Employee Benefits Additions

The Employee Benefits Additions lets you create new or modify existing benefits information for an employee. This screen is very comprehensive, allowing you to maintain employee demographic, employee benefit, dependent demographic, dependent benefit, beneficiary, and dated comment information. Additionally you can also view employee assignment history. Changes to all information is audited, and changes to employee and dependent benefit information can be saved to history so that you can see how information was configured at any time.

As soon as you enter a valid employee number, the system will attempt to determine from the employee's assignments what payroll he is paid on. The system will normally find only one and will display the following window: You would normally accept the defaulted payroll ID. If for some reason you want to enter or change information for a different payroll you can over-ride the default. Once you enter the payroll, you will see the following screen:

The above screen shot shows you what the main (first) screen (containing basic employee demographics information). Refer to documentation under Employee Additions for more information on these fields. You Cannot add new employees into HR through this screen. It is only for entering or editing benefit information. You must add new employees into the system through Employee Additions or a customized quick entry screen.

Note: The Smoker field that appears on this screen must be mapped to a user-defined field through the Benefits Master Profile.

The functions of the top menu items are summarized below (You can move the mouse to any of the below options. 

• Main: Click Modify to modify any of the employee demographic information on this main screen. A field to change prompt will appear that allows you to move from field to field.

• Benefits: Click Benefit to move to a screen where you can view and/or change employee benefit information

• Beneficiaries: Click Beneficiaries to move to a screen where you can view and/or change beneficiary information.

• Dependent: Click Dependent to move to a screen where you can view and/or change dependent and dependent benefit information.

• Assignments: Click Assignments to view the employee's assignment history.

• Comments: Click Comments to move to a screen where you can view and/or edit dated comment information.

This screen lets you view and/or change the employee benefit information.  As you make changes to the information on this screen, you will be given the opportunity to save a history of the information before and after the change. Doing this would be the normal way of proceeding. Over time this creates a history of how an employee's benefits changed. Each change is marked with an effective date and also a comment describing why the change was made.

The benefit information that is displayed on this screen will always be the newest that is in the system – even if it is future dated. So, if you create a future-dated history change, that is what will appear on this screen – even though it hasn't taken effect yet. You can view or change past historical information through the History option which is described below. The title of this screen will always display the As Of date of the information that is displayed.

Under the employee number and name you will see the Payroll As Of Date and As Of Salary. These fields are taken from payroll. These fields are only changeable through Payroll.

Under the As Of information you have the ability to view three different dates. Each of these dates must be mapped to a user-defined field in the Benefits Master Profile. Not only do you define what user-defined field each one maps to, but you define what description (prompt) will appear on this screen. This lets you track (if you so choose to) various dates that are benefits-related. You can choose to suppress any or all of these dates. You further have the option of sending the first of these three dates to Payroll through SNS. If and how this happens is also configured in the Benefits Master Profile (mentioned above).

Under the benefits dates, you will see the benefits detail information for the employee. This data is formatted in a table. The column headings, from left to right, are as follows:

At the bottom of the screen you will see the following menu bar:

Modify: Click Modify to move the cursor into the benefits detail table. Once inside the table, you can move around using the arrow keys as well as with the Page Up and Page Down keys. In order to edit a field click on the Edit Field button on the bottom right menu bar. When done editing that field press the save or select button in the pop up box. This takes you out of EDIT mode. You will notice that the status of EDIT will display in the lower left hand corner of the screen when you are in edit mode. Right beside the Edit status display is the page number. It will most likely say Page 1A or 1B. The 1 represents the number of vertical pages. The A and B (in this case) represents the number of horizontal pages. So you can move down to page 2, or right from page A to page B. The reason for the second horizontal page is to display more of the comment field (room only for about 6 characters of it on the first page). Although it is easier to view and edit the comment on the second page, you can edit the comment field on either page.

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  •  Insert a new line by clicking on the Insert Line button.

  • Cut (delete) a line by clicking on the Cut Line button.

  • When in EDIT mode, search on the benefit code, table code, status and frequency fields to view valid entries.

