The Benefit Plan section on the Assumptions tab allows you to create a list of plans available to the organization and establish the cost of those benefits.  Once created the benefits are available to be assigned to Salary Plans on the Salary Plan tab.  Additionally,  

Adm_TipFor unique situations,  the Employee Details window allows a fixed benefit amount or specific Benefit Plan to be set for individual employees.

Benefit Plan Assumptions are created to provide a list of plans available to employees in the organization.  Benefit Plans are multi-tiered allowing up to 4 different qualification levels based on an employee’s total FTE.  Each tier also associates the standard cost of the benefit plan and the amount paid by the organization entered as a percentage.

Adm_NoteBenefit plans are assigned to Salary Plans allowing the employee’s Salary Plan Code determine which Benefit Plan costs are used during Employee Funding Splits and Scenario Recalculations.
Benefit Plan Properties

Benefit Plan Properties

Benefit Plan Properties

Property

Description

Name

The descriptive name of the plan that will be used to identify this plan throughout ESP™

Description

A description or explanation of the plan.

Default Plan

This option toggles the Plan to be automatically assigned if they do not have another plan mapped to any others.

System Plan

Indicates system placeholder or empty plan that does not provide benefits and cannot be deleted or edited.

Active

Determines whether this plan will be available to be assigned to a Salary Plan

Forecast Factor

When using Forecast Scenarios, you can automatically increase the Monthly Benefit amounts by this factor in the Forecast Scenarios.

The calculation is   [Forecast Scenario Monthly Benefit] =  [Monthly Benefit] + ([Monthly Benefit] * [Forecast Factor])

Level 1-4

There are 4 Total FTE thresholds available for qualifying individual employee benefits plan costs.  Once the Level is determined by comparing the Employee Total FTE with the Benefit Plan Total FTE,  the Benefit costs are calculated as follows:

Monthly Benefit Cost = [Monthly Benefit] * [Benefit Factor] *[Total FTE]

Adm_NoteFull Time Equivalent or FTE is a common term referring to the amount of working time spent by a full-time employee.

Generally, 1 FTE = 8 hrs/day and 260 days/year, but based on how ESP™ is configured, 1 FTE could be 7.5 hrs/day and 190 days/year.

Total FTE

During Employee Recalculation Levels are evaluated from 1 to 4, comparing the Employee Total FTE to the Benefit Plan Total FTE.  If the Employee Total FTE >= the Benefit Plan Total FTE,  the remaining factors for that level are used to calculate the benefits plan cost.

Uses FTE

When checked,  the actual FTE value is used in the calculation.  If not checked, once the Total FTE threshold is met,  Total FTE is assumed to be 1 in the calculation.

Benefit Factor

This is a general factor used in calculating benefit plans.  This could be an Employee participation amount,  or if historically you find your benefits costs are always over budgeted,  you could artificially reduce the resulting amounts by the Benefit Factor,  while maintaining your Monthly Benefit Amounts.

Monthly Benefit

The actual monthly benefit cost or cap amount in dollars.