Create a Benefit Plan in Benefits Administration

This guide provides a comprehensive overview of setting up a benefit plan in Benefits Administration. It details the process from entering plan details to defining eligibility, costs, coverage options, and payroll deductions. The guide includes a table of contents and sections on plan details, coverage options, premium types, eligibility and costs, enrollment details, and payroll deductions. Users can add new carriers during setup and manage unsupported coverage levels. The guide emphasizes the importance of standardization in coverage options and provides tips for effective management. Additionally, it outlines necessary steps for integrating with BambooHR Payroll. For further assistance, links to additional resources are available throughout the guide.

  • Jul 8, 2026
  • Knowledge

Title
Create a Benefit Plan in Benefits Administration
Article Text
Benefits Administration is only included as an add-on.

This guide walks you through each step of setting up a benefit plan in Benefits Administration. It includes everything from entering plan details to defining eligibility costs, coverage options, and payroll deductions. All information that previously appeared in Benefits Tracking is still covered here, along with the fields and features available in Benefits Administration.

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Table of Contents

Managing plan setup, employee elections, and approvals across disconnected processes? With BambooHR® Benefits Administration, you can bring everything into one streamlined workflow—from configuring plans and eligibility to guiding employees through enrollment and giving admins a clear way to review and approve elections. Explore more ways to simplify benefits management.

Plan Details

The Plan Details step is where you will enter key information to set up the plan. Some details help define how the plan functions behind the scenes, while others appear to employees during enrollment to help them understand their options. Required fields (marked with an asterisk) vary depending on the plan type you select.

Tip: If you are setting up an age-banded plan, such as medical, voluntary life, voluntary life and AD&D, or disability, you can use the age-banded rate calculator. Employees will view age-specific rates during enrollment, and those rates automatically appear on the approval page when you review their benefit elections.

FieldDetails
Plan Name*Enter the full name of the plan. This name displays on the benefit plan card so employees can clearly identify it.
Carrier*Choose the carrier from your list of existing carriers. If you need to add a new carrier during setup, you can add it directly from the carrier dropdown menu. Click here to learn more.
Group Number*

Enter the group number provided by your carrier for this plan. This is the unique identifier that your carrier uses to identify your company. 

Together with the Plan Type ID, this value helps the carrier identify the exact plan an employee is enrolled in. These fields also appear in the Enrollment Window Election Summary report.

Plan Type*Select the type of benefit plan (e.g., PPO, HMO, etc.). This field becomes locked (not editable) once the plan is saved.
Plan Type ID

Enter the ID provided by your carrier. This identifies the specific plan offering under the carrier.

Together with the Group Number, this value helps the carrier identify the exact plan the employee is enrolled in. You can typically find this in your carrier documentation, such as your account structure document.

SummaryProvide a short summary (up to 50 characters) to help employees understand the plan at a glance. 
DescriptionAdd more detailed information describing coverage, cost details, or important plan features. This helps employees compare their options more easily.
Plan Starts*Choose the date when this plan becomes effective.
Plan Ends*Select the date when the plan will no longer be active.
Attachments

You can attach plan information for employees to review during enrollment. 

  • Main Plan URL: Add a link employees can access from the Benefits tab after they enroll.
  • Link: Enter an additional link if needed. To add multiple links, click +Add Another Link.
  • Link Display Name: Ensure all links have a label that clearly describes what each link contains.
  • Attached Files:Upload supporting documents employees can download during the enrollment process. Supported file types include:PDF, DOC, DOCX, BMP, XLS, XLSX, CSV, TXT, JPG, JPEG, TIF, RTF, TIFF, GIF, PNG, and ZIP.
    • Note: Employees can download attached files only during enrollment. If they need long-term access, you can upload the files to the Files tab and then share the folder with employees.
ACA ComplianceIf ACA tracking is turned on in your account, you will see an additional section where you can indicate whether the plan meets the minimum value standard and qualifies as minimum essential coverage.
  • Collecting beneficiary information is currently available for only life insurance plans (life, voluntary life, AD&D).
  • ACA and COBRA reporting are not currently supported in BambooHR.

Using BambooHR® Payroll? Review our Changes to Benefits with Payroll help guide for details on how to add, duplicate, or delete benefit plans that sync with Payroll.

Add a new carrier
Add Medical Plan

You can add a new carrier directly during benefit plan setup.

  1. Open the Carrier dropdown menu.
  2. Select +Add Carrier.
  3. Choose a carrier from the predefined list.
Add Medical Plan

If your carrier is not listed, choose +Add a new carrier to create one.

You will also notice a message indicating whether your company qualifies for a carrier connection.

After the plan is saved, the Carrier field cannot be edited in the benefit plan setup. However, you can manage carrier information from the Carriers tab in Settings > Benefits.

Coverage Options

Add Medical Plan

Benefits Administration offers the following standardized coverage levels you can choose from when building the plan:

  • Employee
  • Employee + Spouse
  • Employee + Child
  • Employee + Children
  • Employee + Family

Select the coverage levels you want this plan to support. These selections determine which dependents employees can enroll during the enrollment process.

