My customer is depositing $400 per month into her 403(b) plan. As of June 30th she has paid in $2400 into her 403(b). Which field do I enter this amount?

You don’t. Current year contributions for the 403(b) have already been taken into account in the formula. Remember to press the F1 Help key if you have questions about any particular field in the software.

My customer doesn’t plan to retire at age 60 as stated in your software on the Defined Benefit Tab.  He plans to retire at age 65 so he can get the increased pension benefits offered by the State of California. How do I change this?

You don’t, nor should you try. The primary misunderstanding in this area arises from the belief that the MEA is based on the pension income that the customer will actually have in the future. This is not the case. The Maximum Exclusion Allowance is based on the "normal" plan benefit for the particular pension plan your customer is participating in.

A good example is a teacher in California who wants to take advantage of the increase in STRS (State Teacher's Retirement System) benefits if he/she works until age 65.  However, for STRS, "the normal retirement age" -- as stated in the plan document -- is generally age 60. The "normal" pension benefit is 2% of salary times the number of years worked. The MEA Software includes these tables and makes these calculations for you.

For MEA purposes, retirement benefits are calculated from the date of employment from their current employer and using the normal retirement age based on the plan document.

The fact that your teacher has 25 years of service with STRS is irrelevant. The fact that she plans to work to age 65 is also irrelevant (see the above question). Since age 60 is the "normal" retirement age for this teacher, based on 5 years service with this employer (school district), the retirement income for MEA purposes is 5 years X 2% X $50,000 or $5,000.

The MEA Calculation is based on the Proposal Date field which appears when you press the "Edit" button on the Client Tab.  The software is designed to work this way so you can recreate a 1999(or any previous year) MEA in the future.

This same window has a "Description" field.  We recommend that you title each MEA that you run "1999 MEA," "2000 MEA," etc.  so that you can tell them apart from one another in the future.

To create a 2000 MEA from the data that you saved 1999, simply press the "Add" button on the Client Screen. Change the Description to "2000 MEA," then press the "Today" button to reset the Proposal Date field to Today's Date.  All the information from 1999 MEA will transfer to the input fields. Make changes for 2000 as necessary.

Your data files are stored in the file Data.idb. Unless you have more than 1500 saved illustrations, this file should be small enough to fit on a floppy disk.

Here's the easiest way to find and back up this file on a floppy disk:
  1) Press the Start button
  2) Select Find then Files or Folders...
  3) After the window below appears, enter data.idb as shown, then press the Find Now button.

  4) When data.idb appears on the screen, move your mouse over data.idb.
  5) Click the right mouse button
  6) A menu will appear. Choose Copy from the list.
  7) Insert a floppy disk into Drive A:
  8) Double click the "My Computer" icon at the upper left corner of your screen.
  9) When the My Computer Window opens, move your mouse over the Floppy Disk icon.
  10) Click the right mouse button
  11) A menu will appear. Choose Paste from the list.

How do you calculate an MEA for Part-Time Employees?

Unfortunately, MEA is not designed to calculate the Maximum Exclusion Allowance for part time employees. To do this properly requires a host of input questions to determine what percentage of full time the employee is.

The work around for this design limitation is to calculate the percentage of full time yourself. For example: Assume a library worker has worked an average of 32 hours per week ten years. Full time employment for this school district is considered to be 40 hours per week. 32 divided by 40 = 80%. Since this person has worked for ten years, but only 80% of the time, put -2 in the "Additional Years of Service" field (see below). Do the math: 10 years times 80% = 2 years.

It would be advantageous to be able to print out a blank questionnaire for clients to fill out and mail back to us. Can you add this to the software?

This feature is already there. One of the Print Options (see the screen below) is to print the blank questionnaire that you want. Furthermore, it prints your name, address, and phone number at the bottom of each page. Be sure to change the number of copies that you want printed.