An HR Administrator's Checklist for Benefits Administration

This article outlines the Benefits Administration process in BambooHR, detailing the steps necessary for effective management. It begins with an introduction to adding BambooHR® Benefits Administration to an account, followed by a comprehensive guide covering essential steps: adding benefit plans, verifying carriers, creating a plan year, establishing enrollment windows, approving benefit elections, and sending enrollment data to carriers. Each step includes specific instructions, tips, and resources for further learning. The article emphasizes the importance of accurate employee information and provides options for exporting enrollment data in various formats. It concludes with encouragement for users to familiarize themselves with the process and utilize available tools for efficient administration.

  • Jul 8, 2026
  • Knowledge

Title
An HR Administrator's Checklist for Benefits Administration
Article Text
Benefits Administration is only included as an add-on.

Interested in adding BambooHR® Benefits Administration to your account? Click here to request a demo!

What do I need to do to complete the entire Benefits Administration process from start to finish?

Purpose: This guide will provide information that helps benefits administrators through every step of the benefits administration process, such as doing prep work, building enrollment windows, approving enrollments, and submitting enrollment data to carriers.

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Table of Contents

If you have Benefits Administration enabled in your account and want to learn more about setting it up, this BambooHR® Learning course will help you set up Benefits Administration and walk you through the enrollment process from start to finish.

Benefits Brokers: If you are working closely with a benefits broker and would like them to have access to your employees' benefit information, you can create a custom access level and add them as a non-employee user. Feel free to skip this step if you plan to handle things on your own.

Once Benefits Administration is added to your account, you will have a setup page available in your account. To find this page, navigate to the Benefits tab in the left sidebar menu. After completing the three steps, you can then open an enrollment window. This help guide will provide you with an overview of the Benefits Administration process in BambooHR, from setup to completed benefit elections.

Step 1: Add and review benefit plans
Benefits

Before you can create an enrollment window, you will need to set up or review your benefit plans in BambooHR. There are a few changes to benefit plan settings when using Benefits Administration. If you have already created your plans, make sure to review that you have addressed the new fields. If you are starting from scratch, work with your broker to ensure plans are set up accurately.

The number of benefits-eligible employees you have in your account determines your billing for Benefits Administration. An employee is considered benefits-eligible if they are eligible for at least one benefit plan (i.e., they meet the eligibility criteria for any plan). To verify this number, navigate to Settings > Account Info and review the Benefits Administration add-on under "My Subscription." 

Step 2: Verify carriers
Benefits

It is important to set yourself up for success in using Benefits Administration from the get-go. This will require you to work with your broker and carrier to understand their carrier rules and your account structure. These rules will influence how you set up your benefits plans and determine which carrier solution will work best. You should consider the following questions:

  1. What are the general carrier rules and information (i.e., which states apply, new hires rules/eligibility dates, terminated coverage rules, etc.)?
  2. How does the carrier report benefit data? Are premiums separated based on coverage level?
  3. How does the carrier bill the company? How are plans and enrollments split out around billing?
  4. What are the rules around effective dates for qualifying life events? Are effective dates different for a marriage event versus a birth event?
  5. What are the correct reason codes for qualifying life events?
  6. What format does the carrier require the enrollment information to be transferred as (CSV or PDF)?

Once you fully understand your carrier's requirements, add them to BambooHR. Navigate to Settings  Benefits  Carriers and then click +Add Carrier.

Benefits

Select your carrier from the dropdown menu (sorted alphabetically).

Once you select a carrier from the dropdown menu, click Add Carrier to confirm. In the meantime, BambooHR will check if you qualify for a carrier connection.

If you do not find your carrier, you can add them by clicking +Add a new carrier.

If adding a new carrier, simply enter the carrier's name and then click Add Carrier to save. In the meantime, we will check if you qualify for a carrier connection.

Add Medical Plan

When setting up a benefit plan, you will need to select a carrier. You also have the option to add a new carrier by following the same process described above. Carriers added in this way will appear under the Carriers tab of Settings > Benefits.

Benefits

The Carriers tab allows you to review all the carriers you have added, along with their plan categories and the number of plans associated with each (based on your benefits setup).

To edit an existing carrier*, hover over the carrier name and click on the pencil icon. To delete a carrier, click on the trash can icon. Please note that if the carrier has enrollment data associated with it, you will not be able to delete the carrier.

The edit option allows you to update the existing carrier to another carrier for its associated benefit plans in BambooHR.

Step 3: Create a plan year
Benefits

When creating an enrollment window, you will need to choose a plan year, which includes the benefit plans you selected for that plan year. Plan years are typically created in a 12-month cycle and need to have a start date and end date. Visit the Create and Manage Plan Years guide for more details on adding a new plan year.

Verify employee and dependent information

It is important that your employees' job, pay, and dependent information is up-to-date prior to opening an enrollment window. Having accurate data will help streamline the process of communicating enrollment data to your carriers.

BambooHR

If there is missing required information for any plan years, a notification will appear on the Benefits page, which is accessible from the left sidebar menu. Clicking into the notification will take you to the member information page to make any necessary changes.

The following are additional locations in BambooHR where you can verify your employees' information before opening an enrollment window.

