Review, Mitigation and Recovery (RMR) Services
What are RMR Services and what do they have to do with unclaimed property?
RMR Services are a series of value-added APS services that allow client companies to reduce unclaimed property liability and comply with all applicable state unclaimed property laws. The services are generally used in combination to accomplish these objectives. APS’ RMR services include:
- Check Research
- Penalty and Interest Reduction / Owner Location
- Ownership Verification Process
- Exemption Review and Substantiation
- Initial Compliance Reporting
Check Research
The objective of this service is to research outstanding checks on the client company's outstanding checklists to identify accounting errors and any replacement checks that are still owed to payees. Significant effort is expended in locating addresses of payees of checks on the outstanding list.
Penalty and Interest Reduction/Owner Location
This service entails locating and contacting the owners of the checks listed in the accounts payable and payroll files and issuing them a check for the balance listed in those files. A series of mailings and electronic database searches to identify new addresses are used to locate payees and/or resolve the payable item.
Ownership Verification Process
The purpose of this service is to verify the existence of an outstanding payable, payroll check or accounts receivable credit by contacting the payees to elicit confirmation or disclaimers of ownership from the list in the client company's records.
Exemption Review and Substantiation
The goal of this service is to determine if any of the outstanding items, i.e., accounts payable and payroll checks, aged credits, etc., and corresponding transactions meet state exemption criteria. In explanation, note that some state unclaimed property laws include “business to business” and/or “de minimus” provisions that permit items/transactions that meet specific criteria to be exempted from due diligence and reporting requirements.
Initial Compliance Reporting
This service is the final component in the recovery service series. This service provides reporting to the states of the items that remain after the above services are completed. To minimize liability for any remaining past due items, the reporting may be performed using a multi-state reporting agent that works with APS to create the appropriate reports and remittances. Working with the multi-state agent provides a means to effect at least partial waiver of any interest or penalties for past due property.