Purpose

There are two distinct processes that a Benefits Administrator must manage when enroling eligible employees in company car plans. The first process has been dealt with in the previous document Process: Initial Company Car Plan Enrolment . The second process concerns the necessary steps required to enrol an employee who is renewing an existing company car plan.

This is a generalised process, which will, of course, vary depending on your organisation’s specific business requirements.

Process Flow

Company Car contracts in most organisations are valid usually for a period of between three and four years. When the contract terminates, some employees may renew their company car plan and select a new car. In this situation, the generalised processing is as follows:

The Benefits Administrator will run a specific report to produce the list of employees who are eligible for car renewal in the near future.

Benefits administrator informs eligible employees and creates the Car Selection event for the eligible employees by maintaining the adjustment reason Car Selection in the infotype Adjustment Reasons (0378).

In the event of Car selection , no infotype 0442 record is created.

The annual (open) enrolment period for Flexible Benefits opens. Using Employee Self Service (ESS), eligible employees select their car from the car options list. If they wish, employees can also choose Cost Overview to see the effect of their car selection on their Flexible Benefits package.

Before the cars are delivered to employees, the actual cost of the car is unknown. Therefore, the estimated benefit cost for company car is used to simulate the flexible benefit cost of providing the company car. Employees cannot enrol the selected option with the estimated benefit cost for company car, and thus, enrolment of the cars can only take place once the car is delivered.

Employees contact the car administrator to agree on the detailed specifications of the car selected. The Car Administrator then contacts the car plan provider to place the order.

This process step is completed outside of the Flexible Benefits system.

When the cars are delivered, the Car Administrator, the employees and Benefits Administrator are informed by the provider.

This process step is also completed outside of the Flexible Benefits system.

The Benefits Administrator and the Car Administrator receive the detailed information about the delivered cars from the car provider. The Benefits Administrator creates infotype Company Car (0442) records, after having calculated the benefit cost for the employees’ cars, according to the organization’s policy.

This value is entered into the Flexed value field on each employee’s infotype 0442 record. On the creation of infotype 0442, the adjustment reason Car Delivery (stored in infotype 0378) is presented and must be saved.

The creation of infotype Adjustment Reasons (0378) with the reason Car Delivery triggers an enrolment option Car Delivery on the ESS enrolment screen for eligible employees. The flexible benefit cost incurred is calculated from infotype 0442 and is displayed on the detail screen. Employees’ specific cars are presented and employees must enrol (accept) the car which subsequently creates an infotype Miscellaneous Plans (0377) record.

Multiple company car enrolment is not supported in GB FlexBens.

The begin date of infotype 0377 is closely related to the begin date of infotype 0378, which depends on your customising settings. You must ensure that the start date/end date of infotype 0442 is consistent with the start date/end date of infotype 0377.

After company car data has been maintained in infotype 0442, Car Selection can no longer be processed within the Flexible Benefits System.

During the entire company car enrolment process, employees can only simulate the benefit cost of their car selection, which is not stored in the system. Employees themselves, or the Benefits Administrator, can only “enrol” cars after they have been delivered to the employees concerned.

Employees can begin to select their second company car before their first company car’s contract end date.

The current company car details stored in infotype 0442 are delimited when the new car is delivered, and the employee has re-enroled their new company car.

Result

The required subsequent company cars have been delivered to employees, who are then officially enroled in an updated company car plan.

Example

The following scenario illustrates a typical benefits process for an employee who is eligible for his or her second company car, and who has previously been enroled in a company car plan. In this scenario, according to your organisation’s policy:

Company car contracts are valid for a three-year-period

Eligible employees are allowed up to two months to select their company car.

This scenario is as follows:

The Benefits Administrator runs a report on 01.07.2006 and finds the employee is eligible for his new company car from 07.08.2006.

On 01.07.2006, the administrator enables the Car Selection enrolment event for the employee by creating an infotype Adjustment Reasons (0378) record. The start date of the record is set to 07.07.2006 and the end date to 06.09.2006.

On 01.08.2006, using Employee Self Service (ESS), the employee selects car selection and simulates the costs for different car selections.

The system automatically takes the end date for the first car record plus one day, as the begin date for the second car record, which is 07.08.2006.

The employee selects his or her desired car and contacts the car dealer and/or Car Administrator for the car to be ordered.

The car is delivered to the employee on 23.08.2006.The HR Benefits Administrator and/or Car Administrator receive details about the car.

The Benefits/Car Administrator then carry out the following, to enrol the second car for the employee:

Maintain the car details in infotype 0442. The start date of infotype 0442 is set to 23.08.2006, and the end date to 22.08.2009.

Maintain the reason Car delivery in infotype 0378. The start date of infotype Miscellaneous Plans 0378 is set to 23.08.2006, and the end date to 22.09.2006.

Informs the employee that they must now accept (enrol) the car.

The employee enrols his or her selected car through via ESS, which creates a new infotype 0377 record. The start date of infotype 0377 is set to 23.08.2006, and the end date 22.08.2009.

In this scenario, the end date of the first car record is 06.08.2006, and the employee’s new car is delivered to him or her on 23.08.2006. Therefore, a gap exists between the end date of the first car record and the start date of the second car record. In this situation, you must firstly enrol the second car, and then extend the record for the first car in infotypes 0442 and 0377 to 23.08.2006.

There may instead be an overlap between the validity periods of the first and second car records. For example, in the scenario above, the new car is delivered to the employee on 07.07.2006. You must handle this overlap as follows:

To maintain the correct begin date for the second car record, you must manually shorten the end date for the first car record in infotypes 0442 and 0377, which in this scenario would be 06.07.2006. You must then enrol the second car with the begin date 07.07.2006.

To maintain the correct end date for the first car record, you must enrol the new car first, with the begin date derived from the end date of the first car record plus one day, that is 07.08.2006.