Most likely the answer is “yes”. All organizations/companies, including non-profits, are required to file an unclaimed property report in each state (DC and U.S. territories) where they have liabilities—with very few exceptions. Your filing responsibilities could extend beyond where your company has operations, employees, and/or customers.
FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
You must report unclaimed property to the state of the owner’s last known address, which means you could have obligations in states where your company does not have operations, property, customers, or employees. Example: ABC Corp., based in New York, has a vendor with an address in New Jersey. If this vendor does not cash a check issued to it, ABC Corp. must report the details about the vendor and remit the associated funds to New Jersey. If you do not have an address on file, unclaimed items are reported to your state of incorporation/legal domicile.
Reporting deadlines will vary depending on state law and possibly your company’s industry type. 40 plus states require reporting on or before November 1st of each year. However other state deadlines range from March 1st to July 1st annually.
Any amount owed to a third party is potential unclaimed property that is subject to compliance reporting and escheat obligations. A simple way to think about where unclaimed property comes from: where cash comes in (e.g. accounts receivable) or goes out (e.g. vendor or payroll disbursements) of any organization/company—this is where unclaimed property could arise. Download our Unclaimed Property Compliance Checklist to guide you through the internal review process.
It is the law in every state and U.S. territory that unclaimed property must be reported and escheat obligations submitted. There could be significant interest and penalties assessed if your company/organization has failed to file. These laws have been around for decades and the states actively enforce them through their own audit staff and with contracted auditors.
Certainly. However, what most companies struggle with is the inherent complexity of the laws, variability from state to state, frequency of changes in state laws, and an efficient way to manage due diligence requirements, the technical management of record retention, and more. Therefore, it is a good idea to have a partner and/or resources and systems in place that help keep you up to date, bring efficiencies to the process, and manage the accuracy of your compliance reporting.
The National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA) is an association of state agency directors. There are links to each state’s and U.S. territory’s resource pages documenting their unclaimed property reporting requirements on its home page: www.unclaimed.org
Yes, as well as all U.S. Territories.
Yes, all new users are offered a 7-day free trial to familiarize themselves with the features & functionality of Simple Escheat.
Yes, each state has its own unique due diligence requirements.
You could incur interest & penalties for filing past-due items; software may not be the only answer for you, please contact us for more information.
Yes, there are certain data parameters which the states will require to be included with a report contact us for a demo/more information about how Simple Escheat handles this for you.
Yes, there are countless ways to filter and view your data once imported; also completely customizable reporting functions via the design of export templates unique to your accounting function.
Yes, Simple Escheat has certain stock reports built in (e.g., Future Reporting/Forecast, Reporting History, Import History), and functionality to design custom reports.
Yes, in fact this is required.
Not exactly; Simple Escheat will create all required documents and the NAUPA file required for reporting, it is then the user’s responsibility to file the report via online upload or by mailing; all links and other information needed for upload and/or mailing is included in the 50+ state reference library included within Simple Escheat.
Yes you can, and Simple Escheat also comes with ready-to-use templates.
Yes, this information is included in the 50+ state reference library included within Simple Escheat.
Yes, up to 25 user-defined fields can be customized for your specific data-tracking needs.
Yes, Simple Escheat has a built-in Reporting History report that can be generated at any time.
Yes, Simple Escheat has a separate import function for transferring data from prior reporting years or previously used reporting systems (including HRS Pro).
There is an option to make this an automatic function within Simple Escheat.
Yes we can; contact us for more information.
Yes, reminders can be set that are unique to each user.
Yes, through the Import Update function – this is especially helpful for tracking due diligence responses.
Yes, there is a 2-step process whereby Simple Escheat identifies all available exemptions based on the data imported; in a secondary step, the user has the option to apply those exemptions to remove the items from the reporting population.
This can be done directly from the app or via our website.
No, there is a direct billing/invoicing option at the end of the checkout process.
Unclaimed Property Compliance Checklist
Download this complimentary best-practices checklist—a practical tool developed by our escheat accounting experts.