Savage initially thought it could build an ACA reporting solution in-house, as it had done with other compliance efforts
Employees were overwhelmed by the scope of ACA reporting
Other vendors had reneged on their initial promises to provide ACA solutions
Savage needed a solution that could import its data without obstacle
The company wanted to remove some of the manual processes that were burdening its employees
Sovos ACA Reporting helped Savage increase its efficiency and accuracy
Savage was able to meet its reporting obligations and deadlines by using the Sovos ACA Reporting solution, ensuring it remained fully compliant
Savage started out as a family business in 1946 with a single truck hauling coal and timber in Utah. Today, it is a leader in supply chain management solutions, tailored to meet the needs of customers across a variety of industries including electric power generation, coal production, oil refining, railroad, and chemical, among others. The company has more than 200 operating locations in North America and internationally. Each year, Savage handles more than 100 million tons of customers’ materials.
Savage is growing quickly, with more than 3,000 employees and responsibility for a retiree population. The company offers several different medical plans and had to process over 4,200 forms in the first year of mandatory ACA reporting. Initially, Savage planned to have its internal programmers build a solution since it already processes all its 1099 forms in-house. However, the build was going to be too expensive and time-consuming.
Savage recognized none of its employees completely understood the scope of ACA reporting compliance. Benefits seminars were helpful, but only underscored the need to have a vendor with that expertise. The company contacted its broker to find an appropriate vendor. The first large company it approached was processing its payroll, but not its employee benefits, so the systems did not have the necessary information and would not allow Savage to use the solution. Savage then found another third party and signed a contract only to be told later it would not be able to use the solution for ACA printing and filing as well as the secure transmittal because the company had been inundated and decided to only process companies that had executed contracts with them earlier.
Savage then turned to Sovos, which was willing to jump in and help them comply on-time. Even though Savage had built codes internally, had it vetted by attorneys, and were familiar with everything involved, Sovos was able to step-in and help with every part to achieve compliance, escalating the company’s overall comfort level in using the solution.
Previously, Savage had spreadsheets for all their employees and were coding by hand. They also had to gather data from multiple source systems across departments such as payroll, benefits systems, and third parties administrators. They also realized they had to gather information about retirees now.
“What we liked about Sovos is that you were service-oriented, we got timely responses, and your product’s ease of use. More importantly, after asking our programmer about building a solution internally, we discovered that the Sovos ACA solution is a bargain comparatively.”
Sharon Broadwater
VP of People Support (HR)
Savage did stick to the original reporting deadlines and was able to file on-time, even though the IRS extended the deadlines. They are very happy working with Sovos and have freely recommended them to other companies and even to their broker to use as a referral. Even though they already signed a contract extending into the next tax year, they would have renewed with Sovos based on their experience this year.