BC Pension User Guide | PowerSchool Atrieve

Sequential Steps

Step 1: Pension > BC Pension Reporting > BC Pension Plan Report Creation

Generate your BC Pension Plan Report Creation. Run once for Teacher and the same process again for Municipal.

Step 2: Pension > BC Pension Reporting > BC Pension Report Record Change

Make any adjustments in BC Pension Record Changes

Step 3: Pension > BC Pension Reporting > BC Pension Plan Report Regeneration

Regenerate or Re report to incorporate changes

Step 4: Pension > BC Pension Reporting > BC Global Pension Plan Report

If in the above Steps you have added your files to the Global Pension report you will now run BC Global Pension Plan Report to submit one file for all applicable payrolls to either MPP or TPP. The BC Global Pension Plan Report allows you the reporting and extraction of the merged Global Pension information for submission to the BC Pension Corporation. All Teachers and Municipal pension information can be merged together for one large Teacher pension submission and one large Municipal pension submission.

Step 5: Pension > BC Pension Reporting > BC Global Pension Report Changes

Should you need to make any changes you will edit the file through BC Global Pension Plan Changes.
Global Pension Report Changes allows changes to be made to all the entries under the Global Pension for either Teachers or Municipal pension.
The Global Pension Report Changes allows you to add an additional record for an employee. When you add an employee and you enter a 'R' for Retirement as the Payroll Number the pension system will keep this record separate. This override allows you to add the retiring record and have two separate records reporting for the one employee.

Step 6: Payroll Download File Process or Payroll Email File Process

You will find your reports in the Download or Email File Process called BC Pension or Global Pension. Download or Email files, save and upload to pension board.

Pension Set Up:

• Deduction code set up
• Employee Type code set up
• Add deduction and Employee type code to employees Employee Changes, Function Lines
• Deduction Code Changes
• Global deduction changes

Deduction Code Set Up:

In BC, the deduction is set up using a Group 1, Type 9

Field 'Extras' - enter EMP%1/PEL/EMP%2/E%1/E%2/MINHRS/PERIODS/TERM/MAXPEN/

Examples: .0755/42100/.0905/.1068/.1218/
.0755/42100/.0905/.1068/.1218/200//YTD/
.0755/42100/.0905/.1068/.1218////60000/ - with maximum pensionable earnings

.1068/42100/.1218/0/0// - where the Share% is BENEFIT for 35+ yrs of service

(where EMP%1 is the percent paid by the employee up to PEL). PEL is the annual earnings amount (to date plus current) and is the CPP Earnings Maximum (verified by the Pensions Branch annually).

You can enter an override to 'PEL' by entering a value other than zero in the amount column on the employee's deduction record (for Group 1 Type 9 only).

EMP%2 is to be taken on all earnings in excess of the PEL. E%1 is the employer's percent of eligible earnings for the first step above, and E%2 is the employer's percent of eligible earnings for the second step.

MINHRS is the minimum number of hours, per period, required to start taking the deduction. The MINHRS may also be defined as either accumulated total eligible hours worked to date or accumulated eligible hours for the current year. Set the TERM to ALL when the MINHRS is to be a number of hours to date or set TERM to YTD when MINHRS is accumulated hours for the current year. For example:

%1/PEL/%2/E%1/E%2/600//ALL/ or
%1/PEL/%2/E%1/E%2/200//YTD/ or
%1/PEL/%2/E%1/E%2/30///

TERM, either ALL or YTD must the 8^th element in the list. To set up so employees will automatically start getting this deduction the first pay period the minimum hours are reached, the following steps must be taken:

Set the deduction on the employee with '#' in the frequency field. '#' must be set up as a valid frequency code in the database. The # must be included under the Deduction Frequencies on all applicable payroll calendar (every period that the pension should be taken).

If an employee is eligible for the deduction, then the frequency on the deduction for that employee will be changed to match that on the deduction. This is done during the update process.

The employee will now have the deduction taken on all subsequent payrolls, regardless of the number of hours worked.