Resolve unsupported coverage levels

If your company previously used Benefits Tracking, you may notice an error message in indicating that some existing benefit plans include coverage options (levels) that are not supported in Benefits Administration. This message can appear in several places:

  • Plans tab in Settings
  • The employee's Benefits tab
  • Bulk enrollment tool

Because Benefits Administration uses standardized coverage levels, a few legacy options no longer match the supported structure. The table below shows how the previous Benefits Tracking coverage levels align with the standardized levels in Benefits Administration.

Benefits TrackingBenefits Administration
Employee + ChildEmployee + Child
Two PartyEmployee + Spouse
Employee + Children
Employee + Family
Family OnlyNot available
Custom coverage optionsNot available

If you find that one of your plans includes an unsupported coverage level, don't worry—this is easy to fix. You can update any unsupported coverage levels by adjusting the plan's coverage levels. The steps to resolve the error depend on where you are viewing the message, and the next section provides the workflows for all three locations so you can follow the one that applies to you.

From Settings > Plans

  1. Open the benefit plan from Settings > Plans.
  2. Go to the Coverage Options step.
  3. Review the employees currently assigned to unsupported coverage levels
  4. Select the supported coverage levels you want this plan to offer.
  5. After saving your changes, use the bulk enrollment tool to reassign your employees to supported coverage levels.

From the employee's Benefits tab

  1. Click the benefit plan they are enrolled in.
  2. Select a supported coverage level from the Who's Covered dropdown menu.
  3. Save the update.

From bulk enrollment

  1. Select the affected employees.
  2. Choose a supported coverage level from the Who's Covered dropdown menu.
  3. Save the updates.

Keep these limitations in mind as you add or edit coverage options for a benefit plan.

  • Benefits Administration does not support custom coverage levels.
  • You cannot add defined coverage options to "Other" plan types.

Premium Type

In the Premium Type step, you will need to choose how the plan's monthly premiums are calculated. The options available depend on the plan type you are setting up.

Available premium types may include:

  • Standard/Composite Rate
  • Variable Rate
  • Age-Banded Rate (shown for eligible plan types)

Select the premium type that matches the cost structure your company has set up with the carrier for this plan.

If you have variable rate plans without coverage levels, these plans appear grayed-out when you create a new enrollment window. To make them selectable, define coverage levels for the plan in the Coverage Options step.

Standard costs are not automatically calculated for variable rate and "Other" plan types unless you set up a rate calculator for standard rate disability or voluntary AD&D plans.

Eligibility and Cost

The Eligibility and Cost step allows you to define who is eligible for the plan, when they become eligibile, and how much the employee and the company pay toward the premium. You can also create specific eligibility groups if different groups of employees receive the same coverage but at different costs.

For more information on setting up eligibility and cost details, click here.

Add class codes

Class codes help you define employment class codes that match your account structure for underwriting, pricing and cost calculations. Adding class codes in BambooHR lets you create a standardized structure that identifies which benefit plans are available to specific classes of employees.

When creating a eligibility group (Group 1, Group 2, etc.), you can enter the following information:

FieldDescription
Class NameThe name you and your carrier use to identify this group of employees
Class CodeA unique idenifier used by carriers to determine an employee’s rates, coverage terms, and more 
Class DescriptionOptional context you can share with your carrier to clarify which employees belong to this class

You can refine the eligibility criteria for an eligibility group by selecting specific job titles that meet the class distinction.

  1. Click +Add Filters.
  2. Choose Job Title.
  3. Select the applicable job titles.
  4. Save your selections.

This ensures your employees only access the plans available to their class; for example, if certain employer-paid disability or life insurance plans have different coverage options by employment class.

Benefits Administration reports and the PDF Form Builder do not currently reflect class codes.

Enrollment Details

In the Enrollment Details setup, you can choose which questions employees need to answer about themselves and their dependents during enrollment. These questions reflect common carrier requirements and help ensure you collect any information needed to process benefit elections.

Employees will answer these questions during the first few steps of the enrollment experience. You can choose to include questions for employees, dependents, or both, depending on what your carrier requires.

If your plan includes legal information that employees must acknowledge, select Yes to add a legal text box. You can enter up to 50,000 characters. If the employee elects the plan, they will be able to view and acknowledge this information during enrollment.

Payroll Deduction

In the Payroll Deduction step, you will need to specify how often the benefit plan's deductions should occur. This setup works similarly to the experience in Benefits Tracking.

If deductions should occur every paycheck, select Yes (most common). If they should skip certain paychecks, select No, it skips some paychecks and adjust the frequency for each pay schedule to match how your company handles deductions.

When you are finished, you can choose either of the following:

  1. Save  Finish Later to save a draft, or
  2. Finish  Save Plan once your plan setup is complete.

If your company uses BambooHR Payroll, you will also need to answer a few additional questions about deductions to ensure deductions sync correctly with payroll processing.

Need more details about plan types with additional settings? Our Create Benefit Plans for Specific Plan Types guide covers plan-specific settings and considerations for plan types that include unique configuration options, such as life insurance, HSA/FSA, and more.

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