance company. Under the terms of the contract, you make regular premium payments to the company in exchange for a certain dollar amount of coverage. If you pass away while your coverage is in place, the life insurance company will pay out a death benefit to the beneficiaries you designate.
While the death benefit is the primary reason people tend to get life insurance, certain types of policies accumulate cash value, which is money that grows in a tax-advantaged way and is available for you to access throughout your life.
Your ability to earn a living and contribute to your household is likely your most valuable asset. Disability insurance replaces a portion of your income—or helps cover the cost of household services for stay-at-home-parents—should illness or injury prevent you from doing your job. We can help protect your income, and your family, with a disability insurance policy that’s right for you.
Dental insurance plans can help assist costs related to dental procedures, cleanings, etc.
Most dental services are not covered by medical plans today. These products are broken up into 3 categories of coverage: Preventative, Basic and Major services.
• Preventative – These services include items such as routine check ups and cleanings. There is typically no waiting period for these services to be rendered when you purchase a policy.
• Basic Restorative – Services included in basic are simple extractions, fillings, and root canals are included here. Typically there is at least a 6-month waiting period before insurance can be applied to these services.
• Major – Crowns, bridges, dentures or other major services are located here. Typical plans will cover up to 50% of these services up to your plans’ maximum. These services typically have a 12-month waiting period.
Many medical plans do not cover expenses related to vision checkups and procedures. Vision insurance that gives you options on coverage for such items as routine exams, glasses and contacts allowance, and even discounts on LASIK.
Critical illness plans generally have a very specific list of diagnoses that will trigger a payout. If you get seriously sick with something that isn’t specifically listed on your policy, the plan won’t pay you anything—even if you incur substantial out-of-pocket costs as a result of the illness.
It’s important to understand exactly how the policy works before you purchase it so you’re not caught unaware in a tough situation, expecting a payout from your critical illness plan and then not receiving one.
Two kinds of accident policies are available, including accidental death and dismemberment insurance (AD&D) and supplemental accident insurance. They’re often combined and sold together. The benefits vary from state to state due to local insurance regulations.
Hospital indemnity insurance, also known as hospital confinement insurance, provides a cash benefit if you’re confined to a hospital due to an illness or serious injury.
Long-term care refers to services received from nursing homes, assisted living facilities, in-home care providers, and adult day care centers. These services help with eating, bathing, mobility, and other custodial tasks that patients can’t complete independently. Most medical and disability insurance policies, including Medicare, don’t cover long-term care, which is why you need a separate LTC insurance policy.
MBS provides a way for small and mid-size businesses to identify vulnerabilities in their website and internet-facing networks where cybercriminals often attack. In addition to being notified of cyber risks, if you don’t have a dedicated IT team to fix the issues, we’ll provide your business with a specialist who will help resolve the vulnerabilities remotely, included in the cost of your membership.
We partner with small and mid-size businesses to guard against vulnerabilities to ensure information stays secure via regular monitoring. In the event of a cyberattack, your plan covers related expenses with up to $100K in a Cyber-Protection Plan to put business back on track quickly.
Consult with a board-certified doctor by phone, secure video, or app- anytime, from anywhere.
Your family members are also eligible, and we have pediatricians available 24/7
There is a better way to pay for healthcare
Medical Cost Sharing Communities are made up of Members who help share the cost of one another’s large unexpected medical costs through a membership-based Community.
How it Works
You Select Your Initial Amount
You select your Membership level which determines your Initial Unshareable Amount (IUA). An “IUA” is the amount you feel comfortable paying per injury or illness without help from the Community.
Every Member Contributes
When you join, you agree to Membership Principles and Commitments and begin contributing funds for use by other Members on a monthly basis.
The Community Shares with You.
If something unexpected happens, Community members share funds through our secure platform to pay for shareable expenses beyond your IUA.
You Pay Your Doctor
You pay your healthcare provider with the shared funds, for the duration of your care.
What is an HRA?
Health reimbursement accounts (HRA) are employer-funded, tax-advantaged accounts, designed to help employees save money on the high costs associated with healthcare. By setting aside a specific amount of pre-tax dollars in an HRA, employers help their employees offset expensive insurance premiums or medical bills and provide them with an “allowance” to use for these eligible expenses.
This allows employers to control costs while providing their employees with the flexibility and protection they need.
How Does It Work?
When an employer chooses to provide an HRA, they allocate funds into individual reimbursement accounts and define “eligible” expenses that the employee can pay with these funds (i.e., insurance premiums).
Any administrative fees associated with the HRA, along with the funds reimbursed to employees, are both tax-deductible to the employer.
To offer a QSEHRA, employers must have less than 50 eligible employees.
Employers cannot offer a group medical policy in conjunction with a QSEHRA. Employees can use their HRA funds to purchase medical coverage on the individual marketplace.
