Why Is My Contribution Amount $0?

This article discusses several reasons why a submission may end up with a total amount of $0.

While at times, it's possible that a submission may not contain any actual employee contributions, this is unusual, so any contributions resulting in a $0 total amount warrant further review.

During the submission process, contributions are validated against a number of business rules. If all contributions in your submission encounter a validation error, resulting in the removal of those contributions, you may see that the total amount of your contribution is $0.   

Here are a few examples of why you may see an unexpected $0 total contribution submission:

  1. If none of the employees with deductions are eligible to contribute, those contributions will be rejected resulting in a net $0 contribution total.
  2. If all of the eligible employees with deductions have gone over their respective IRS contribution limit for the year, those contributions will be rejected. Please note that yearly limits are subject to change. Consult the IRS website for information about current year IRA contribution limits.

Please remember, if you have deducted funds from an employee's pay, and those funds are ineligible to be contributed to that employee's IRA, it is your responsibility to return those funds to the employee.