UZIO Product Updates, January 2025

In this release, we have launched a new expense module assisted by AI,  and made significant improvements, primarily focusing on enhancing HRIS, Scheduling, and Payroll, along with other updates.

If you have any questions or feedback regarding these new features or improvements, please feel free to email us at support@uzio.com.

 Quick Links

UZIO New Expense Module (AI-Assisted)

UZIO HRIS Enhancements

• Customizable Holiday Policies

UZIO Scheduling Enhancements

• Show/Hide Pay Rates and Hours on the Schedule

UZIO Payroll Enhancements

• General Ledger (XLS) Breakdown at Employee Level
• Increased Catchup limit per SECURE 2.0 for Retirement Benefits

UZIO New Expense Module (AI-Assisted)

At UZIO, we’re continuously innovating to make workplace solutions smarter, simpler, and more effective. We’re thrilled to announce the launch of our AI-Assisted Expense Module, a groundbreaking feature designed to streamline and simplify expense management for businesses of all sizes. With our new AI-powered system, managing expenses is about to become effortless and highly efficient.

Key Highlights

AI-Driven Policy Extraction

Employers can upload their expense policies directly into the system, where AI analyzes the document and extracts relevant categories for quick and accurate configuration. If necessary, categories can be tailored for specific needs.

Configurable Auto-Approval Settings

Employers can customize whether expenses should be auto-approved by AI or require manual review. This provides the flexibility to balance automation with oversight.

Policy Compliance Made Easy

The module automatically flags non-compliant submissions based on your company’s policies. Employees are alerted to potential issues before submission, and managers can review flagged expenses effortlessly.

AI Assistant for Expense Submission

An intuitive AI-powered chat assistant simplifies the expense submission process. Employees can easily provide all necessary details in a user-friendly conversational interface.

Comprehensive Compliance and Fraud Checks

AI rigorously analyzes every expense to ensure compliance with company policies and detects potential fraud using advanced algorithms, protecting the organization from erroneous or fraudulent claims.

Automated Approvals with Managerial Insights

Expenses that meet policies and pass fraud detection are auto-approved by the AI. Discrepancies are flagged with detailed remarks, helping managers make informed decisions quickly.

Daily Expense Summaries

Managers or Admins and employees receive daily email snapshots summarizing expense statuses, including pending and auto-approved submissions, ensuring complete transparency.

Seamless Payroll Integration

Approved expenses are automatically transmitted  into the next pay run in the UZIO payroll system, ensuring timely and hassle-free reimbursements to employees.

Why Choose UZIO’s AI-Assisted Expense Module?

• Enhanced Efficiency: Automates repetitive tasks to free up time for strategic activities.
• Improved Accuracy: AI-driven processes reduce human error and improve data reliability.
• Streamlined Operations: From submission to reimbursement, the module ensures a smooth, hassle-free experience.
• Comprehensive Control: Employers maintain full oversight with customizable settings and detailed insights.

With the launch of this innovative AI-Assisted Expense Module, UZIO is setting a new standard in expense management. Whether you're a small business or a large organization, our solution is tailored to meet your needs, helping you save time, reduce errors, and enhance operational efficiency.

To get the AI-Assisted Expense Module in your UZIO account today, contact our team support@uzio.com for a live demo. 

UZIO HRIS Enhancements 

Customizable Holiday Policies

We are excited to introduce a significant enhancement to UZIO’s Holiday Calendar feature! With the new Holiday Policy functionality, you can now create multiple holiday policies tailored to different employee groups, offering greater flexibility and precision. Here’s what’s new:

Key Highlights

Define Paid or Unpaid Holidays

Customize your holiday policies to specify whether holidays are paid or unpaid, aligning with your organization’s compensation structure and operational needs.

Set Eligibility Criteria (e.g., Waiting Periods)

Establish clear eligibility rules, such as waiting periods, to ensure employees meet specific conditions before earning holiday benefits.

Premiums for Worked Hours

Offer premium pay for hours worked on holidays to fairly compensate employees working on designated days off.

Configure Holiday Pay Rules

Easily set pay rules for holidays, including scenarios where paid time off is used around holidays, to ensure productivity and compliance.

Create and Assign Fixed, Floating, or Custom Holidays

Choose between fixed or floating holidays, add custom holidays, and assign them to specific employee groups for seamless holiday management.

Automatic Syncing with Timesheets and Payroll

• Time Tracking: Holiday hours and holiday premium hours will automatically sync to employee timesheets.
• Payroll: Holiday and holiday premium amounts will sync directly into the payroll grid and be processed using system-defined earnings (Holiday and Holiday Premium).

For Existing Clients - Automatic Transition

Existing clients using Holiday Calendar set up in Time Off will be automatically transitioned to the new Holiday Policy setup, without requiring any manual updates.

What is automatically done by the system?

If your UZIO company account had a holiday calendar set up, it has been transitioned into the new structure introduced with this release. This means a holiday policy has been automatically created. The policy is configured as a paid holiday policy with no waiting period and no holiday premium applicable, mirroring the settings of your account prior to this update. Standard holiday hours are set up in the holiday policy and aligned with the standard hours configured under your Time Off policies. If needed, you can modify the system-created policy and make changes as required.

Payroll Process for Holiday and Holiday Premium Earnings

With this update, the system has been enhanced to calculate the holiday premium and sync it to payroll if a holiday policy specifies that your company offers a holiday premium. For all existing clients, the default setting is NO for the holiday premium. However, you will now see a new Holiday Premium earning added to your company’s earnings list. If you update the holiday policy and set the option Do you pay holiday premium? to Yes, the system will begin calculating and syncing the holiday premium to payroll.

• For companies with a previously created Holiday Premium earning: If you manually created a Holiday Premium earning before this update, it will remain in your account. However, the system will not use the manually created earnings. Instead, it will use the newly created Holiday Premium earning added by the system, which you may now see as a duplicate.
• For companies with or without a Holiday earning: If no Holiday earning existed in your account, the system has created one for you. Holiday hours will be synced to this earning going forward. If a Holiday earning already existed in your account, the system will use that earning to sync holiday hours to payroll going forward.

If you any questions with the holiday and holiday premium setup, please reach out to UZIO support at support@uzio.com

UZIO Scheduling Enhancements

Show/Hide Pay Rates and Hours on the Schedule

Managers now have the option to hide employees' cost (and hours) on schedules. This ensures that confidential cost details remain secure. When downloading the schedules in PDF or XLS the visibility of cost and hours on the downloaded schedule will match your chosen setting, providing you better control and flexibility.

UZIO Payroll Enhancements

General Ledger (XLS) Breakdown at Employee Level

General Ledger XLS Report has been enhanced to display General Ledger Chart of account details for each employee payment. To display this information, a new tab “General Ledger - Details” has been added in the XLS report.

Increased Catchup limit per SECURE 2.0 for Retirement Benefits

Under the SECURE 2.0 Act, catch-up contributions for qualified plans (401k, 403b, 457b, SIMPLE IRA) will increase for individuals aged 50 and older, with additional increases for those aged 60-63 starting in 2025.

To support this, we have introduced a global option to enable this setting. Before activating the new setting, please review the plan summary or participant disclosures for details on contribution limits and catch-up provisions, and consult your plan administrator to confirm that the retirement plan aligns with the SECURE 2.0 Act provisions.

The new setting is present under Payroll Setup → Federal Taxation screen.