Creating Benefit Records for Open Enrollment

The "Plan Utilities" option of Core HR allows you to create benefit records with plan utilities to assign benefit elections for passive enrollment.

When creating a benefit record with the "Plan Utilities", be aware that it will reset the coverage level for all benefits to default waive. Be sure to check any benefits and plans to adjust settings as necessary.

It is most efficient to create benefit records only after all Cost information has been updated for the Benefit Package, and any other structural changes have been made. It is also best to create the benefit records closer to the start of the OE in order to capture the most current elections.

We offer a video training for this topic on Arcoro Learning.

1. Expand Settings and click Benefit Management from the menu.

   

2. Click Plan Utilities from the ribbon near the top of the page.

   

3. We will be creating new benefits records, so we will select "Create Benefit Records" from "Step 1 – Select Utility".

   

   • Select the option "Create Benefit Records".
   • Enter the effective date of your new package year (i.e., 01/01/2011).
   • Enable "Use the following Rollover Mapping when processing Eligiblity" and select the Rollover Mapping created from the previous article from the dropdown menu if you are wanting to rollover benefits. Otherwise, you should not use this option if you are not using rollover mapping on an active record.
   • Click Save and Continue when finished and proceed to the next tab.
4. In the "Step 2 – Select Plans" tab, we will select the benefits that should be run for the first utility.

   

   • Expand and select the primary benefits that you want to create new benefit records for. In our example above, we are selecting Medical, Dental, Vision, Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account (FSA), Accident, Critical Illness, Basic Life and AD&D, Employee Voluntary and AD&D, Voluntary Long Term Disability, Short Term Disability, 401(k), and Roth 401(k).
     • If a benefit depends on another benefit, you have to run the utility for the primary benefit before running the utility for the secondary benefit so that Core HR can consider the dependencies when creating the record.
   • Click Save and Continue after selecting the benefits to run the utility. You can proceed to the next step.
5. The "Step 3 – Run Utility" tab will list the status of the utility. Depending on the number of employees, number of benefits, and complexity of eligibility rules being processed, the utility can complete the process as quickly as about 10-15 minutes and up to several hours. If you have a large number of employees, we recommend allocating one hour per benefit for every 1000 employees that will be processed. If processing over 3000 employees, we recommend processing one or two benefits at a time by repeating steps 3-4 until all benefits are processed. You can check back later or refresh to review the status. When the utility is finished, the "Status" column will indicate "Complete" for each benefit run through the utility.

   

6. If you have any secondary benefits, such as those dependent on another benefit, you can repeat the process starting from "Step 1 - Select Utility". When selecting the benefits from "Step 2 - Select Plans", you will select the secondary benefits, such as Healthcare Flexible Spending Account (FSA), Spouse Voluntary Life and AD&D, and Child Voluntary Life and AD&D.

   

As benefit plans are processed, entries are made in the Audit Log indicating the Start and End Date/Times associated with the Processing. As a result, the Audit Log can be used to track the progress of the processing or to confirm if a Benefit Plan has successfully completed processing. For more information about the audit log, you can refer to our dedicated article here.