GROUP SAVINGS AND RETIREMENT

RESOURCE CENTRE FOR PLAN SPONSORS

You’ve got questions? We’ve got answers!

Offering your employees or organization members a group retirement savings plan is a great way to help them optimize their financial future. But for you as the plan sponsor, we know that this does involve a few daily administrative tasks. That’s why we’ve put together this information-packed resource to help make your life easier.

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Watch the videos

These videos explain the basics of plan administration, exploring the tasks you’ll be doing most often, from member enrolment to contribution remittance.

Watch the videos
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Consult the frequently asked questions (FAQ)

That’s where you’ll find answers to more specific questions about your administrative tasks, support for your members and tax documents.

Consult the FAQ
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Email us

Couldn’t find the information you were looking for in the videos or the FAQ?

Contact us and we’ll be happy to send a quick response, usually within two working days.

Send an email

Upcoming live training sessions

Sponsors offering an RRSP and/or a TFSA

Sept. 12, 2023, 2:00 pm (ET)

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Sponsors offering an RRSP/DPSP and/or a TFSA

Sept. 26, 2023, 2:00 pm (ET)

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Videos

Contribution remittance

Follow these steps to send us your member contributions or search for previous remittances using the online contribution remittance tool available in My Client Space.

Watch

Enrolment

Discover the quick and easy process your members can use to enrol in your group retirement savings plan online and consult the documentation.

Watch

Your tasks

Stay on top of the various tasks that require action from you when notifications pop up on your dashboard.

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Plan members

Find out how to look up each member’s information, update it and terminate membership when the member leaves their job or retires.

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Statistics and reports

View real-time financial and demographic information about your plan and your members.

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Plans

Access all the information about your plan, including the list of your plan members, the plan summary document describing the structure and terms, as well as details for each of the investment options offered.

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Secure file transfer tool

Make sure to use this secure tool when you send files that contain personal and sensitive information about your members.

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Retirement simulator

Get familiar with our retirement simulator, an online tool designed to help members test out various financial planning scenarios for retirement.

Watch

Frequently asked questions

Administrative day-to-day tasks (including contributions)

Once your plan is set up, you will be required to remit to iA Financial Group the contributions of eligible members that have completed their enrolment. To verify the members who have completed their enrolment, log in to your account in My Client Space and go to your dashboard. Then, at the bottom left, click on the “List of enrolments” tile.

Contributions must be remitted electronically via the contribution remittance tool in My Client Space.

To see how it works, click on the “Contribution remittance” tile on your dashboard, select your contract and click on the “User guide” button. Or, watch the “Contribution Remittance Tool” video on this microsite.

Payments can be made three ways:

  • Preauthorized payment (PAP)
    To use this payment method, simply complete and return the Business Preauthorized Payments (PAP) Agreement attached with a void cheque.
  • Electronic funds transfer
    Please refer to page 14 of the contribution remittance user guide — available under the “Contribution remittance” tile of your dashboard in My Client Space — for details.
  • Online payment
    Please refer to page 15 of the contribution remittance user guide — available under the “Contribution remittance” tile of your dashboard in My Client Space — for details.

When sending your contributions to iA Financial Group via your account in My Client Space, negative amounts are not accepted. Therefore, any correction or deduction must be submitted directly to us at pensiontoronto@ia.ca.

We will analyze the request and inform you on the appropriate steps to take.

The plan member can choose to cease contributions and you may inform iA Financial Group that the member is on leave by emailing us.

If the plan member wishes to continue contributions, they must provide you, the plan sponsor, with postdated cheques for the duration of their leave.

This relates to DPSP and or RPP products only. Employer credit is an unvested portion from a DPSP plan member. Under a DPSP, the employer has the opportunity to define a vesting period. A vesting period is the period an employee would need to complete or achieve to be entitled to the employer contributions that are remitted on their behalf. If a member does not complete the vesting period prior to their termination, the employer funds you remitted on their behalf would be returned to you as a credit.

The DPSP employer credit can only be applied to the DPSP contributions and/or plan fees if applicable. If you remit your contributions online via the remittance tool, Step 2 (fees/credit) is where the employer credit amount that you can allocate would be identified.

If you don’t remit your contributions online, you can refer to the T-10 Summary sent to you by iA Financial Group (this is sent on a quarterly basis if there are any applicable non-vested members and funds); it is also reflected in the Financial Report under Credits – Summary of transactions. In the Financial Report, we reference the plan member for whom the credit was issued. You may email us to verify this amount or request to use the employer credit in your next remittance.

When using the employer credit for your remittance, you must ensure that the payment amount is reduced accordingly.

You have a full calendar year to use the employer credit on file. There is a consequence if you do not use it within this timeframe: iA Financial Group must then cash out the amount and deduct a $30 transaction fee plus applicable taxes. It will be issued as a cheque mailed to the office address on file for your company.

