We are pleased to announce that Kathleen Moyer and Josiah Osibodu were both recognized as part of the team of inventors that designed an end-to end automated solution for the unclaimed property compliance process. Read more about the Patent - Application number: 20130097092

One of the common questions we receive has to do with how to obtain an unclaimed property policies and procedures manual. As we noted during our presentation at the 2013 Central Regional Conference for the Institute of Internal Auditors, which took place at the beginning of this month in Columbus, Ohio, there is no specific place to go for such document. Partly because, accounting procedures and systems vary from one company to another, and as such, policies and procedures manual tends to be company specific. Our September blog post presented below provides an outline for designing or writing an unclaimed property policies and procedures manual.

The Fall deadline to report unclaimed property is just around the corner and we want to remind our readers to consider states’ exemptions before finalizing their Fall reports. Our October blog post below highlights some of the states’ exemption, which varies by state, property type and industry.

Thank you to our readers that contacted us to find out when our next newsletter was going to be released. Our editorial group took a break for the summer and we hope you all had a pleasant summer. Starting this Fall, we will be changing to a quarterly newsletters.

For our readers located within the Tampa Bay area, you’re invited to attend the seminar on January 17, 2014 organized by the Lorman Education Services. Kathleen Moyer and Josiah Osibodu are the faculty members for this seminar and will be presenting “Unclaimed Property Reporting in Florida.” Read More

Thank you all for your time and support during 2013 and we wish you the best of luck as you prepare your Fall reports.

Letter to Compliance Adviser

In this month’s newsletter, we have one letter to share with our readers:

Dear Compliance Adviser,

When should we cut off responses to our due diligence letters? We sent the due diligence letters in mid-July with a ‘please respond by’ date of 30 days. Within 30 days of sending the letters we received many responses and were able to pay most of the claimants. However, there are a handful of claimants who have not provided the documentation necessary for us to pay them. The Fall filing deadline is right around the corner. Should we turn the funds over to the state and send the claimant to the state or should we remove the item from the unclaimed property reports and continue to follow-up with the claimant?

Signed, Wants To Do The Right Thing

Dear Wants To Do The Right Thing,

Although you could report the outstanding items as unclaimed property on the Fall reports, we would recommend you make one last attempt to contact the pending claimants and determine whether the documentation will be forthcoming. The claimant may have initiated the claim and then realized they are not entitled to the funds or they could be in the process of obtaining the documentation. The key is to communicate with the claimant. A phone call or email may be the most expeditious way to contact them. If you determine the documentation will be provided but not until after the reporting deadline, remove the item from the unclaimed property reports and work with the claimant. If you determine the documentation is not going to be provided or that the claimant is not the rightful owner, then include the items on the Fall reports. There is no statute of limitation on claiming the funds from the state and the claimant can recover the funds directly from the state.

Hope this helps,
Compliance Adviser

Unclaimed Properties Policies and Procedures: Where To Start?

Unclaimed property policies and procedures are one of the first documents requested by unclaimed property auditors. However, the written procedures are often out-of-date or may be non-existent. It’s one of those documents that everyone knows they need but often it is ‘pushed to the back burner’ when other more pressing priorities demand the company’s resources. Read more.

Stop! Have You Checked For Exemptions?

A lot of companies are in the process of preparing their states’ unclaimed property reports, which are due on October 31st or November 1st depending on the state. Common examples of accounting transactions that have remained outstanding on a company’s books and records for a statutorily defined period of time and should be reported to the states as unclaimed property are uncashed checks, aged credit balances, unredeemed gift certificates, etc. Some of these outstanding transactions could be due to employees, customers, vendors or shareholders (for publicly traded companies). Read more.