PERIODS is an override to the number of pay periods on an employee's pay cycle code. When a value is entered for PERIODS (greater than zero), the employee's pension eligible is annualized based on the number of pay periods in the pay cycle code and then reduced back down to a single pay period eligible based on PERIODS. The option allows pension to be taken over ten months for employees paid on a 12 month basis.

MAXPEN The 9th element allows the definition of an optional pensionable earnings maximum to be used for both the pension eligible and the deduction calculation. When a value is entered, only earnings up to this amount will be included as pensionable. This element is not intended for BC Superannuation pension and should be left blank on BC Payrolls.

NOTE: Situations where an employee has completed 35 years of service and is no longer required to make contributions to the pension while at the same time the employer must continue contributing:

On the employees master deduction list enter 'BENEFIT' under the SHARE% field. This override ONLY applies to Group 1 Type 9 pension deductions. This override feature allows only the employer share of the pension to be calculated. Although the system will no longer calculate an employee's pension, variable deductions to the employee's portion is still available.

Employee Code Set up:

The employee code is used in the calculation of Superannuation (pension) credits, according to the base hours within the pay cycle. The calculation is: (British Columbia) (Actual hours divided by Base hours) multiplied by (the maximum credit divided by the number of periods in the cycle code of the employee). The Annual Hours or Days is an override of Annual pension days for Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario pensions. It is not applicable to BC Pension.

Formulas and Database items used to calculate Pension Credits

Pension Credit Calculation

Information Used in the calculation of pension credits:

Pension Deduction Code
Employee Type Code
Pay Codes (attached to the deduction code include/exclude list)
Cycle Codes
Employees Function line

Formula for the calculation of pension credits:

Actual hours divided by Base Hours, multiplied by the maximum credit, divided by the number of pay periods in the cycle code of the employee.

Example: CUPE payroll:

35 / 70 X 9.2 (monthly credit) / 20 = .23 each week or .46 per pay period

Actual hours comes from Timesheets or Function lines
Base hours comes from Employee type code
Maximum credit comes from Employee type code
Number of pay periods comes from Pay Cycle codes, which are attached to the employee’s Function line
The calculation is controlled by the Deduction code definitions, plus the include/exclude lists, also field 12 on the pay code database set up.

Problem Solving

If pension credits are determined to be incorrect all of the above Database set ups and Employee Function Lines must be reviewed.

Apply the above formula with the information you have collected to verify calculation.

If formula is showing the credits to be incorrect, check:

Deduction code set up review:

Include/exclude list for missing or pay codes that should or should not be there
Check rates

Pay Code set up review:

For pay codes that may not be making the appropriate adjustments. Review field 'Hours Pensionable': Should they or should they not be pensionable

Employee type code review:

Has any information changed: pension credit amounts, base hours
Do you need to create a new employee type code

Employee’s Function Line review:

Is the employee on the correct pay cycle code
Is the employee type code correct

Employee Cycle Code review:

Is the number of pay periods correct
Is the employee on the correct cycle code

Once problem is found, make applicable changes and run the Pension Credit Recalculation Process, to fix Pension Credits.

Pension Credit Report

The PENSION CREDIT REPORT produces a report of the pension credits for a range of periods. The report lists the employer, pension eligible and pension amount and pension credits for each history record as well as the pension deduction code. Only deduction codes that are currently set as a Group 1 deduction will be included on this report.

Pension Credit Adjustment

The PENSION CREDIT CHANGE module allows changes to be made to the pension credit amounts calculated during the payroll processing. The pay date may also be changed. Changes after the update has been run may also be made for any previous period.

Pension Credit Recalculation

The PENSION CREDIT RECALCULATION process recalculates the pension credits for a range of pay periods. This option can be used in situations when payroll periods have been completed with the incorrect values in the employee code or the wrong number of periods for the year. Both of these affect the pension credit calculation. The pension credit calculation is the same calculation used during the payroll stream. Only history records of type 'P' and those that include the pension deduction for that period will be taken into account. The employee's cycle code and employee type used in the calculation are taken from the employee's master or first function line.

A report only feature has been included which allows a report to be generated without changing the history records so you can verify results before processing changes.