Setting Up Basic Benefits

You set up Basic Benefit plans in much the same way that you set up other components of your compensation and benefits packages. Before you start, review the features offered by Oracle's other benefits administration solutions (Standard Benefits and Advanced Benefits) to ensure that you implement the model that most closely matches your needs.

Create Benefit Carriers

  1. Use the Organization window to enter benefits carriers as external organizations with the classification Benefits Carrier. See: Creating an Organization

    Define Validation

    Define validation for entries made to enroll employees in benefit plans.

  2. To restrict entries to a list of valid values, define a new Lookup Type and add values for this new lookup. See: Adding Lookup Types and Values

  3. To validate entries using formulas, write a formula of type Element Input Validation. See: Writing Formulas for Validation

    Define Categories

  4. If you need a new category for your benefit plan elements, add it in the Application Utilities Lookups window. Benefit plan elements are in the Information classification (Lookup type US_INFORMATION) if you don't use Oracle Payroll and in the Voluntary Deductions classification if you do use Oracle Payroll. See: Adding Lookup Types and Values

    Define Coverage Levels

  5. Basic Benefits includes four coverage levels for benefit plans: Employee Only, Employee and Spouse, Employee and Children, Employee and Family. If you need additional coverage levels, add them in the Application Utilities Lookups window for the Lookup type US_BENEFIT_COVERAGE. See: Adding Lookup Types and Values

    Define Elements for Information

  6. If you are not using Oracle Payroll, create elements to represent benefit plans. See: Defining an Element to Hold Information

    Define Benefit Deductions

    If you are using Oracle Payroll to process earnings and deductions:

  7. Initiate deductions to generate benefit plan elements, formulas, and balances.

  8. See: Customize Generated Elements, Balances, and Formulas

    Identify Carrier and Contribution Frequency

  9. In the Further Element Information window, select the benefits carrier and a period type to identify the frequency of employee contributions to the plan.

    Define Links

  10. If employer charges for the benefit should be distributed over other elements, define the distribution set.

  11. Define element linksfor each benefit to define one or more groups of employees who are eligible to receive it.

    See also: Element Link Details Report

    Enter Coverage Levels and Default Contributions

  12. For health care benefit plans, you can enter coverage levels and default employee and employer contribution amounts in the Benefit Contributions window.

    To enable this, you must first create specific input values for your element, and configure the formula and formula result rules generated by the Deductions window.

    See: Configuring Components for Health Care Benefit Plans

    See: Establishing Health Care Plan Coverage and Default Contributions

    Set Up COBRA

  13. Basic Benefits includes two reasons for terminating continued coverage under COBRA: End of Coverage and Non-payment. If you need additional reasons, add them in the Application Utilities Lookups window for the Lookup type US_COBRA_TERM_REASON. See: Adding Lookup Types and Values

  14. If necessary, modify the standard letters supplied for COBRA notification and termination. See: Standard Letters for COBRA Notification and Termination