Benefits “Send to Payroll”

New Feature Documentation

Thank you for your product feedback. As the end user, your voice is invaluable and provides guidance for the iterative changes to the product. Greenshades had an automated process to synchronize your employees’ elections to your payroll package and a process to inactivate their prior payroll deductions and benefits. Listening to your feedback, Greenshades recognizes you want control of this process. In response, Greenshades built a new “Send Benefit Elections to Payroll Package” feature for our Greenshades Benefits clients. On the left side bar of GreenshadesOnline, this is labeled “Send to Payroll” under the Benefits section. This puts the control in your hands. You now tell Greenshades, “I want to send these selected elections to my payroll package with my next sync.”

(Parts of the document refers to Dynamics GP. If you are not a Dynamics GP user, you may disregard those references and continue through the document.)

www.Greenshades.com

7020 A C Skinner Parkway, Suite 100, Jacksonville FL 32256. Phone: (888) 255-3815

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Contents

1. Why a new feature? ............................................................................. 4

1.1. New Feature ..................................................................................................... 4

1.2. Retired Features ............................................................................................... 4

1.2.1. Sync Dates ........................................................................................................... 4

1.2.2. Inactivation of codes in the payroll package .......................................................... 5

2. Workflow to use the new feature ......................................................... 6

2.1. Approve the employees’ elections .................................................................... 6

2.2. Navigate to the new feature .............................................................................. 7

2.3. Top segment ..................................................................................................... 7

2.3.1. Show elections which should be sent to payroll within the next: ............................ 8

2.3.2. Event Type ........................................................................................................... 8

2.3.3. Status ................................................................................................................... 8

2.4. Grid of employees’ elections ............................................................................. 9

2.4.1. Excel Export and Show Columns .......................................................................... 9

2.4.2. Top filters .............................................................................................................. 9

2.4.3. Making selections ................................................................................................. 9

2.5. Information and warnings ............................................................................... 10

2.5.1. Information bar .....................................................................................................10

2.5.2. Warning bars .......................................................................................................10

2.6. Queue the selections to send to your payroll package ................................... 10

2.6.1. Summary of selection ..........................................................................................10

3. Next steps ......................................................................................... 11

3.1. Reports ........................................................................................................... 11

3.1.1. Queued elections .................................................................................................11

3.1.2. Release notes ......................................................................................................12

3.2. Benefit Versions ............................................................................................. 12

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3.3. Client feedback ............................................................................................... 12

3.4. Support ........................................................................................................... 12

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1. Why a new feature?

1.1. New Feature

As an administrator, I want to tell Greenshades when to send my employees’ benefit elections to payroll so that I am in control of this process.

Greenshades is pleased to announce the release of our new “Send Benefit Elections to Payroll Package” feature, also referred to as the Send to Payroll feature. Greenshades has previously automated the activation and inactivation of your employees’ elections in your payroll package. Listening to your feedback, the control is now in your hands.

1.2. Retired Features

1.2.1. Sync Dates

With this new release, Greenshades is retiring the feature of Sync Dates. As an administrator, you once set the date you wanted Greenshades to sync your employees’ elections to your payroll package in the benefit option versions (Figure 1) or during a Qualifying Life Event approval (Figure 2). After the approval of your employees’ elections, the transactions would be staged, waiting for the sync date or the payroll start date to send the employees’ elections to your payroll package.

Figure 1

Figure 2

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1.2.2. Inactivation of codes in the payroll package

Also retiring is the automated process of the Sync Connector that would inactivate your HR Benefit Codes (Figure 3), Payroll Benefits (Figure 4) and Payroll Deductions (Figure 5) on the end date.

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

The end date was set at the time of Open Enrollment by the Payroll Inactivation Date configured in the benefit setup (Figure 6) or set at the time of a Qualifying Life Event approval by the Payroll End Date (Figure 7).

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Figure 6

Figure 7

2. Workflow to use the new feature

2.1. Approve the employees’ elections

The change to your approval workflow will be the omission of the sync dates during the approval process regardless of the event type.

When approving elections in the Qualifying Life Event and New Hire Event screen, you will still set the Effective dates and the Payroll dates for the elections. The difference now will be the Payroll End Date should be the pay period end date for the final payroll for the employee’s elections.

During Open Enrollment approval, Greenshades alerts the approver to the new Send to Payroll feature and offers a link to this documentation (Figure 8).

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Figure 8

2.2. Navigate to the new feature

Employees Employee Services Benefits Send to Payroll (Figure 9)

Figure 9

2.3. Top segment

The top filters are available to provide you with the tools you may need to select the employees’ elections to send to your payroll package. (Figure 10)

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Figure 10

2.3.1. Show elections which should be sent to payroll within the next:

The purpose of this filter is to provide you with the option of reviewing those elections scheduled to inactivate, activate or waive within the time frame selected. Options include 1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks, 15 days, 1 month or 2 months. It will default to 1 week.

Our recommendation is 1 week. Greenshades believes selecting an option too far out into the future may result in employees’ elections sending to payroll too soon, but Greenshades knows events such as vacations or holiday closures may require advanced planning.

