Understanding Benefit Groups for Flex Benefits

If you are using flexible benefits, you must set up a benefit group for flex benefits. You cannot use an existing benefit group for flex benefits.

You enable flex benefits at the benefit group level by assigning a benefit group rule in the Categories by Benefit Group program (P08350). The benefit group rule enables you to specify whether a benefit group offers flex plans and, if so, whether you require the employee to use all of the available credits on flex plans. When the benefit group rule indicates that flex plans are offered, the value generated by the employer flex credit DBAs appears on interactive enrollment forms and is used to calculate an employee's available flex credits.

When an employee uses more flex credits than are available, the system automatically generates a pretax flex deduction for the amount of the negative remaining balance. An employee can have positive remaining credits, if the benefit group rule allows it. The benefits administrator can manually allocate these remaining credits to other plans. The system does not automatically reallocate positive remaining credits.

Within each benefit group that offers flex plans, you must set up a single category with a single plan for employee flex deductions. The system uses this category and plan to track any amounts that an employee spends on benefits in excess of what the employer allows. This amount is deducted from the employee's pay. If you are offering employees an initial lump sum of flex credits, you must set up a single category with a single plan to hold the lump sum credits. You can also identify the credits for each category or plan, such as 100 credits to spend on medical, 50 credits to spend on dental, and so forth.