Personal Computer
Use
The use of a personal computer is a tax-advantageous benefit which provides a flexible option for employees within your organisation to meet their personal computing needs. Within personal computer benefits plans generally, a computer is provided for an employee usually for a period of either two or three years, for which the employee makes a payment. At the end of the period, he or she can either return the computer or retain it for a nominal fee.
Prerequisites
To administer a personal computer plan in
Flexible Benefits for Great Britain
(GB FlexBens), and enable eligible employees to enrol in it, you must have already defined and configured the
core benefits and/or
standard benefits you wish to offer your employees.
Initially, the Benefits Administration framework is created in Customising, under
Benefits
Administration
→
Basic Settings
and
Benefits
Administration
→
Flexible Administration
Subsequently, because personal computer plans are designated as a miscellaneous plan in GB FlexBens, this specific plan must also be customised under:
Benefits
Administration
→
Plans
→
Miscellaneous Plans
For more specific details concerning the specific customising required to implement personal computer plans in GB FlexBens, See
Activities
, below.
Features
Overview
Prior to implementing a personal computer plan, your organisation negotiates the cost of each type of computer package with the provider, which may also include printer and scanner options. As a result of the negotiations, the provider sets the cost for each type of computer package. This then forms the basis of the cost of the benefit to your employees, possibly repayable on a reducing balance principle, depending on how your organisation administers this particular plan.
The actual packages of personal computers and other computer hardware can be tailored to fit the needs of each individual organisation. In GB FlexBens, three sample options for personal computer benefit plans (PC plans) are delivered:
Benefit Plan Option |
Annual Cost |
|---|---|
Entry Level Desktop PC |
GBP 800 |
Laptop/Portable PC |
GBP 1100 |
High Specification Desktop PC |
GBP 1300 |
Miscellaneous benefit plans are used to implement PC plans in GB FlexBens. The plan must be configured as a miscellaneous plan with
cost variant and rule
(see also
Activities
). SAP recommends that the number of specific options for this plan is kept to a minimum, to reduce the pre-configuration workload of creating multiple computer plan options.
Tax free threshold
Under current GB taxation legislation, personal computer plans possess a tax free threshold above which plan payments become taxable. Payments into this particular plan are tax free up to an annual threshold amount. Any PC plan payments above this amount are taxable in the payroll.
You must make two customising settings to implement the tax free threshold for the PC plan:
- Define the PC plan as possessing a tax threshold, by setting the Tax Free Boundary Indicator in the IMG step
Define Flexible Benefits Miscellaneous Plan Attributes (FLEX
). - Maintain the value of this tax free threshold in the IMG step:
Define Annual Tax Free Boundary for Miscellaneous Plan (FLEX)
.
For more information on these and the other required Customizing steps, see
Activities
.
Implementing a personal computer plan
Similar to company car benefit plans , the PC plan is usually a two- or three-year commitment, which makes it different to the vast majority of Flexible Benefits plans which have only a one year validity period which corresponds to the benefits year of the organisation in question. Therefore, you must implement the personal computer plan in a different way to the other one-year benefits plans.
In
Flexible Benefits for Great Britain
, there are two possible ways for you to implement your PC plan:
- You customise the GB FlexBens system to allow eligible employees to enrol in a PC plan via a
Personal Computer
adjustment reason. In GB FlexBens, the adjustment reason is also referred to as alife event.
PC plan enrolment via an adjustment reason is totally separate from the annual (open) enrolment process.
SAP strongly recommends that you use this first method to implement your PC plan.
- You customise the GB FlexBens system so that employees can enrol a two- or three-year PC plan as part of the annual (open) enrolment process.
This is not the SAP-recommended solution.
For more detailed information on these two implementation options, see also: Implementing a GB FlexBens Personal Computer Plan .
Activities
As noted in
Prerequisites
, within GB FlexBens, personal computer plans are implemented as a miscellaneous plan. There are a number of customising activities that must be performed to implement personal computer benefit plans. These are listed below:
1. IMG section:
Benefits
Administration
→
Basic Settings:
Define a personal computer benefit plan type
Under:
Plan Attributes
→
Define Benefit Plan Types
2. IMG section:
Benefits
Administration
→
Plans
→
Miscellaneous Plans
Define a personal computer benefit plan
Under:
Define Miscellaneous Plans General Data
Define attributes for the personal computer benefit plan
You define attributes for the plan in two IMG steps, under:
Define Flexible Benefits Plan General Attributes for Misc. Plan (FLEX)
Define Flexible Benefits Miscellaneous Plan Attributes (FLEX)
Maintain the value of the tax free threshold for the plan
Under:
Annual Tax Free Boundary for Miscellaneous Plan (FLEX)
.
Define a cost variant for the plan
Under:
Define Cost Variants
Define a cost rule for the plan
Under:
Define Cost Rules
Assign options to the personal computer benefit plan
Under:
Assign Miscellaneous Plan Attributes
Depending on your specific requirements, you may also wish to implement PC plan jumping settings, under
Benefits
Administration
→
Plans
→
Miscellaneous
Plans
→
Define Miscellaneous Plan Option Jumping Setting (FLEX)
. In this IMG step, you define the permitted PC plan options available for employees when they re-enrol this particular benefits plan.