Manage Open Enrollment Renewal Using Benefits Administration
How do I renew open enrollment using Benefits Administration?
Purpose: It is that time of year again...open enrollment! This guide will show you how to prepare for open enrollment renewal with BambooHR® Benefits Administration.
Table of Contents
If you currently are using Benefits Tracking and do not have Benefits Administration enabled, the open enrollment process will look a little different. Check out this help guide for managing open enrollment with Benefits Tracking.
Tip: You can use the Missing Data report to find what you need to update.
Employees
Ensure that your benefits-eligible employees' job and pay information are up to date. Job and pay information is on the Job tab of the employee profile. Once you navigate to the Job tab, review the following fields:
- Hire Date
- Employment Status
- Location
- Division
- Department
- Pay Schedule
- Pay Type
- Pay Rate
- Paid Per
Dependents
Your employees can update information about their dependents on their Benefits tab prior to the enrollment period or when they start their enrollment experience* in BambooHR.
If the employee updates or adds a dependent on the Benefits tab, they will need to have the First Name, Last Name, Birth Date, Gender, and Relationship fields filled out for the dependent to show up in the enrollment experience.
If you require approval for changes in the Dependents table, make sure you allow yourself enough time to approve the changes before the enrollment period begins.
*When admins approve an employee's benefit elections, the system will indicate any changes made to an employee's dependents at the start of enrollment, but those changes are not subject to the information approval workflow (if set up in your account).
The next step is to prepare your benefit plans for renewal. If your plans are not changing, you can extend the expiration date. If the plan is changing, it is best practice to duplicate the plan, make updates to the new one, and let the old plan expire. If you are no longer using a plan, let it expire rather than deleting it. Lastly, make sure to add any new plans to the account if you are expanding your benefits package, and be mindful of the changes in plan settings.
BambooHR® Payroll
If you use both Benefits Administration and Payroll in BambooHR, you will have additional options for carrying over plans year to year for open enrollment. Click here to learn more.
You will also need to create a new plan year and select which benefit plans to include in the plan year.
When setting up a new enrollment window, you will also need to select which plan year the enrollment window applies to. Once you select the plan year, the system will automatically infer the plans available for that plan year. Benefit plans not included in the plan year will be grayed out and unavailable for selection.
On the Plan Years tab, you can find and update any missing data in the Employee Elections column. A blue hyperlink, Update Missing Info, will indicate that the plan year has missing data, such as employee and dependent demographics (SSN, address, state, etc.) and/or company information (ACA settings). This information is required for syncing accurate benefit data with your carriers through the three options BambooHR offers.
Once you verify your employees' data and benefit plans, you can create a new enrollment window for the next enrollment period. Make sure to include an effective date and the window start and end dates. Then, select the plan year and the people you want to include in the enrollment window.
The enrollment experience filters the plans for each employee based on eligibility settings in the plan setup. You do not have to worry about your employees enrolling in a plan they are not eligible for.
Once the enrollment period closes, you can approve your employees' benefit elections and run the summary reports on the Reports tab in BambooHR. The Benefit Election Changes report is a great way to see any changes in employee elections between the last enrollment period and the current enrollment period.
In BambooHR, you can choose from a few options to send your employees' enrollment elections to your carriers.
- After you have run your reports, you can export and download them as an Excel, CSV, or PDF file to submit to your carriers. For more information, view the Benefit Elections Changes Report and Enrollment Window Election Summary Report help guides.
- Once your employees complete their enrollment elections, you can download employee forms through the PDF Form Builder. The system will autofill fields on the form with applicable information upon download, and after downloading the forms, you can send the forms to your carriers as per their upload instructions.
- If you have carrier connections* enabled, your employees' enrollment data in BambooHR will automatically sync to your carrier's system. Please note that your employees must have Benefits Administration enabled in order to have their data sent to your carriers.
Congratulations! You successfully completed another open enrollment season.
*If you do not have carrier connections enabled and would like to prepare for setting it up in the new year, please review the PDF checklist linked below to ensure each step is complete.
The Carrier Connections help guide also provides additional information about the setup.