Eligibility Testing
Recalculate each participant's age and service at the beginning and end of the year, confirm proper plan entry, and agree employee and employer contributions from the payroll report to the plan census.
Recalculates each participant's age and service at the beginning and end of the year against the plan's rules, confirms proper plan entry, and agrees employee and employer contributions from the payroll report to the plan census.
Purpose
To verify that participants included in the plan are properly eligible to participate in accordance with the plan document's age, service, and entry date requirements, and to confirm that contributions recorded in the plan's records are accurate and complete relative to the underlying payroll data.
Procedures
- Agree the participant's identifying information in the sample (name, date of birth, date of hire, Social Security number) to supporting identification documents and personnel records, supporting the accuracy and validity of the data used to determine plan eligibility.
- Recalculate the participant's age and years of service as of both the beginning and end of the plan year, and compare the results to the plan's eligibility requirements to confirm the participant was properly eligible to participate throughout the period.
- Agree the employer match contributions per the Annual Payroll Report to the amounts recorded in the Plan Census Report, supporting the completeness and accuracy of employer-funded contributions at the participant level.
- Agree employee contributions per the Annual Payroll Report to the amounts recorded in the Plan Census Report, supporting the completeness and accuracy of employee deferrals at the participant level.
Engagement Variables
These are set by EBP Plan Analysis and referenced automatically when this procedure runs.
| Engagement Variable | What it provides this procedure |
|---|---|
| Eligibility Overview | The plan's minimum age, minimum service (for example, one year of service, 1,000 hours), and entry date provisions (for example, first day of the month following, next quarterly entry date). Drives the BOY and EOY eligibility determinations and the Proper Entry test. The more precisely this reflects the plan document, the more reliable the result. |
| Compensation Overview | The plan's definition of eligible compensation. Drives ineligible pay extraction from the Annual Payroll Report, which is subtracted from gross wages to calculate plan-eligible compensation for the contribution percentage recalculations. |
Your selections
| Selection | What to enter | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Employee Name | Full legal name as it appears on the payroll register and plan census. | Drives matching across all three documents (Identification Documents, Annual Payroll Report, and Plan Census Report). Name inconsistencies across sources are a common cause of failed matches. |
| Date of Hire | The employee's original date of hire as it appears on personnel records. | Used in the years of service recalculation at BOY and EOY. Compared against the value extracted from the Identification Documents to confirm agreement. |
| Plan Entry Date | The date the employee entered (or was expected to enter) the plan. | Drives the Proper Entry test. Agentive confirms whether the employee was eligible to enter on this date based on their age, service, and the plan's entry date provisions. |
Documents to provide
| Document | What to provide | Key data extracted |
|---|---|---|
| Identification Documents | HR personnel file, I-9, benefits enrollment form, or any document containing the employee's legal name, SSN, date of birth, and date of hire with an authoritative source. | Full legal name, SSN, date of birth, date of hire. BOY and EOY age and years of service are calculated directly from DOB and DOH. Eligibility determinations and the Proper Entry test all depend on this document. |
| Annual Payroll Report | Full-year payroll register for the plan year. The same document used in contribution testing, showing gross wages, pay code detail, employee deferrals, and employer match by participant. | Gross wages, ineligible pay (per Compensation Overview), employee contributions, employer match. Employee and employer contribution percentages are recalculated from these values and compared to the plan census. |
| Plan Census Report | The recordkeeper or TPA's year-end census file showing participant-level employee and employer contribution totals for the plan year. | Employee contributions per census, employer contributions per census. Compared to payroll report totals to surface any discrepancy between what was withheld and what the plan has on record. |
Don't have these exact documents?
Use Co-Audit to change which documents this request asks for, and to adjust the procedures and calculations that read them, so the workflow matches what your client actually provides.
Testing attributes
| Test | What Agentive confirms |
|---|---|
| Agree sample information to identification documents | Confirms that the employee name and date of hire entered in the sample match what appears in the identification documents and personnel records. A mismatch here means the sample was drawn on different data than what the personnel file supports. |
| Confirm proper eligibility to enter the plan | Recalculates age and years of service at both the beginning and end of the plan year using documented DOB and DOH. Compares results to the Eligibility Overview variable to determine whether the employee was eligible (BOY and EOY). Then confirms whether entry on the selected Plan Entry Date was appropriate given the plan's entry date provisions. Returns Eligible or Ineligible for each period. |
| Agree employee contributions: Payroll Report to Census | Compares total employee deferrals per the Annual Payroll Report to employee contributions recorded in the Plan Census Report. Any difference is calculated and flagged. A non-zero difference should be traced. Common causes include timing of remittances, year-end cut-off differences, or recording errors. |
| Agree employer match: Payroll Report to Census | Compares total employer match per the Annual Payroll Report to employer contributions in the Plan Census Report. Same comparison logic as employee contributions. Employer match differences warrant additional scrutiny as they may indicate formula application errors or missed match obligations. |
Update with Co-Audit
Real client data rarely matches a template exactly. When the census or identification documents you receive, or an eligibility rule the standard template does not capture, differ from what this template assumes, use Co-Audit to retool the request. Describe what is different and it rewrites the document groups, AI Prompt Columns, and calculations to fit.
Situations where Co-Audit helps with Eligibility Testing:
- The plan excludes a class of employees (for example, union or per-diem staff) that the standard eligibility logic does not account for. Have Co-Audit add a class-exclusion column and fold that condition into the Proper Entry determination so excluded employees are not flagged as eligibility failures.
- DOB is not on the primary identification document for privacy reasons. Have Co-Audit add a secondary identification group (benefits enrollment form, I-9, or plan enrollment card) so the age and eligibility calculations have a documented source rather than returning Missing Info.
- The plan census arrives as quarterly files instead of an annual roll-up. Have Co-Audit aggregate employee and employer contributions across the four files before comparing them to the Annual Payroll Report.
- The plan defines a year of service by an hours-of-service standard the general rule does not spell out. Have Co-Audit update the recalculation so it applies the plan's specific hours threshold and entry-date frequency rather than defaulting to elapsed time.
Describe the difference in the Co-Audit panel
For example: "the plan census is provided as four quarterly files; aggregate employee and employer contributions across the four files before comparing to the Annual Payroll Report."
Let Co-Audit update the workflow
It revises the document groups, AI Prompt Columns, and calculations.
Review every change
Watch the columns for red text (a broken reference) and re-check any cell that involves math, where the AI tends to copy a number forward instead of recalculating.
For broader detail on tailoring requests and fixing broken column links, see Tailor a request with Co-Audit in the EBP hub.
Continue your journey
← EBP Engagements overview
Set up the EBP engagement and run the Plan Analysis before any testing procedure.
Compensation Definition Testing →
Evaluate each pay code against the plan's compensation definition and IRC §§415(c)(3), 414(s).
How is this guide?
Run an EBP engagement with Agentive
Set up and run an Employee Benefit Plan audit with Agentive's EBP templates. Roll forward the baseline, publish plan provisions as Engagement Variables with the EBP Plan Analysis, tailor procedures to your client's documents with Co-Audit, and fine-tune accounting policies so each year's run is cleaner than the last.
Compensation Definition Testing
Evaluate each pay code on the earnings listing against the plan's compensation definition and IRC §§415(c)(3) and 414(s), and return Eligible, Ineligible, or Manual Review Required per code.