Creating basic benefit plans

Type

Select a benefit type. Conditional fields and tabs are displayed depending on the type selected.

Benefit Plan and Description

Specify the code and description that represent the benefit plan. The description is displayed to employees during enrollment.

Category

Select a category for the benefit plan. If you define the plan to default by plan category, this field is required. Categories are defined in setup.

Defined Contribution Type

Select the type of defined contribution. For example, profit sharing, 401k, 403b. This field is only available when the plan's Benefit Type is Defined Contribution.

Start Date

Specify the starting date for the plan. This is the earliest date that an employee, retiree, or COBRA participant can be eligible for the plan and the earliest date that they can be enrolled in the plan. For defined contribution and defined benefit plans, the month and day of the start date define the beginning date for each plan year. Compensation, Defined Contribution account balances, and vesting, are tracked based on the plan year.

End Date

Optionally, specify a date after which employees are no longer able to enroll in the plan.

Coverage Type

Select the type of coverage offered by the benefit plan.

Coverage Option Table

Select the table defined for the coverage option.

Contribution Type

Select the plan contribution type. The contribution types available depend on the value selected in the Coverage Type field.

Default

Select the type of default plan. A default plan is a plan in which benefit update programs automatically enroll an employee when the employee becomes eligible.

• Select Do Not Default if you do not want benefit update programs to automatically enroll an employee in this plan.
• Select Always Default if you want benefit update programs to enroll an employee in this plan when they become eligible.
• Select By Benefit Type if you want benefit update programs to enroll an eligible employee in this plan if the employee has no other benefits of this type (for example, no other health plan).
• Select By Plan Category if you want benefit update programs to enroll an eligible employee in this plan if the employee has no other benefits of this category (for example, no other "medical" health plan).

Waive

Select this check box if the plan is a waive plan. A waive plan tracks employees who decline coverage in a plan or plans. It can be a default plan for employees who do not elect a benefit plan at the time of enrollment.

Passive Enrollment

Select this check box to enable passive enrollment. Passive enrollment means that if employees do not submit their election choices in enrollment then their current benefits continue unchanged.

Beneficiaries

Select this check box to include beneficiaries.

Dependents

• Leave blank if either the dependents are not permitted in the plan or the covered dependents are assumed to be active benefit eligible dependents that meet the coverage rule criteria.
• Select Prompt for Enrollment to prompt eligible employees to enroll dependents.
• Select Automatic Enrollment to automatically enroll eligible employee dependents in the benefit plan.

Include Eligibility Survey

Select if eligibility survey is included. To select this, the field Dependents must be enabled (either “Automatic Enrollment” or “Prompt For Enrollment”) and the Coverage Type must be “Coverage Options”.

Note: Surcharge options are enabled in the contributions rate table when either "Prompt for Enrollment" or "Automatic Enrollment" is selected for Dependents and "Include Eligibility Survey" is selected.

Smoker Enrollment Question

Select to whom the Smoker Enrollment Question applies.

Enable Imputed Income

Select whether to enable imputed income. See Benefit plans requiring imputed income

Pay Code

When imputed income is enabled, you must specify a pay code.

Frequency Table

Allow Different Frequency For Employer

Provider

Select the plan provider

Contract

Specify the contract number of the insurance plan. If there is only one contract number for a provider, it is added when the provider is set up and this can be left blank. Specify the contract number here only if it is different from the contract number on the provider setup.

Plan Documentation

You can attach a plan document. The plan document is available to the employee during enrollment.

Benefit Plan URL

Optionally, specify the web address to the benefit plan. This is displayed to the employee during enrollment if you also select that links are displayed (Benefit Plan Links field) when defining enrollment groups.

Restricted Plan

Select a restricted plan, if applicable. See Restricted benefit plans.

Plan Registration

Specify the Canadian registration number. This is needed on T4s for RPP and DPSP.

Covered

Select the Covered check box in the appropriate section indicating that Employee, Retiree, or COBRA participant is eligible to enroll in this plan.

Benefit Group

Select the benefit group that is eligible to enroll in this plan.

Creating benefit plans under a flex plan

If this is a new plan and the contribution is a value other than No Contribution, an error is displayed if the frequency table on the Deduction tab is blank.

Creating deductions in benefit plans