Defining Match Percent Schedules

This procedure enables you to define contributions for a plan where employees contribute a percent or an amount that your company matches. The company match is calculated as a percentage of the employee's contribution and can be fixed or cumulative. If the match calculation is fixed, the company match directly corresponds to the percent of the employee's contribution. If the match is cumulative, the company match varies by incremental percents. The company match varies as the employee's contribution percent increases.

Note: If the plan does not have unique contributions for specific employee groups, you only need to define this form once for a plan by leaving the Employee Group field blank. If the plan has different contributions for different groups of employees, complete this form for each employee group for which contributions are unique. If you define multiple contribution records for one plan, you may choose to leave the employee group field blank on one of the records. The application applies the record with no employee group to all eligible employees who do not belong to the group(s) attached to the other record(s).

To define match percent schedules

  1. Access Benefit Plan (BN15.1).
  2. Select the Company, Benefit Type, and Plan for which you want to define a match percent schedule.
  3. Select Inquire function.
  4. Click the Contrib button. The Company, Benefit type, and Plan are already filled in once Match Percent Schedules (BN18.7) opens.
  5. Select the plan participants for the contribution record in the Coverage Type field.
  6. Type the start date for the contribution.
    Note: If you choose to leave the group field blank, the application applies the record with no employee group to all eligible employees who do not belong to the group(s) attached to the other record(s).
  7. If you are defining contributions that are unique to a particular group of employees, select the employee group for which this contribution applies.

    If you are defining contributions for COBRA participants, leave this field blank.

    Note: If you define contributions by employee group, make sure employee groups are defined such that an employee can be a member of only one group at a time. If an employee belongs to more than one group for which contributions have been defined, benefit entry programs and benefit update reports show the situation as an error.
  8. Define the Calculations section for this contribution using the following guidelines:
    Contribution Type

    Select whether employees can contribute as a percent, an amount, or either a percent or an amount.

    Note: The calculation type selected must match the calculation type defined on the deduction codes that are attached to the plan.
    Contribution Tax Type

    Select whether the employee contributions are pretax, after-tax or both pretax and after-tax.

    Note: This must match with the deductions attached to the plan.
    Default Tax Type

    If employees can choose between pretax and after-tax contributions and you want a tax type to default on benefit entry forms, select the contribution tax type that you want as the default. You can override the default contribution tax type on benefit entry forms.

    If you selected Pretax or After-Tax in the Contrib Tax Type field and you leave this field blank, this field defaults to the value in the Contrib Tax Type field.

    Increments

    Type the percent increment employees can contribute to the plan. For example, if you type one, employees can make contributions of one percent, two percent, three percent and so on, within the other limits of the schedule. If you type 0.5, employees can make contributions of 0.5%, one percent, 1.5% and so on.

    Match Option

    Select if you want your company to match contributions as pretax, after-tax or both pretax and after-tax.

    Note: This field must match with the deductions attached to the plan.
    Emp Max Percent

    Type the maximum total percent employees can contribute to the plan with pretax and after-tax contributions.

    Match Calculation

    Select either Fixed or Cumulative to define how your company's match is calculated.

    If the company matches only the contribution level the employee elected, select Fixed.

    If the company match includes all contribution levels up to the level the employee elected, select Cumulative.

  9. If the Contribution Type is Amount, complete the salary section for this contribution. Use the following guidelines to enter field values:
    Type

    Select the type of salary you want to use for the contribution calculation. Leave this field blank if the contribution type is percent.

    Date

    Select the date you want the application to calculate each employee's salary.

    As of Date and Year

    Type the date you want to use to determine an employee's salary for contribution calculations.

    • If you selected As of Date in the Date field, type the month and day.

    • If you leave the Year field blank when you use the As of Date, the application calculates an employee's salary on the latest month and day specified.

    • If you type a Year, the employee's salary is determined on the exact month, day, and year you specify.

    • If an employee does not have a salary history for the date specified, the application uses the current salary.

    Minimum and Maximum

    Type the minimum and maximum salary amounts for calculating contributions. If an employee's salary is either less or greater than these amounts, the application uses these amounts to calculate flex credits for the employee.

    Method

    This is a required field. If you don't want the application to use any rounding methods, select No Rounding.

  10. Click the Schedule button. The Match Percent Schedule (BN19.4) opens. Define the employee, company, and company match contributions with limits based on a service schedule
  11. Select the Add function. The application returns you to BN19.4.

Related Reports and Inquiries

To Use
List benefit plan information Plan Parameter Listing (BN215)