Understanding Benefit Plan Setup

Before you can enroll employees in benefits, you must set up every benefit plan that the company offers. To deduct benefit payments from employees' pay, you must also assign the DBAs that integrate the benefit plan with the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Payroll system. The system stores benefit plan information in the Benefits Plan Master table (F08320).

For some benefits, coverage can vary from employee to employee. For example, employees might have the option to purchase medical insurance for their dependents, as well as for themselves. Typically, the cost of insuring dependents is greater than the cost of insuring only the employee. In this case, you can:

• Set up separate medical plans called Employee Only, Employee Plus One, and Employee Plus Family and link each of these plans to the medical category.

• Set up a single medical plan, such as MED-HMO, that has options called Employee Only, Employee Plus One, and Employee Plus Family.

  When you link MED-HMO to the medical category, the system also links the options.

You can use either of these methods to administer benefit plans. This table lists the main features of each method:

Administration Method	Features
Separate plans	Enables you to apply mandatory or default rules. Must be used for a plan that has another plan as a prerequisite.
Single plan with options	Enables you to add or remove options (instead of having to end an entire plan and create a new one.

When you set up a benefit plan, you assign one or more DBAs to the plan. You can assign a deduction-type DBA to automatically withhold the cost (or a portion of the cost) of a benefit plan from an employee's pay. You can use a benefit-type DBA to track the cost (or portion of the cost) that the company incurs when it provides a particular benefit plan.

Important: The system uses a hierarchy method within the categories by benefit group and plan master when calculating the DBAs associated with benefit plans. If a DBA within a plan is based on another DBA in another plan, the plan and category names must be considered. You need to make sure within the benefit group setup the category and plan names are put in alphabetical order. The system will then calculate the DBAs from top to bottom on the Calc/Eligibility tab. For example, if DBA 1001 is based on DBA 1000, DBA 1000 must be in a category and plan that comes alphanumerically before the category and plan that DBA 1001 is in, so they will process in alphanumeric order.

If you are providing flex benefit plans, you use an employee flex cost DBA to represent the value of the flex credits that an employee must use to enroll in the plan. Use an employer flex-credits DBA to award employees with flex credits for selecting a particular plan. You also use the flex DBAs to calculate remaining credits when an employee enrolls in flex plans. When an employee has negative remaining credits, you use an employee flex deduction DBA to subtract the overspent amount from the employee's pay.

After you set up a benefit plan, you might need to periodically update the amounts or rates that are associated with the DBAs and options for the plan. For example, when a benefit carrier raises its rates, you typically need to increase the employee- and employer-paid deductions for the plan. When you need to update DBAs or plan options, you can access the forms that you need from the master record for the plan or plan options.

After you attach an employee record to a plan, you cannot delete the plan. Even when employees are not active, their records remain attached to the plan. Also, you cannot change the dependent or beneficiary status of a plan if dependents or beneficiaries are enrolled in the plan or if the plan has options with a conflicting dependent or beneficiary type.

See Setting Up Plan Options.