2.3.2. Event Type

There are three event types. Event Type filter at the top offers you to filter by ‘Open Enrollment’, ‘Qualifying Life Events’, ‘Open Enrollment and Qualifying Life Events’ or ‘All Events’.

Greenshades defaults to All Events. While Greenshades defaults to All Events, it is advised to filter on Qualifying Life Events after approving your Open Enrollment event until your Open Enrollment event should be sent to your payroll package.

2.3.3. Status

At the high level, the Status filter will allow you to filter out Waives from your grid. Greenshades would like to warn about hiding waives. If you have an employee that is currently enrolled in an election and they chose to waive their enrollment, sending the waive to your payroll package is necessary to end their election. If your payroll package is an older version that does not respect payroll end dates or if the election your employee was enrolled in did not have end dates, you would want the waived election to send to your payroll package to ensure the election is no longer impacting the employee’s paycheck.

Some clients may not wish to send waives for their New Hire Events to their payroll package. Greenshades will be developing a solution to remove or deny elections from sending to your payroll package soon, but until this development is complete, any elections you choose not to send to your payroll package will remain in the grid.

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2.4. Grid of employees’ elections

The grid offers more options to provide you with more tools you may need to select the correct employees’ elections to send to your payroll package. (Figure 11)

Figure 11

2.4.1. Excel Export and Show Columns

The option to export the grid to Excel is available, and when you click on the Excel Export, the file will download to a location based upon your browser’s preferences. The Show Columns option will allow you to choose which column you wish to view in your grid. Clicking on the Show Columns will open the list of fields, and you would click on the field names you wish to show or hide from the grid. (Figure 12)

Figure 12

2.4.2. Top filters

The grid also contains filters for each column. Based on the type of column, it will be a drop-down list, free text filter, or a date picker (Figure 13).

Figure 13

Use these filters to narrow the scope of your employees’ elections during your review.

2.4.3. Making selections

When first working with the grid, elections displayed are selected by default across all pages. If you wish to filter by a column, only those rows based on your filters will be

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selected to send to your payroll package.

2.5. Information and warnings

Based on your selections, Greenshades will provide you with Information and/or Warning bars under the grid.

2.5.1. Information bar

If your selections include any elections that are scheduled to end with a Status of Inactive, Greenshades will provide you with a blue information bar under the grid (Figure 14).

2.5.2. Warning bars

If your selections include any elections that are schedule to start or end greater than 1 week out, Greenshades will provide you with a yellow warning bar under the grid (Figure #). The warning bar will not stop you from moving forward with your selections, as this may be an intentional choice.

Figure 14

2.6. Queue the selections to send to your payroll package

Once all the employees’ elections you wish to send to your payroll package are selected, you will click the Queue to Payroll button (Figure 15).

Figure 15

2.6.1. Summary of selection

Based on your selections, Greenshades will create a pop up window with a summary of your selections (Figure 16).

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Figure 16

2.6.1.1. Election count and employee count

The first summary will provide you with a count of elections for the number of employees based on your selection. The count of elections includes activations, inactivations and waives.

2.6.1.2. Status change counts

The second section in the summary will provide you with a break down by Status. The count of Active, Inactive and Waived will only appear in the summary if you selected to send employees’ elections with this type of status to your payroll package.

2.6.1.3. Note

Also included in the summary is a note about the timing of when your employees’ elections will be sent to your payroll package. In the event you wish to send these elections to your payroll package before your next scheduled sync, you will want to run a manual sync. If you need any assistance running a manual sync, please contact Greenshades Support.

2.6.1.4. Send Elections

After you complete your review of the summary, and are satisfied with the selections you have made, you will then click on the Send Elections button to queue the employees’ elections to send to your payroll package with your next sync.

3. Next steps

3.1. Reports

3.1.1. Queued elections

The employees’ elections queued to send to your payroll package can be found in the “Employees’ Elections Queued to Payroll Package” report found under the Benefits Reports section in Reports. This will provide you a list of your employees’ elections that have been queued, but not yet synced with your payroll package (Figure 17).

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Figure 17

3.1.2. Release notes

Any changes to the product will be announced in the Release Notes (Figure 18).

Figure 18

3.2. Benefit Versions

If you have already started or approved your open enrollment event, you should not modify your current versions.

If you have not already started your Open Enrollment event, you can edit your versions for the upcoming year. Once employees start enrolling, those dates are set.

If you configured your versions using the old logic, setting your Payroll End Date as the day that you want to inactivate these elections, do not worry. You will be able to send the inactivation the day you wish it to take place, and the Sync Connector will not inactivate these elections based on that day.

3.3. Client feedback

This product feature started with your feedback. Please contact Greenshades Support and share your feedback with the Support Representatives.

3.4. Support

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In the event you have questions regarding the information you see in the Send Benefit Elections to Payroll Package, please contact Support.

Greenshades Support is a phone call or an email message away.

For support, please contact us. (888) 255-3815 ext.1

support@greenshades.com www.greenshades.com