Benefits: concepts

Overview

The Benefits module has 3 sides

Benefit plans — what benefits are available and the rules and formulas for each.
Employee enrollments in the different plans and their options chosen — the instance of the rule.
The net pay module calculates or applies the employee and employer shares

We use the term Benefit very broadly. In Umana a benefit is any kind deduction, including group insurance, union dues, employee advances, alimony and child support, wage garnishment, pension plans, etc. — but excluding statutory deductions (taxes)

Net pay

If your company uses an external net payroll service, Umana can calculate and send all the required deductions for each of your employees.

If your company uses Umana's integrated net pay system, the plans and enrollments are used directly by the net pay module to calculate the deductions. From the enrollment window, you can view the deduction history.

You can also generate reports on employee enrollments and terminations in the plans.

The Umana system is equipped with an import/export interface connecting its benefits module to other systems such as those used by insurance companies or actuaries.

So, if your benefit plans are managed by a third party, you can still import the bonuses periodically to transfer them to the net pay system. Conversely, the external management system will be notified by the Umana export interface of any changes to the employee file that affects benefits. This interface allows you to integrate Umana to your company's other systems.

Plans

The benefit plans define the benefits offered, eligibility and calculation rules. These plans use formulas to define eligibility, coverage and premiums. The system applies these formulas to each individual and determines the list of eligible employees, coverage and corresponding premiums.

These formulas use information such as employee salary, status, etc. When the status changes, the expressions that define the formula are re-evaluated and the individual plan updated accordingly.

The expressions generator will automatically be displayed to the user to fill out all the fields, all the generic functions (e.g. salary, seniority, age) and all the criteria that play a role in the formulas to be generated.

Employee enrollments in benefits

Details regarding the enrollment of each employee in each plan are saved in the BENEFIT record (one record per employee per plan in which he/she is enrolled) including previous (historic) and future enrollments. This record is the link that connects the employee to a specific plan. It designates the following:

Plan enrollment start and end dates
Coverage amount
Premium amounts (not formulas)
Other options

When enrolling an employee in a benefit plan, you can select a few options and manually replace already-calculated amounts or update the various plans.

An alarm may be triggered when it is time to make a change, and a confirmation will be required for the change to be carried out.

When it is time for an employee to be enrolled in a program, the system can do it automatically or else notify you to do it.

Automatic actions and messages are governed by the Alarms module. Requirements in terms of alarms are defined in the benefits module.

The automatic enrollment option also takes effect when the status of an employee is changed to make him/her eligible for a certain plan (whether you have specified a date or not).

The enrollment comes into effect in accordance with a certain date determined by a formula. If the expression evaluates the formula at today's date (or a previous date), the employee is immediately eligible.

Dependants

The Umana system allows you to enter dependants, document their general information and specify their relationship with the employee.