How It Works
Lifestyle Spending Accounts (LSA) are a means for employers to help their employees pay for health and wellness expenses, and sometimes other costs that aren’t typically covered under a group health plan. Examples of optional expenses covered by an LSA include but are not limited to:
• Physical wellness expenses such as gym memberships, fitness and yoga classes, athletic equipment, nutritional supplements, personal training, and weight loss programs
• Financial wellness expenses such as financial planning & advisory services, student loan reimbursement, home purchase expenses, and rent assistance
• Emotional wellness expenses such as therapy, counseling, fishing & hunting licenses, camping expenses, retreats, cooking classes, and pet care
Employers who offer an LSA choose what expenses get reimbursed and establish a reimbursement limit. Unlike other spending accounts such as flexible spending accounts, employers fund the LSA with money that is taxable to the employee after they spend it. After the employer sets a reimbursement limit, employees pay for eligible expenses designated by their employer and submit manual claims for reimbursement.
Nonqualified Deferred Compensation
Do you max out your 401(k) (along with other options including HSAs and IRAs) but still want to save more for retirement or other goals? If your employer offers a nonqualified deferred compensation (NQDC) plan, you might want to explore this option. NQDC plans (sometimes known as deferred compensation programs, or DCPs, or elective deferral programs, or EDPs) allow executives to defer a much larger portion of their compensation and to defer taxes on the money until the deferral is paid.
Executive Disability Income Insurance
Most companies do a good job of offering group long-term disability (LTD) insurance to their employees. It provides a good foundation of protection, usually 40-60% of an employee’s base salary up to a specified monthly maximum. However, a company’s management or executive team will often have their replacement income limited by coverage caps. Furthermore, incentive and bonus compensation is often not covered by group LTD, which can result in a company’s key employees facing greater financial exposure should they suffer an illness or injury that keeps them out of work for an extended period of time. Executive disability plans with individual disability insurance can ensure that executives and key employees receive adequate replacement income in the event of a disability, providing the coverage they need to meet their financial obligations and maintain their lifestyles. These plans can also serve as a great benefit for the employer, as companies are in constant competition for recruiting and retaining top talent. For most employers, the cost of these plans can be viewed as nominal compared to the risk of losing top talent due to inadequate coverage
Split Dollar Life Insurance
In a split-dollar plan, an employer and employee execute a written agreement that outlines how they will share the premium cost, cash value, and death benefit of a permanent life insurance policy. The agreement outlines what the employee needs to accomplish, how long the plan will stay in effect, and how the plan will be terminated. It also includes provisions that restrict or end benefits if the employee decides to terminate employment or does not achieve agreed-upon performance metrics.
Key Person Insurance
A company purchases a life insurance policy on its key employee(s), pays the premiums and is the beneficiary of the policy. If that person unexpectedly dies, the company receives the insurance payoff. The reason this coverage is important is because the death of a key person in a small company can cause the immediate death of that company. The purpose of key person insurance is to help the company survive the blow of losing the person who makes the business work. The company can use the insurance proceeds for expenses until it can find a replacement person, or, if necessary, pay off debts, distribute money to investors, pay severance to employees and close the business down in an orderly manner. In a tragic situation, key person insurance gives the company some options other than immediate bankruptcy.
Buy Sell Agreements
Buy-sell agreements are in place to protect a company’s longevity. If a vital member of the company leaves, there needs to be a process that tells shareholders and remaining partners how to proceed. Since buy-sell agreements aren’t limited to a partner’s death, ensure you protect your company from external forces by understanding their work.
Executive Bonus Section 162 Plan
When companies or business owners want to provide additional perks to their key employees, they can use a 162 executive bonus plan. Benefits are usually in the form of a permanent life insurance policy that accrues cash value that can be used as the employee’s retirement income in the future. The cash value is tax-deferred, while the death benefit is tax-free for the employee’s beneficiaries. The tax-deductible executive benefits plan is a beneficial tool for businesses to attract and retain key executives. The company compensates the key executive with a bonus that is taxable as income to the recipient. The bonus is usually treated as an ordinary business expense for the company. The bonus is used to purchase a deferred annuity, whole life insurance policy, or universal life insurance policy that builds cash value that grows tax-deferred. The company restricts access to the cash surrender value until a specific future date.
Any life insurance cash value accumulation will grow tax-deferred and may be accessed by the employee income tax-free through withdrawals and policy loans. The cash value can be used to supplement retirement income. If the key executive dies, their heirs will receive death benefit proceeds from an insurance policy free of income tax.
Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan (SERP)
For many business owners, there is a lot of investment that goes into key executives. As an incentive to encourage the executive to stay long-term with your company, many business owners enhance executive benefits with a supplemental executive retirement plan (SERP).
A SERP lets the executive know they are a valuable part of your team while also encouraging them to stay with your company. You promise to pay the employee a retirement income stream or lump sum benefit if he or she stays with the company until retirement. You also may provide disability and/or death benefits under the plan. A SERP is often called a “golden handcuff” plan. When structured as a forfeitable plan, the employee generally forfeits all business if he/she leaves your business early.
Manage your entire workforce from a single dashboard driven off a single database — so the right information is always where you want it, when you need it.
Make it easy for employees and managers to track time and attendance with:
Streamlined HR record keeping and resources:
Recruit and retain the right people with:
In person or virtual seminars tailored to your needs. Our classroom topics include, but are not limited to the following:
Great news – We’ve teamed up with Tripbeat, a unique online travel club, to bring this exclusive benefit to MBS clients.
Enjoy more choice, more adventures, and more ways to save on local and global travel as our gift to you!!
Merritt Business Solutions is a Certified Women’s Business Enterprise and
holds NGLCC Certification as an LGBTQ+ business.
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