Benefits

The Benefits page is where you record the benefits you offer, such as health insurance, a 401(k) retirement plan or a health savings account, and who is enrolled in each. Once an employee is enrolled, Bokapsys takes their share off every regular pay run and records your share as a cost in your books.

Bokapsys does not buy insurance, run a retirement plan or pay your benefit providers. You arrange benefits with your insurance carrier or plan provider, and you pay them yourself. Bokapsys handles the payroll side: the deductions, the IRS limits and the bookkeeping.

Open it from Payroll → Benefits. The page has these tabs (you see only the ones your role allows):

Tab	What it is for
Plans	The health, dental, vision, life and disability plans your business offers.
Enrollment	Which employee is in which plan, who is covered, and how much each side pays per pay period.
401(k) / Retirement	Retirement contributions per employee.
HSA / FSA	Health savings and flexible spending accounts per employee.
ACA Tracking	Monthly hours and full-time status for the Affordable Care Act, and Forms 1095-C.
Compare plans	Look up public marketplace health plans for an employee who is not on your group plan.

1. 1Add the plan
2. 2Enroll the employee
3. 3Run payroll
4. 4Deduction comes off pay
5. 5Pay your provider yourself

Words used on this page

Word	What it means
Pre-tax deduction	Money taken from pay before tax is worked out, so the employee pays less tax. Health insurance under a “cafeteria plan” (Section 125), HSAs and FSAs usually work this way.
Employee share	What the employee pays, taken from their pay.
Employer share	What you pay on top. It is a business cost, not taken from the employee.
401(k)	A US workplace retirement savings plan. Pre-tax (traditional) contributions are taken before income tax; Roth contributions are taken after tax.
HSA	Health Savings Account: a pre-tax savings account for medical costs, for people on a high-deductible health plan.
FSA	Flexible Spending Account: a pre-tax account for medical costs (Health FSA), childcare (Dependent care FSA) and similar.
Annual election	The total the employee chose to put into an account over the year.
ACA	The Affordable Care Act. Larger employers must offer health coverage and report it on Forms 1095-C.

Before you start

• Your role can manage benefits. Adding plans, enrolling employees, retirement and HSA/FSA each need their own permission. See Team and roles.
• The employees are set up in Bokapsys, with a birth date if they may make age-based catch-up contributions. See Employees.
• You have the plan details from your carrier or provider: plan name and code, carrier name, the cost split, and whether the employee’s share is pre-tax.
• You know each employee’s per-pay-period cost: what they pay and what you pay each payroll. Work this out from the monthly premium and your pay schedule (for example a $260 monthly employee premium on an every-two-weeks schedule is $260 × 12 ÷ 26 = $120 per pay).
• For 401(k), HSA and FSA: each employee’s election (amount or percentage) from their enrollment form.

Add a benefit plan

1. Open Payroll → Benefits and stay on the Plans tab.
2. Click New plan. A window titled New benefit plan opens.
3. Fill in the fields below.
4. Click Save. You see Benefit plan created and the plan appears in the list as Offered.

Field	What it means	Required?	Example
Plan code	A short code you use to tell plans apart. Can’t be changed later.	Yes	MED-PPO-1
Kind	Medical, Dental, Vision, Life insurance, Short-term disability, Long-term disability, Accident, Critical illness, Hospital indemnity or Other. HSA, FSA and 401(k) accounts are set up on their own tabs.	Yes (defaults to Medical)	Medical
Plan name	The name employees will recognise. It is also the label of the deduction on payslips.	Yes	Blue PPO Medical
Carrier	The insurance company or provider.	No	Acme Health
Employer pays % of the cost	Your share of the cost. Used to split the cost when you enroll someone.	No	75
Employee pays % of the cost	The employee’s share. The two can’t add up to more than 100%.	No	25
Monthly employee cost for self-only cover	What an employee pays each month to cover only themselves on this plan (not the per-paycheck amount). It is reported on Form 1095-C line 15, so leave it blank if the plan is not health cover.	No	260.00
Employee cost is taken before tax	Tick when the employee’s share is taken before tax.	Ticked by default	Ticked

To change a plan, click its pencil icon. To stop offering it, click the stop icon and confirm Stop offering: nobody new can enroll, and existing enrollments carry on until you end them. You can Offer again later.

Enroll an employee

1. Open the Enrollment tab.
2. Click Enroll employee. A window titled Enroll in benefit opens.
3. Fill in the fields below and click Save. You see Enrollment created.