This relates to RRSPs, DPSPs and TFSAs. An overpayment credit refers to additional funds that iA Financial Group has and owes the employer. The most common scenario is when a correction is made. If the correction reveals that additional funds were submitted to iA Financial Group in error, these funds will be titled as an overpayment credit. If such a situation occurs, as the employer, you will always receive an email notification from iA Financial Group, confirming the dollar amount of the overpayment credit.

If you remit your contributions online via the remittance tool, Step 2 (fees/credit) is where the overpayment credit amount that you can allocate would be identified. If you don’t remit your contributions online, you must email iA Financial Group that you want to use the overpayment amount and ensure that you remit the accurate and final amount via your payment method.

Your overpayment amount must be used within 45 days or with your next contribution remittance. There is a consequence if you do not use it within this timeframe: iA Financial Group must then cash out the amount and deduct a $30 transaction fee plus applicable taxes.

A missing enrolment means that iA Financial Group has received contributions for a member that has not yet completed enrolment. You can find the enrolment instructions to send to the member under the “Pending tasks” tile of your dashboard (select “Missing information” in the dropdown menu).

Important note for RRSPs
All contributions received on behalf of your plan members during the current calendar year, for which we have not received the plan member’s enrolment, will be deposited in the RSP1 portion of your group RRSP. As a result, these contributions will not be invested according to the plan member’s investment instructions (or according to the default investment option, if no instructions have been determined) and no tax receipt will be issued.

If the plan member’s enrolment is not received by December 31, the contributions will be returned to you systematically.

1 An RSP is not registered with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) as a registered retirement savings plan (RRSP) if the plan member does not provide the RSP registration.

My Client Space is iA Financial Group’s secure website for clients. This is where you, as the group plan sponsor, can access your dashboard and ensure the day-to-day management of your plan.

To create your account, go to ia.ca/myaccount, click on “Create account”, then on the “Plan administrator” tile. Enter your full name and contract number, and under Do you have your activation key, check No, help me! I want to get my activation key.

Once you have received your activation key, go back to ia.ca/myaccount, click on “Create account”, then on the “Plan administrator” tile. Enter your full name and contract number, but this time, check Yes, I have my activation key.

Finally, create your access code and password, and answer a few security questions. You can then access your Group Savings and Retirement plan dashboard.

As the plan administrator for your group, will you also be a plan member?
If so, when enrolling as a plan member, always use your personal email address. Your work email address will be linked to your plan administrator access. Using your work email address on a plan member level may cause issues with your login.

If you need a new (additional or replacement) plan administrator to have access to My Client Space, you must inform iA Financial Group and complete the Notice of contact change form.

In the form, you will see that there are three possible types of contacts:

  • Contract contact person: the person who signs all documents of a legal nature relating to the group savings and retirement plan.
  • Billing contact person: the person who receives invoices related to the management of the group savings and retirement plan.
  • Administrative contact person: the person responsible for plan management (contribution remittances, new enrolments, termination of employment, withdrawal authorization, etc.) and the resource-person for plan members and our company.

Only these three types of individuals from your organization can access My Client Space and information relating to plan members and contributions, including financial and other reports.

Yes, they also have access to My Client Space via their member accounts. In addition to monitoring the growth of their savings and the performance of their investments, they can also make transactions, get their daily updated statements and designate their beneficiaries. My Client Space also provides them with numerous retirement planning tools and financial education resources.

To learn how group plan members can access their accounts in My Client Space, see question 6 in Supporting your plan members, below.

Supporting your plan members

Each eligible plan member is expected to complete their enrolment prior to receiving contributions into the plan. There is only one exception: if your plan is a mandatory registered pension plan (RPP), member contributions commence as soon as members are eligible, whether they have enrolled or not.

Enrolment must be done on the iA Financial Group enrolment website, at ia.ca/enrolnow. Refer to the "All Aboard" document made available to you in My Client Space, under the “Documents and tools” tile of your dashboard.

Please refer to the “Enrolment” video for guidance and more information.

Search for the employee in your dashboard search engine. Once you have clicked on the member’s name, at the top, just below the name, you will see the “Terminate participation” button.

Click on it, select “Retirement” if the employee is retiring or “Termination” if the employee is leaving for another reason, then submit. This will update the member’s status to “Inactive” on our end. iA Financial Group will then confirm if all contributions up to the termination date have been received before sending the member their statement and option details.

RRSP and/or TFSA
iA Financial Group will mail the member a termination statement and option form package that will include their total balance and available options. The cover letter will inform the member that they have 90 days to choose their option. If we do not hear from them after the 90 days, their assets will be transferred to iA Financial Group’s Transit program. Transit allows members to keep the same online access (My Client Space) and investment allocation, and to benefit from low investment management fees.

DPSP
Upon receiving the termination notice, iA Financial Group will check whether the member’s contributions are considered vested. Each DPSP program has its own vesting period.

