One of the first questions that needs to be answered after determining your Data Migration Plan is, what data should be moved to your new HRIS system?
There are several reasons why it is important to transfer the right employee benefits data. The following are some things to consider:
- Employees should be able to continue enrolling in the new system seamlessly.
- Employee records should be complete and should include important pieces, such as beneficiaries for life insurance benefits.
- New and pending Benefit Events should register accurately in the new system (i.e., the new system should trigger a pending 90-day eligibility for a new hire).
Critical Benefits Data Items to Move to Your New HRIS System
The following are employee benefits data elements you should plan to gather and migrate to a new system.
- Current enrollments
- Dependents
- Beneficiary records (needed for life insurance elections)
- Evidence of Insurability (EOI) elections for current and pending insurance amounts
- Hours (if applicable for your plan) for ACA measurement and tracking
- Employee terminations in the applicable ACA Filling Year (required for ACA filling)
- Leaves and Direct Billing (if applicable)
Payroll Records vs. Participant Data
There is an important difference between payroll records and benefits enrollment data. Payroll contains records for all employees, including those eligible and not eligible for benefits while benefits data only exists for enrolled employees. For this reason, HCM Tech Advisory recommends using the payroll system as the master data source when converting to a new HRIS system. This is important to ensure the new HRIS system:
- Captures your entire population
- Supports system programming to automatically capture newly eligibles
- Avoids manual tracking and movement of data
- Enables quality assurance of your payroll vs. enrollment data
Other items to consider include uploaded documents and electronic signatures. Having a plan of how you can keep and reference this data if ever needed is key.
Benefit calculations work seamlessly only if the right data is loaded and if that data is accurate. The data migration process to a new HR system provides an opportunity to reconcile your employee enrollment data by comparing your master data, payroll and benefits, with the carrier’s system.
HCM Tech Advisory has the expertise and experience to help answer your questions related to benefits and HR data or provide a deeper dive into best practices for migrating data into new HRIS systems. To learn more and for a complimentary consulting review, contact us at info@hcmtechadvisory.com.
