Benefits of Integrating Payroll Systems With Employee Navigator

Article written and submitted by Larry Kagen, Founder & CEO of Baron Payroll.

Paperwork: No one loves it, and sometimes you just forget to do it when you get busy.

Let's say you hire a new employee, and you plan to offer them benefits after 60 days. But it's your peak season, and it fell through the cracks. Or let's say you terminated an employee, but didn't immediately remember to cut off their benefits.

These days, your insurance broker and your payroll company can handle all of this for you electronically, and make sure that nothing gets neglected. You're busy, and it shouldn't all fall on you anyway.

Employee Navigator, a benefits administration software program used by health insurance brokers, now connects with our human resources and payroll system to automatically integrate your benefit plan data into one software platform for your employees and your company. 

That way, when you add a new employee to your payroll, the system will automatically tell Employee Navigator that they need benefits within 60 days. And if someone leaves the company, our system updates Employee Navigator, so your health insurance broker knows to terminate them from your benefit plans.

It works in reverse, too: Whatever your employee selects as their health insurance plan and tier (employee only, employee with children, employee and spouse, or family), Employee Navigator tells the payroll system so it can make the correct deductions from your employee's paychecks.

It saves everyone time, and it removes human error from the equation.

How the integrated systems work

In the past, every year, employees would gather in a conference room to hear about their benefits options during open enrollment periods. Then, they would get a piece of paper that explained their choices, and they'd fill that out and return it to their managers or HR representatives.

Now, this can all happen online. Employees can log into a benefits portal, select their plans and call it a day without any physical paper exchanging hands. They can designate beneficiaries for life insurance. They can choose medical, dental, vision, and supplemental insurance options.

Ready, the payroll system Baron uses, is now integrated with Employee Navigator, so even more can be handled with ease online.

You won't need to update benefits information in your payroll system. You won't need to update payroll information in your benefits system.

The integration, developed by Kronect Integrations, opens a window between the two systems, allowing Ready and Employee Navigator to talk to each other and connect information.

If there's a change of address, name, phone number, or email, it updates in both systems. This eliminates the need for manual updates, saving time and stress for HR and payroll teams, said Madisson Hlavacek of Kronect Integrations.

How it saves an employer time and removes human error

You likely already have a broker who helps you select and administer your benefits, and you probably already use a payroll company to manage payroll as well.

The Employee Navigator integration with Ready helps ensure those two elements of your business connect smoothly and run properly, eliminating the need for endless paperwork and lessening the ability of human error to introduce incorrect spellings, numbers, and more.

It's a powerful tool worthy of your toolbox.

Phillip Byer, CEO of Schulman Insurance Brokerage, said his clients love the ability to handle everything online, even more so now than they did before the pandemic. It’s efficient and saves them time and headaches.

The systems also allow an employer and broker to see a timeline of the information their employees access, Byer noted. In a situation where an employee may miss a deadline for open enrollment and claim they didn't have access to the benefits system, the timeline feature allows an employer to see whether that is true.

"It's a great platform that helps us give back time and resources to all of our clients," Byer said.

It's affordable to use Employee Navigator

Sometimes, when people hear about a technological solution, they assume it's expensive and out of reach.

But Employee Navigator isn't. Instead, it's affordable and scalable for small- and medium-sized businesses. And it'll make your business life simpler and more efficient.

If your insurance broker doesn't already use Employee Navigator, it may be time to consider switching brokers so you can improve your operational efficiency and eliminate headaches.

You want technology that you can set and forget. This is a perfect example of that.