UP Standard FAQ

UP Standard is completely cloud-based, allowing for real-time updates of unclaimed property regulations, ensuring your business is always in complete compliance and keeping your data secure. 

Unclaimed property reporting obligations are based on the last known address of the rightful property owner, so this is determined by data. UP Standard analyzes all of your data and reports following guidelines required by each jurisdiction. 

In all likelihood, yes. All organizations, including non-profits, are required to file an unclaimed property report in every state (DC and U.S. territories) where they have liabilities, with only a few exceptions. Your reporting obligations may extend beyond the locations where your business operates, has employees, or serves customers. 

You must report unclaimed property to the state where the owner last lived. This means you might have to report to states where your business has no operations, property, customers, or employees. If there is no address on file, report the unclaimed property to the state where your business is incorporated or legally based. 

Reporting deadlines are all throughout the calendar year and vary depending on both state law and your business’s industry. Your subscription to Sovos UP Standard includes access to compliance resources like state maps, filing dates and reporting codes to help you track what you need to report, where and when.   

Escheatment is the process of transferring unclaimed or abandoned property to the state.

Any amount owed to a third party constitutes potential unclaimed property that must be reported to comply with state escheatment requirements. Unclaimed property typically originates from transactions where cash flows into (e.g., accounts receivable) or out of (e.g., vendor or payroll disbursements) any organization or business.  

It is the law to report unclaimed property and fulfill escheatment requirements in every state and U.S. territory. Failure to comply can result in significant interest and penalties. These laws have existed for decades, and states actively enforce them through their audit staff and, in some cases, contracted auditors. Contract auditors are not bound to a single state, and if they find any issue in one state, they may open a multi-state audit of every state where your business has property holders. This can be a very time-consuming and expensive process to manage and lead to expanded penalties and interest liabilities.  

Absolutely. However, many companies find it challenging to navigate the complexities of state laws, which vary widely and change frequently. There are also efficiency concerns with managing due diligence requirements, record retention, and other technical aspects. Therefore, it is beneficial to leverage a system that helps you stay current, streamline processes, and ensure the accuracy of your compliance reporting. A spreadsheet is not a good way to try and manage this process.   

The National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA) is an organization comprised of state agency directors. On its homepage at www.unclaimed.org, you will find links to resource pages for each state and U.S. territory, detailing their specific requirements for reporting unclaimed property. UP Standard also includes a link to each state’s unclaimed property website through the Compliance Resources page. 

If you have never reported unclaimed property, you are likely to have past-due items to report. UP Standard will automatically include any past-due items on the next state report along with your current-due items. However, filing past-due items could lead to interests and penalties, so while a software solution may allow you to develop a documented process and start reporting, it may not be the only  solution you need.  Sovos offers a variety of services and even consulting if needed to help you document your policies and procedures, and to support an audit. For more information on these services please visit our Unclaimed Property Consulting page.

UP Standard offers a comprehensive Help Center to guide you through each step of the process. 

In UP Standard, all three users are configured with admin-level access. This grants them full access to perform every step of the unclaimed property reporting process. Each property record includes a detailed audit trail to show who performed what action and when. 

Yes, email reminders are sent to UP Standard customers as peak filing seasons approach. UP Standard also features a timeline displaying important upcoming dates on the Dashboard. 

UP Standard supports most common unclaimed property types with the exception of mineral interest, safe deposit boxes, and assets involving shares.  .  If you need software that supports these property types, check out UP Enterprise. 

Yes – we provide a standard exemptions document on our Compliance Resources page. Users can refer to this document to identify potentially exempt properties and update them to an exempt status either through import or manually in the product. 

Yes, there are mandatory data fields required by states to be included in a report. UP Standard requires a minimum set of fields for all properties and then there are state-specific fields required under certain conditions. Our data import template can help you determine which data fields are necessary and our automated data validations can help identify missing or incorrect data during import or manual entry.   

Yes, UP Standard offers several ways to filter and view your imported data including a quick filter for reportable items. It also provides more advanced filtering to create custom reports designed to suit your accounting needs. 

UP Standard does not support creating custom user-defined fields. However, we provide the ability to download all fields, including the unique Source System ID field, to help reconcile internally. If your process is a bit more complex and requires custom fields, you may want to check out Unclaimed Property Enterprise. 

UP Standard offers custom reporting capabilities through a download feature. Use the advanced filter to identify the properties you need to create custom reports for, then download them for all your internal reporting needs.

Yes, UP Standard allows reported items to be imported as archived. into a record archive with our import template that allows you to map your data from another system or provider into UP Standard.    

Yes, UP Standard allows updates to be imported in bulk  that will modify the already existing matching properties. New properties can be added, and updates to existing property records can be made in the same import file.   

Yes, UP Standard allows individual properties to be added, reviewed, and updated at any time. Items that have been archived can only be partly modified to ensure the integrity of the reported data. 

Yes, UP Standard will calculate the due date for each of your property records when they are added to the system. Any property that calculates with a future due date will remain in the system until its applicable deadlines. 

Yes, each state has its own specific due diligence requirements. UP Standard ensures these requirements are met with a standard due diligence template compliant with all states. 

With UP Standard, we maintain a standard due diligence letter template compliant with all states so there is no need to add your own. 

UP Standard is designed to be a self-service offering that helps you generate standard due diligence letters you can mail on your own. If you need help with processing your due diligence mailings, Sovos offers that service among others with our Unclaimed Property Enterprise software.

Yes, UP Standard generates reports for all states as well as Quebec, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. 

Yes, when generating a report for CA or PR, you will be prompted to specify the type of report you want to create. Only items included in a preliminary report will be pulled onto the CA or PR final reports. 

Sovos is the only provider in the market today that has developed an unclaimed property reporting network that allows you to  submit your reports  to more than 30 states directly from the UP Standard software. For the remaining states, UP Standard generates all necessary documents and the NAUPA file required for reporting. Customers are responsible for submitting these reports via state websites or by mail. All necessary links and instructions are provided on UP Standard’s Compliance Resources page. Payment is always handled outside of UP Standard. 

Yes, UP Standard includes a properties archive where you can filter for items in a reported status. Items automatically move to the archive as reported when a state report is finalized. 

Sovos has  a dedicated Regulatory and Compliance team that monitors all introduced, pending, and passed legislation pertaining to unclaimed property. Our team works together to interpret the new requirements which are then implemented by our software development team on a  bi-weekly basis. 

Yes, this information is available on the Compliance Resources page in UP Standard where you can search by state for details such as due dates, dormancy, and address information. 

State dormancy changes frequently and when it does, we make sure to recalculate the due date on any properties in UP Standard when we publish the new dormancy information to our Compliance Resources.