Creating Benefits

A benefit is a specific, non-wage compensation item provided to an employee. When you create a benefit, you associate it with a benefit type, carrier, and coverage. You also specify the monthly employer and employee costs for the benefit so that you can track these figures for your company.

If you are using SuitePeople US Payroll, you can also associate the benefit with a payroll deduction and employer contribution so that the appropriate deductions and contributions are reflected on employees’ paychecks. In this case, before you create benefits, you should create the deduction payroll items and the employer contribution payroll items that you plan to associate with those benefits. For more information, see Creating Payroll Items.

Important:

When creating payroll items for benefits:

• You should create new payroll items for use with benefits only, and not use those payroll items for other uses.

• If you add a benefits-related payroll item to an employee from the Payroll tab for another reason, the payroll item will be added to the employee’s benefits. This could produce inaccurate results.

• You should not associate a benefit with a payroll item which is derived from another payroll item.

To create a benefit:

1. Go to Setup > Benefits > Benefits > New.

2. In the Name field, enter a unique name for the benefit.

3. Optionally, enter a description in the Description field to help distinguish this benefit from others.

4. Select a type from the Type dropdown list. To add a new type here, click the Add button. For more information about adding a benefit type, see Creating Benefit Types.

5. Optionally, select a carrier from the Carrier dropdown list. To add a new carrier here, click the Add button. For more information about adding a carrier, see Creating Benefit Carriers.

6. On the Coverage tab, add a coverage with the following steps:

   1. Enter a name for the coverage in the Benefit Coverage Name field.

   2. In the Monthly Employer Cost field, enter the amount that your company will pay for the benefit per employee every month.

   3. In the Monthly Employee Cost field, enter the amount that the employee will pay for the benefit every month.

   Note that the Monthly Total Cost field is updated with the sum of the two monthly cost fields.

   Note:

   If you change either of the monthly cost fields after you have assigned this benefit to an employee, you are prompted to choose whether to apply this change to the affected employees.

7. If you use SuitePeople US Payroll, on the Deduction tab, select the payroll item to associate with this benefit. This represents the deduction that will be applied to employees’ paychecks. You can add multiple payroll deduction items to a benefit if they are from different subsidiaries and they have not been used in other benefits. Before setting up benefits, you should create the required deduction payroll items. For more information, see Creating Payroll Items.

8. If you use SuitePeople US Payroll, on the Employer Contribution tab, select the payroll item to associate with this benefit. This represents the employer contribution that will be applied to employees’ paychecks. You can add multiple employer contribution items to a benefit if they are from different subsidiaries and they have not been used in other benefits. Before setting up benefits, you should create the required employer contribution payroll items. For more information, Creating Payroll Items.

9. Click Save.

Related Topics

Creating Benefit Carriers

Creating Benefit Types

Assigning Benefits to an Employee

Benefits Tracking

Configuring Benefits Tracking

General Notices