10 quarter specific estimation selections
Quarter-Specific Estimation Selections
The first check for a specific quarter’s selection or bypass in estimation processing is its status code. If it is not active for the quarter, even if it is active in the other estimated quarter, it is skipped from this quarter’s processing. A quarter-specific check for pre-solicitation worksites is also performed, since a 1st and 4th calendar quarter combination could reference worksites that had been in pre-solicitation status for fourth quarter, but are active in 1st quarter. In that case, the older quarter’s estimation would be ineligible, while the newer quarter would be acceptable.
Next, the quarter’s estimation flag is reset when total wages or monthly employment fields are found to be missing. The edit flag is also reset (to “N”) when delinquent account estimation is in effect, and the processed account’s delinquency flag is set to “Y” (delinquent). Worksite taxable wage and contribution fields are set to zero/missing when the worksite total wages are set to zero, and are neither reported nor manually estimated (i.e., the total wage indicator is set to “M”, “E”, or “P”).
Once these preliminary settings are complete, the quarter’s remaining selections can begin. As a short-cut first step, delinquent worksites are checked for reprocessing. The master account’s employment, total wages, taxable wages, and contributions are compared to the summed values for delinquent worksites. Since the multi-balancing methods are designed to provide an exact match, low tolerances are used in checking for worksites requiring re-estimation. When the employment for any month is off by more than 10 employees, or the total wages are off by more than $20, the worksites are eligible for re-allocation. Taxable wages and contributions, though also expected to be exactly balanced, are allowed to range much more widely. Taxable wages may be in disagreement by as much as $500, while contributions (usually not more than about 10% of the taxable wages) can vary by up to $20. If one or more of these balance limits is exceeded, the other selection steps are ignored, skipping directly to the estimation process.
Delinquent account checking is the next selection step. An account with a delinquency flag of “Y” is potentially eligible for estimation (or re-estimation) when the delinquent-estimation job parameter is set to a “Y” (on the ES2N screen - producing an estimation option of “D” for delinquents), and the quarter’s estimation flag is an “N”, or (for worksites only) an “F” (failed estimates on an earlier attempt). All other delinquents are skipped for the quarter’s estimates.
Accounts with both the edit and estimation flag set to a “Y” (i.e., all editing and estimation were done previously or are unnecessary) are usually bypassed. For worksites, however, a selection can still be made for delinquent estimation allowance (the “D” estimation parameter setting), or from previous indications of needed prorations (based on the multi-family out-of-balance parameter checks described several paragraphs before).
A one-sided family delinquency is a special case. When either the master is delinquent and worksites are reported, or vice versa, the delinquent portion of the family cannot be selected unless delinquent account estimation has been selected. Similarly, the reported side of the family is bypassed. This would normally present potential editing problems later on (such as a master with missing taxable wages but reported total wages). The missing elements in a partially-reported master could cause edit exceptions from the supposed drop in values from quarter to quarter. For this reason, the (partially) reported half of the family is also exempted from the micro edits in the ES2MI28 program.
A final selection criterion is applied before the estimation process is enacted. If an account shows no historical employment or wage data at all (all quarters have zero employment and wages), the account will not be estimated, since some data must be present upon which to base extrapolation estimates for any field. Additionally, if it is discovered that selectable worksites don’t have an associated master account, they are dropped at the last second.
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