What is Benefits Reconciliation™?
Benefit reconciliation™ (also referred to as premium reconciliation or health insurance reconciliation) is a monthly review of premium invoices against your company's payroll deductions to check for any discrepancies. Your company's benefits enrollment information and payroll deductions spreadsheet may contain the employee's name, effective date, coverage, and premium cost. The goal is to ensure there are no under-or-over payments, that employees are enrolled in the correct insurance plans, and that you're not paying premiums for terminated employees. The point person for this process will then determine what action needs to be taken to rectify any errors. This process is typically done by any HR Benefits Specialist or someone in Accounting.
Why should I automate the Benefits Reconciliation™ process?
Anytime there’s a manual process, inadvertent errors can be introduced. And anyone who’s ever done reconciliation of benefits knows that this process is extremely time-intensive and prone to errors, especially for companies with a large number of employees (and many monthly changes!). It’s very easy to miss over-or-under payments or if an employee is in the wrong plan or not enrolled at all. If errors are not caught in time, employers can face unexpected expenses and potential lawsuits.
How do companies typically reconcile their benefits?
A lot of companies perform this process using spreadsheets or print-outs and rulers highlighting areas of concern or discrepancy. Either process lends itself to mistakes, and even more so if there’s a change in HR personnel where historical insights are lost. We also hear that some companies are not auditing their benefits bills at all, which really not advisable.
We receive multiple carrier invoices a month, all in different formats. Will I need to convert this data to a default format for EverythingBenefits to work with?
No. EverythingBenefits is capable of working with all different file formats. During implementation, we will identify how your carriers are structuring their bills, and which file format they typically send. We will configure our system to support these files so that your only responsibility is to import them each month.