  • To exit the benefit table and return to the horizontal menu bar, move the cursor up to the EX Return To Menu Ba line and enter.

  • Dates  option moves the cursor through the three benefit date fields described above so that you can edit them. 
    
    

Beneficiaries: As its name suggests, this screen lets you view and/or change beneficiary information for any of the entered benefits.

• Move the cursor through the beneficiary information with the up and down arrows. To view or change anything, select Modify off the horizontal menu bar. 

• With the horizontal menu bar you can modify the information, insert beneficiary information for a new benefit or delete beneficiary information for the selected benefit.

• If you choose to modify, insert or delete beneficiary information, you will see the below screen. This screen lets you enter beneficiaries, their relation to the employee and instructions as to how the benefit is to be divided amongst the beneficiaries. You can also enter a trustee and their relationship to the employee.

• All of the fields entered on this screen are free-form and are not validated. You can control whether uppercase only should be forced on this screen through the Benefits Master Profile. If the Force Uppercase On Beneficiary Screen is set to 'Y' then you can only enter uppercase (except for the the To Be Divided) field. If you enter 'N', then you can enter both upper and lower-case.

• Search on the Benefit field to view valid benefit codes.

• The Date field (entered as (YY)YYMMDD) can be used for anything.

• Search on the Beneficiary Name field and select from the list of dependents.

• Search on the Relationship field to select from the list of dependent types.

• The To Be Divided As Follows defaults to 'in equal shares to the survivors' if there is more than one beneficiary.

• Search can also be used on the Trustee For Minor and Trustee Relationship fields.

• If you choose the delete option, you will see the following prompt: Delete this beneficiary ?

• If you enter 'Y', all the beneficiary information on the screen will be deleted (from memory). Remember, nothing is updated (except history) until you enter 'A' from the main screen.

Dependents:

• If you choose depend option from the main menu this screen lets you view and/or change employee dependent demographic information as well as dependent benefit information. You can also add new dependents or remove existing ones. Move the cursor through the dependents with the up and down arrows. To view or change anything, you select Modify off the horizontal menu bar. With the horizontal menu bar you can modify the information, insert a new dependent or delete the selected dependent.

• If you choose to modify, insert or delete dependent information,navigate using the up and down arrows to move through any or all of the dependent demographic information and change anything you need to, enter to return to the horizontal menu bar.

• If delete is selected you will see the following prompt: Delete this dependent ? 

• Enter 'Y' to delete the dependent, 'N' if you do not. You will Not be allowed to delete a dependent that has any benefit information (current or historical).

• If you select benefits from the menu bar, you will see the following screen: This screen shows you the dependent number (needed for internal purposes only), dependent name, age, benefit code and description, coverage start and end date and comment.

• From the horizontal menu you can modify the benefit information, view or change history, cancel your changes, or sort the view of dependent benefit information.

• After your changes click on the Close button to accept any changes made to memory and return to the previous horizontal menu.

• Click on the Modify button to move the cursor into the dependent benefits table. Once the cursor is inside the table, you can move around with your arrow keys. To edit the field that the cursor is currently resting on, start typing. As soon as you press a key other than your navigation keys the screen goes into EDIT mode, click the Continue button to save.  

• Insert a new line by clicking the Insert button.

• Delete a line by clicking the Delete button.

• Benefits button will bring you into the Employees Benefits page. 

  • Modify button to move the cursor into the dependent benefits table.

  • History button will bring you to the Dependents history.

    • All codes allows you to view the dependent benefit history from the perspective of all codes at once. Any time any benefit is changed you will prompted to create a new history record. If you do this, you will capture every change ever made. The window below will show you when each change was made (Hist Date) and the comment that was entered as to why the change was made. Move vertically through the history with the up and down arrow keys. Move the cursor horizontally through the menu options at the bottom.

      • Comment      Click to edit the history comment.

      • Insert            Click to insert a new history record.

      • Remove        Click to delete an existing history record.

      • End date       Click to modify the end date of the history record.

