Payroll processing is a primary task for the plan sponsor. PlanPremier®-TPA provides two options for this – they’re available on login to the Plan Service Center website, under the Process Center tab:
In this method, also known as guided payroll, the plan sponsor manually submits contributions as well as adds plan participants and update participant information in the same module.
There are four steps in this manual method: entering payroll information, selecting money sources, updating participant information, and confirming the contributions.
With this method, payroll data is uploaded using a payroll data interchange (PDI) file. This may be more effective than manual processing for plans with over 50 participants.
The process is initiated each payroll period by the plan sponsor or TPA, or it may be initiated by a payroll vendor utilizing Payroll Bridge. The updated file can be processed immediately or saved for later. Saved payroll contribution files can be viewed, completed or canceled from the pending payroll file section.
Like the manual method, the automated method can be used to process contributions as well as update participant information.
The Process Center tab also offers a tutorial, FAQ documents, and hover-over help text for each processing option.
Because payroll processing integrates participant data updates and new employee information, additional plan services are available such as participant eligibility and vesting calculations, online plan enrollment, automatic enrollment and census file generation.