  1. Missing Data report
  2. Plan Year tab
Charlotte Abbott - Job

Employees must have the following fields completed on the Job tab.

Hire DateEmployment Status
LocationDivision
DepartmentJob Title
Pay SchedulePay Type
Pay RatePaid Per (frequency)
Termination Date (if applicable) 
Charlotte Abbott - Benefits

If an employee has dependents and wants to include them in their benefit elections, the employee must have the following fields completed for the dependent on their Benefits tab.

  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Birth Date
  • Gender
  • Relationship

Employees included in an upcoming enrollment window will receive an email notification before the enrollment period opens. They will be able to review and update their personal and dependent information (if granted access) in advance of benefits enrollment. If you require approval for changes in the Dependents table on the Benefits tab, make sure you allow yourself enough time to approve the changes before the enrollment period begins.

Employees can add or edit a dependent when they start the enrollment process. Keep in mind this will bypass the approval workflow you may have set up for updating dependent information. When approving benefit elections, dependents with new information will appear as "Updated" on the approval page, and you can review their information from there.

During enrollment, employees may be prompted to complete missing personal information before continuing. Review access level settings (First Name, Last Name, SSN Gender, Marital Status) if you expect employees to update their own details during enrollment. 

Step 4: Create an enrollment window
Charlotte Abbott - Benefits

Before starting an enrollment window, ensure all employees you want to include in the enrollment window have access to BambooHR. If they do not have access to BambooHR, they will not be able to log in to their account and complete enrollment.

BambooHR

Your account and employee data is ready to go! Let's roll up our sleeves and get to work by creating an enrollment window.

  1. Navigate to the Benefits tab in the left sidebar menu.
  2. On the Benefits page, specify the plan year you have recently created.
  3. You can either clickCreate Open Window or select the gear icon to specify which enrollment window you want to create: Open Enrollment, Qualifying Life Event, or New Hire.

A new modal will appear for you to fill out the required fields under "Enrollment Information." Then, you will be able to select which employees can elect benefits as part of the enrollment window. Please refer to our Create an Enrollment Window guide for more details on the enrollment window setup.

We recommend starting with a group of about five employees to allow you to test it before releasing the enrollment experience to the rest of your team. You can edit the window to add more employees later.

Step 5: Approve benefit elections
BambooHR

Once the enrollment period begins, sit back and watch as your employees' enrollment submissions roll within the Benefits tab. You can start approving benefit elections as they come in. Simply click on # of Elections are Incomplete to review a list of submissions pending approval in Settings. If there is a new employee submission that has not been approved within the last 24 hours, you will receive an email notification (8:15 AM - company time) about pending, approved, and incomplete submissions.

Benefits

Below is a brief overview of the approval process:

  1. On the Elections tab in Settings > Benefits, hover over the employee's name and click Review/Edit Elections.
  2. An approval screen will appear with the employee's benefit elections. From here, you can edit the elections on behalf of the employee if necessary. Make sure to add costs in the highlighted fields for the employee.
  3. After reviewing the employee's elections, click Approve Enrollment to finish.
    • If you need to make an update after this point, you can go back to the Elections tab and click Review/Edit Benefit Elections.
  4. Repeat this process for each employee. The employee will receive an email notification once you approve their benefit elections.

If your company uses BambooHR® Payroll and have Safe Harbor-matching contributions set up for your 401(k) plans, we will automatically apply those rules, so you do not need to enter the Company Pays amount. Instead, you will see "Set by Safe Harbor Rules."

Step 6: Send enrollment data to carriers

You are almost at the finish line! After the enrollment window ends and you have approved all your employees' enrollment elections, prepare the data for your carriers. BambooHR offers three solutions to help you send the data with ease.

CSV file exports
Reports

You can easily export an enrollment report as a CSV or Excel file if that is your carrier's preference. While you can use the other standard benefits reports, we offer three enrollment reports that are specific to the enrollment process in Benefits Administration:

  1. Plan Year Election Summary: This report includes data filtered by plan year.
  2. Enrollment Window Election Summary:The report includes enrollment data filtered by enrollment window.
  3. Benefit Election Changes: If the enrollment window is not your company's first enrollment window in BambooHR, you can configure this report to show any changes made between the last and current enrollment windows.
Enrollment Window Election Summary

To export a report showing comprehensive enrollment data for your current enrollment window, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to Reports > Standard Reports > Click Enrollment Window Election Summary under the Benefits section.
  2. You can filter the report to show a specific set of data (enrollment window, benefit plan type, carrier). Once you have the data you need, export the report as a CSV or Excel file.
  3. Clean up the data file if needed and package it to send to your carriers. Work with your broker and carrier to provide the information they need in the report.
PDF Form Builder
Benefits

Does your carrier require data in the form of a PDF file? With the PDF Form Builder, you can upload the carrier's PDF enrollment form and build a template that will auto-populate your employees' enrollment selections and benefits data upon download.

Carrier connections

Are you looking to automate the process of sending enrollment data to your carriers? BambooHR offers the option of carrier connections. This feature syncs enrollment data between BambooHR and your carrier's system based on the carrier's requirements. Read Carrier Connections to find out if you qualify and meet the requirements for activating carrier connections in your account.

Congratulations! You have worked through the Benefits Administration process in BambooHR.

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