If the contributions are vested, iA Financial Group will mail the member a termination statement and option form package that will include their total balance and available options. The cover letter will inform the member that they have 90 days to choose their option. If we do not hear from them after the 90 days, their assets will be transferred to iA Financial Group’s Transit program. Transit allows members to keep the same online access (My Client Space) and investment allocation, and to benefit from low investment management fees.

If the contributions are not vested, iA Financial Group will reimburse the contributed amount to the employer via a credit. This credit can be used for future contributions. A pension adjustment reversal (PAR), also referred to as a T10 slip, will be issued by iA Financial Group and sent directly to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and the member, with no further action required from you as the employer.

If the contributions are not vested, but your company policy would be to allow the member to have their contributions be vested as per a severance or termination package agreement, please email us at pensiontoronto@ia.ca, identifying the member and describing the situation.

RPP
iA Financial Group will mail the member a termination statement and option form package that will include their total balance and available options. Under an RPP, the member cannot be automatically transferred to the Transit program as in the other plan types. Therefore, the member will remain in the RPP until they provide us with instructions.

In the event of a member’s death, the Death Benefit Claim form (50-203A), which may be found under the “Documents and tool” tile on the My Client Space dashboard, must be completed and submitted to us along with proof of death (such as a death certificate), in order to allow us to process the claim.

Members must notify us of any address changes for income tax registration and account statement purposes. Address, phone number, fax number and email address changes may be done online via the members’ My Client Space account or by calling our Customer Service team at 1-800-567-5670. As plan sponsor, you also have access to update the members’ information; this should always be done prior to terminating a member’s participation.

Members must go to ia.ca/myaccount, the My Client Space sign in/registration page. To create their account, they can simply click on “Create account” and follow the steps.

  • First, click on “Client” to register as a client

  • Then, choose between the two registration methods available:

    Express registration using Verified.Me technology by SecureKey
    This is the fastest of the two registration methods. When they opt for the express registration option to create their account, plan members authorize iA Financial Group to obtain the information required for their registration in My Client Space from a SecureKey network participant, such as their financial institution.

    Verified.Me uses strong security protocols that prevent unauthorized disclosure, access and use of personal information. In fact, SecureKey has no access to the credentials used by our clients to log into their financial institution account.

    Traditional registration
    When they opt for traditional registration, plan members must have an activation key or contract number, and enter their information manually.

  • Once they have created their account, if they forget their access code and/or password, members can retrieve their login information by following the instructions in the My Client Space “Sign in” box, at ia.ca/myaccount.

Tax receipts and completing T4 slips

A tax receipt will be issued for RRSPs and VRSPs only, capturing all contributions that have been deposited in the member’s account.

Tax receipts are issued to members twice a year by iA Financial Group. They are first made available online, and then mailed out in the following days:

  • In January, for contributions made from March to December of the previous year
  • In March, for contributions made during the first 60 days of the current year 

RRSP
Employer contributions that are made to your employees’ RRSPs are generally paid in cash and are pensionable and insurable. However, employer contributions are considered non-cash benefits and are not insurable if your employees cannot withdraw the amounts from a group RRSP (except for withdrawals under the Home Buyers' Plan or Lifelong Learning Plan) before they retire or cease to be employed.

Although the benefit is taxable and has to be reported on the T4 slip, you do not have to deduct income tax at source on the employer contributions you make to an employee’s RRSP if you have reasonable grounds to believe that the employee can deduct the contribution for the year.

Report the taxable amount in box 14, "Employment income", and in the "Other information" area under code 40 at the bottom of the T4 slip. For more information, see these two pages on the Government of Canada website:

DPSP
You must report the pension adjustment (PA) on a T4 slip and issue this slip by February 28 of each year. The PA must be entered in box 52 of the T4 slip. Leave box 52 blank if the PA calculated is negative or nil, or if the employee died during the year. The plan registration number must be entered in box 50 of the T4 slip, unless the member’s PA is equal to zero.

RPP
As an employer, you must declare the PA on the T4 slip (Canada) and produce this slip, along with a Relevé 1 (Quebec), if applicable, by February 28 of each year. The PA must be entered in box 52 of the T4. Leave box 52 blank if the PA calculated is negative or nil, or if the employee died during the year.

You must also enter in box 20 of the T4 slip, and in box D of the Relevé 1, the amount of employee contributions (salary and voluntary). If the employee has not contributed to the plan, leave the boxes blank. The RPP’s CRA registration number must be entered in box 50 of the T4 slip. The employee will be able to deduct the RPP contributions indicated in box 20 of the T4 slip on line 207 of the federal tax return and will have to indicate the PA on line 206 of the return.

For a Quebec return, the employee will be able to deduct the RPP contributions indicated in box D of the Relevé 1 in line 205 of the return.

Contact

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