Here are the latest product enhancements UZIO has introduced in our February release:

Benefits Administration Enhancements

Ability to Approve or Reject Life Status Changes Submitted by Employees

UZIO has introduced a new feature that allows an employer to decide which life status changes they want to approve before benefit changes become effective.  This means employers or brokers can review the changes submitted by an employee before the benefit changes are finalized. 

As a part of this feature, employers will also have the option to include some custom messaging during an employee’s LSC enrollment which can request specific documentation as proof of their life status change.  Employees will be able to upload supporting documents during the enrollment, which can then be reviewed by the employer or broker before approving the pending enrollment. 

As the employee is enrolling, they will see an option to upload a document to support their claim of a life status change. 

If the life status change event submitted by an employee is configured to pend for approval, the enrollment will remain in a pending status until it is approved by the broker or employer.  While the enrollment is pending, employees can see the pending enrollment on their My Benefits page. 

For brokers, they can view employees who are pending approval under the “Employee pending enrollments” section of the Dashboard tab. 

Employers can view employees who are pending under the Status Change section of the Enrollment Dashboard. 

The enrollment can be approved or rejected on the employee’s Enrollment Summary page under the Pending Approval section:

Note: Until enrollments are approved, they will not appear in any reports.  If the employee has a previous enrollment, that enrollment will be present in any reports until the pending enrollment is approved.  If a life status change is rejected, the enrollment will be cancelled and not be visible on the portal anymore.  In this case, a new life status change will need to be submitted.  Also, while an employee has an enrollment in pending status, back office will not be accessible to the broker. 

Configure Employee Decision Support System On or Off

UZIO has a decision support system feature that can be used by employees to find the best fit medical plan.  This specific workflow will ask employees some high-level questions about their current medical plan utilization, and the system will suggest a best fit plan when they reach the medical plan listing page.  If only one medical plan is being offered, or the employer does not want to show this workflow to their employees, this setting can be configured to “off” in the employer settings. 

Premium HR Enhancements

New Employer User Roles and Customization

In this new release, we are enhancing the employer user functionality to introduce two new user roles and give the employer admin the ability to customize what each user can view. 

1.  HR Manager: This new role will allow a user to access HR premium modules like Time Off, Hiring and On-boarding, etc. 
2. Payroll Manager: This role will only appear as an option in the event that an employer is using the UZIO Payroll system.  This user will be able to access the Payroll module, run payroll and download all payroll reports. 

While adding a new employer user, the option to give access to other parts of the system will be available.  For example, if you are adding a Payroll Manager, you can give access to this user to access the benefits and/or HR functionality in the system.  These permissions can be edited at a later time if required. 

UZIO Payroll Enhancements

Ability to set up multiple company bank accounts for different payroll payments

UZIO has enhanced its Company Bank Account set up feature to allow users to set up multiple banks for direct deposits and tax payments. A new field called “Account Used For” will be used to decide whether a bank account is for payroll, taxes or both. 

1. Payroll account will be used for making employee direct deposits and child support payments.
2. Taxes account will be used for making federal and state tax payments.

Note: As of now maximum two company bank accounts can be added. Every new bank account information will go though the existing approval workflow.

Ability to set up multiple employee bank accounts to distribute net pay

UZIO has enhanced its employee Payment Method setup feature to allow employees to set up multiple bank accounts and distribute their net pay among them.

Salient points of enhanced feature are:

1. Employees will be able to set up maximum of 5 bank accounts.
2. Net pay can be distributed based on percentages or $ amount.
3. In case of $ amount distribution, user will have to assign priority (1 being the highest priority) to the bank account based on which amount will be deposited in the bank accounts, until the whole net pay is distributed.
4. In case of percentage distribution, user will have to make sure the total amount across bank accounts add up to 100%.

Ability to select distribution method

Percentage distribution

Flat $ distribution

Ability to add and pay contractors

UZIO has enhanced its payroll module to support payment to contractors. Users will be able to add contractors and make payment to them via both direct deposits and checks. 

Salient points of enhanced feature are:

1. Both business as well as individual contractors can be paid.
2. As of now, only Non-employee Compensation (Box 7 on 1099 form) payment is supported.
3. Employer can also download the pay statement for bookkeeping or for sending to contractors.

Page to capture contractor details

Page for making payments

Page to download pay statement

Payroll system enhancement to include changes in W4 form effective from 01/01/2020

The employee federal tax information UI and the payroll engine were enhanced to accommodate the changes in W4 form which are effective 01/01/2020.  

Salient points of enhanced feature are:

1. For employees with hire date prior to 01/01/2020, both the W4 forms will be available and user can choose either of them.
2. For employees with hire date on or after 01/01/2020 only the updated W4 form will be applicable.
3. The taxation logic has been updated to calculate taxes as per the updated 2020 W4 form.

Tax withholding setup page

Payroll Reports

 Following reports have been added to Payroll Reports repository:

• Direct Deposit Details Report: Employers can download the report to view the direct deposit transactions of employees for selected payrolls and pay frequencies within a selected date range.
• Contractor Payment Report: Employer report to view payments made to different contractors within a selected time period.
• Payroll Cost Report: Employer report to view the details of total payroll cost for a selected pay run.
• Payroll Register Report: In addition to excel format, the employers can now download the Payroll Register in a PDF format also.

Miscellaneous Improvements

• Reminder notifications to employer users when payroll is pending
• Earnings and Deduction setup during payroll run enhanced to allow negative values
• State of Texas has been added to the list of states covered by UZIO Payroll.