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Benefit Components specify all of the rules, usercalcs, elements, field values, factors, and constants associated with a benefit plan.
When a benefit plan is defined, there are a variety of decisions to be made for each plan:

• Who is qualified for the plan/coverage being defined?
• Are there eligible earnings for the coverage? If so, what are they?
• What formula is needed to calculate the coverage?
• Is there any coverage stepping involved?
• How is the premium calculated?
• For Canadian installations, are there any premiums or sales taxes to be calculated?
• If this is a self-insured plan, what are the admin fees, deposit liabilities and contract amounts?
• Is there an employer contribution? If so, how is it calculated?
• Is there an employee deduction? If so, how is it calculated?
• Is the plan a flex benefit plan or part of a flex program?
• Is there a taxable benefit amount to be calculated?
• Is this a savings bond plan?
• Are authorized users allowed to adjust the amounts being remitted?
  

Each of the questions shown above may become a component or several components of a benefit plan/coverage, and each component has a number of possible responses or options. In KnowledgeBase, the questions/components are called Benefit Components. The possible options/responses are the Benefit Component Rules.

As each benefit plan/coverage is created, users decide which components are necessary to define the plan. Once the components are decided, users choose which option/rule is applicable for each component.

When a plan is created, the premium needs to be defined, specifically, how much to remit, when to remit it, and how / when the premium may be taken.

These rules are held in benefit components. Users are provided with a list of possible components and the options/rules available for each one. Users decide which of the benefit components will be necessary for each benefit plan.

The benefit components allow a great deal of versatility for defining benefit plans. In cases where the existing options may not allow for every possible plan rule, the UserCalc tool has been made available. With this tool, users are given the ability to create a custom calculation to derive necessary information for the plan. Users are also given the opportunity to carry amounts calculated within benefits processing to payroll, and subsequently to employees’ pay stubs and financial ledgers. The link between benefits and payroll is established with pay components.

Benefit components are maintained in the IBBC form. All of the available BC codes and their associated options/rules are supplied with the Application software. Users may choose which rules will be available to plans, and what information may be overridden at plan entry.

The ability to delete or change information on this form is provided, however, it is strongly recommended the information on this form not be changed. These benefit components and rules are necessary for all benefit plans. If deleted here, no plan may access the component.

As well, the applicable rules are pre-defined for all components and should not be added to or edited.

Benefit Component Notes#

Bracketed words on the following pages represent the field in the Component Rules or the Enrollment form to be filled in. i.e. <User Calc>

To create any usercalcs that may be needed, please refer to the User Calculation Tool Workbook. Each component has a table to define the rules that are available. The columns in the table are described below:

• Rule the index number of the rule
• Description a brief description of the rule
• Logic what the rule will do if chosen, and what other ‘pieces’ it may need to complete it logic
• Assoc. if there are any associated benefit components needed they are listed
• Go to after this rule is chosen which benefit component should be evaluated next

The standard or most commonly used rule(s) for each component is indicated by the asterisk (*) in the Rule column.

Notes on Date Benefit Components#

• Premium Start date will not work if it is an earlier date than the Plan Effective date.
  • The effective date of the IBEN record controls the benefit. If the plan is not yet effective, there is no point in trying to take a premium – the plan will be skipped by UPCALC.
  • Same thing applies for expiration date and premium end. There is no point in making the premium stop AFTER the expiration date of the record. If the employee is not in the plan, they will not have their premium amount calculated.
• BC action should be ‘Calculate’
  • The BC action for any date component (B0020 – B0270) does not need to be anything but ‘calculate’. The dates are already on the IBEL/IBEN as separate fields.
• ‘Allow Value Override’ is only necessary on ‘final date’ values
  • B0070, B0130, B0140 are final storage BC’s for Effective, Eligible, Premium Start dates
  • B0200, B0260, B0270 are final storage BC’s for Expiration, Eligible Expiry, Premium End dates
  • These components are the only ones that the user would override. Toggle should not be on for ‘interim’ date values.
• If plan expires at termination date, a full deduction is taken in final pay.
  • If ‘Termination Date’ is used as the expiration date of plan, employee will be considered ‘in the plan’ by the system for their terminating pay. Example Pay Period Start = Jan 1 Pay Period End = Jan 15 Termination Date = Jan 3
  • If rule is ‘use termination date’, the system will expire the benefit record as of Jan 3. Benefit plans are always updated using the pay period end date as the processing date, unless the termination date falls within the pay period. There is no automatic pro-ration of benefit amounts.

Benefit Component Codes#

The benefit components identified below have been grouped based on their purpose under the following subheadings:

B0005 to B0299	Components for Preprocess/Qualification
B0300 to B0399	Components for Eligible Earnings/Amounts
B0400 to B0499	Components for Coverage
B0500 to B0599	Components for Coverage Step
B0600 to B0699	Components for Premium
B0700 to B0729	Components for Premium Tax (Canadian Installations Only)
B0730 to B0799	Components for Self-Insured Admin Fees, Deposit Liabilities and Contract Amounts
B0800 to B0899	Components for Employer Contributions
B0900 to B0929	Components for Employer Sales Tax (Canadian Installations Only)
B0930 to B0999	Components for Flexible Benefit Fund Amount
B1000 to B1099	Components for Employee Deduction
B1100 to B1129	Components for Employee Sales Tax (Canadian Installations Only)
B1130 to B1199	Components for Self-Insured Deposit and Retro Amounts
B1200 to B1299	Components for Taxable Benefit
B1300 to B1399	Components for Bond Plan Amounts
B1400 to B1599	Components for Remittance Adjustment Components

Although the sheer number of options may seem daunting, not all components are required for every plan. They are provided to allow complete versatility when defining policies.