      • Modify           Click to modify historical information if necessary.

    • Single code Click to view the history of a single benefit code. You cannot edit benefit history through this option. Enter the code of the benefit that you want to view. Search to view valid benefits codes. You can move vertically through the history with the up and down arrow keys. 

    • Report will provide a report on the Dependent Information.

    • Click Back to return to the previous horizontal menu.

  • Sort button to sort the view of the dependent benefits information either by dependent then benefit code, or by benefit code then dependent. This is a nice feature lets you view all the benefits by dependent, or all dependents by benefit.

  • Cancel button to return to the previous menu without saving any changes to memory.

  • Save button to exit and save your changes. 

Assignments: If assignments is selected from the main menu you will be able to view the employee's assignment history:

Comments: The screen below shows what you will see if you choose to modify, insert or delete a comment:

• Insert a comment. 

• Modify a comment.

• Delete a comment - you will see the following prompt: Are You Sure You Want To Delete This Comment? Enter 'Y' to delete the comment, 'N' to save it.

Cancel from the main menu, you will see the below:

• Enter 'Y' to cancel any changes. Enter 'N' to if you do not want to cancel the changes you've made. As mentioned above, the changes that you have made (with the exception of those made to benefit history) are not saved until you choose the Accept option from the main horizontal menu.

Any changes that you make to information in these screens will be audited. That is to say that an audit record will be created for each field that is changed. Each record will show the before and after value of each field changed, who made the change, and when the change was made, and through what program. Audit records can be viewed by running the Audit File Report (menu option 10,3,13,2).

In addition to this audit trail that is created behind the scenes, a history of the changes that you've made to your employee or dependent benefits information can also be created. 
If you made changes to the employee benefits & accept the changes, you will see a screen like the one below:

This screen will show you all of the changes you have made to the employee benefits information. You can scroll through multiple pages (if they exist) with your Page Up and Page Down  keys.

Save A History Of The Old And Create New Employee Benefits Info? Enter 'Y' to create a history of the changes. You should always enter 'Y' here unless you are merely making a correction that you do Not want to appear in history. Enter 'N' if you are making a correction that you do not want to appear in history.

Enter 'C' here to cancel the changes you have made. Cancelling the changes will result in the changes NOT being saved. You will see the below prompt just to be sure you want to cancel: Cancel Changes To The Employee Benefits? Enter 'Y' to cancel the changes, 'N' to return to the Save A History prompt.

If you made changes to the dependent benefits & accept the changes, you will see a  screen like the one below: This screen will show you all of the changes you have made to the employee benefits information. You can scroll through multiple pages (if they exist) with your Page Up and Page Down keys.

Save A History Of The Old And Create New Dependent Benefits Info? Enter 'Y' to create a history of the changes. You should always enter 'Y' here unless you are merely making a correction that you do NOT want to appear in history. Enter 'N' here is you are making a correction that you do not want to appear in history.

Enter 'C' here to cancel the changes you have made. Cancelling the changes will result in the changes Not being saved. You will see the below prompt just to be sure you want to cancel: Cancel Changes To The Dependent Benefits?  Enter 'Y' here to cancel the changes, 'N' to return to the Save A History prompt.

If you have made a change to employee or dependent benefits information and the staff notification system is turned on, you will see the below prompt: Do You Want To Create A Staffing Notification Now? This prompt lets you create a benefits notification on the fly. If you answer 'y' you will see the below screen:

Employee Number

Enter the number of the employee for whom you want to create a notification. The number will default to the employee you are currently working with.

Notification Code Benefits

Enter the notification code you want to attach to this notification. The system will default to the first benefits type notification code that marked as the default. You can over-ride the default if you wish by typing in a different code. Search to view a list of notification codes. You can only enter notification codes that have a notification type of '10'.

Effective Date

Enter the date (as (YY)YYMMDD) that the benefits change becomes effective. The system will attempt to find the correct default by reading through the employee's benefit data.

Comment

Enter the applicable system, manual, employee, payroll, union, supervisor and individual comments.

Employee Benefits Statement