Field	What it means	Required?	Example
Employee	Who is enrolling.	Yes	Maria Lopez
Plan	One of the plans you offer.	Yes	Blue PPO Medical (Medical)
Employee declined this plan	Tick if the employee waived coverage. It is recorded as waived and nothing is deducted.	No	Unticked
Who is covered	Employee only, Employee + spouse, Employee + children or Family.	Yes (defaults to Employee only)	Employee only
Coverage starts	The first day of cover. Defaults to today.	Yes	07/01/2026
Reason	New hire (chosen for you if they were hired in the last 30 days), Open enrollment, Life event or Correction. For a life event, choose the Life event (marriage, birth or adoption, loss of other coverage and so on) and the Date of the event.	Yes	Open enrollment
Total cost each pay period	Shown when the plan has a cost split. Type the total and Bokapsys splits it into the two amounts below by the plan’s percentages.	No	480.00
Employee pays each pay period	Dollars taken from the employee’s pay each pay run.	No	120.00
Employer pays each pay period	Dollars you pay each pay run on top.	No	360.00

How it affects payroll. From the first regular pay run whose pay date is on or after Coverage starts:

• The employee amount comes off their pay as a deduction named after the plan. If the plan is pre-tax, it also lowers the pay used for income tax, Social Security, Medicare and FUTA.
• The employer amount is recorded as your cost, labelled with the plan name and “(Employer)”. It shows on the payslip only for information, and does not reduce the employee’s pay.

The list shows each enrollment’s Employee, Plan, Kind, Who is covered, Employee pays, Employer pays, Coverage dates, Reason and Status (Active, Starts a future date, Ended or Waived).

To change who is covered or the amounts, click the pencil icon. To end cover, click the stop icon, enter the Last day of coverage and click End coverage.

Worked example

Maria earns $2,000 every two weeks and enrolls in Blue PPO Medical (pre-tax) at $120.00 per pay, with you paying $360.00 per pay. On her next regular run:

• A Blue PPO Medical deduction of $120.00 comes off her pay.
• Her pay for tax purposes drops to $1,880.00, so her income tax, Social Security and Medicare are worked out on $1,880.00.
• Your cost for the run includes Blue PPO Medical (Employer) of $360.00, recorded under Employee Benefits in your books.

401(k) and other retirement plans

1. Open the 401(k) / Retirement tab.
2. Click Add account. A window titled Add retirement account opens.
3. Fill in the fields below and click Save. You see Retirement account added.

Field	What it means	Required?	Example
Employee	Who is contributing.	Yes	Maria Lopez
Plan type	401(k), Roth 401(k), SIMPLE IRA, SEP IRA, 403(b), 457(b) or Solo 401(k).	Yes	401(k)
Provider	The plan provider.	No	Acme Retirement
Amount each pay period	Dollars taken each pay run.	One of these two	100.00
Or % of gross pay	A percentage of gross pay each pay run.	One of these two	5
Pre-tax share %	How much of the contribution goes in before tax; the rest goes in as Roth (after tax). For a Roth 401(k) everything is Roth, and for a SIMPLE or SEP IRA everything is pre-tax.	Defaults to 100	80
Annual limit	A lower limit set by your plan. Leave blank to use the IRS limit for the year.	No
Catch-up eligible (age 50 or over)	Tick if the employee is 50 or over.	No

How contributions come off pay:

• Pre-tax contributions are taken before income tax, labelled 401(k) Pre-tax. They still count as pay for Social Security and Medicare, which is how pre-tax retirement savings work in the US.
• Roth contributions are taken after tax, labelled Roth 401(k).
• The IRS yearly limit is applied. For 2026 the limit on what an employee can defer into 401(k), 403(b), SIMPLE and similar plans together is $24,500 ($17,000 for a SIMPLE IRA), with extra catch-up room once they are 50 by the end of the year (worked out from their birth date). A 457(b) plan has its own separate limit. When an employee reaches the limit, Bokapsys stops taking the contribution for the rest of the year and the pay run says so.

To change a contribution, click the pencil icon (Change contribution), enter the new amount or percentage and the date it Starts, and click Save. Enter 0 to stop contributions. The table shows each account’s Contribution, Pre-tax / Roth split and Annual limit.

Bokapsys does not send contributions to your provider: you pay them over yourself.

HSA and FSA accounts

1. Open the HSA / FSA tab.
2. Click Add account. A window titled Add HSA / FSA account opens.
3. Choose the Employee, the Account type (Health savings account (HSA), Health FSA, Dependent care FSA, Limited-purpose FSA or Commuter) and the date it Starts.
4. For an HSA, choose what the employee’s health plan covers in Health plan covers: Just the employee or The employee and family. The yearly HSA limit depends on this.
5. Enter the Annual election in dollars and click Save. You see Account added.

The election must be within the IRS limit. For 2026: HSA $4,400 for self-only cover or $8,750 for family cover (plus $1,000 for an employee 55 or over), Health FSA $3,400, Dependent care FSA $7,500, and commuter benefits $340 a month. An election above the limit is refused with a message saying what the limit is.

Bokapsys divides the annual election by the number of pay periods in the employee’s schedule and takes that amount from every regular pay run, before income tax, Social Security, Medicare and FUTA (dependent care and commuter work the same way). For example, a $2,600 HSA election on an every-two-weeks schedule is $100.00 per pay. For an HSA, your own contributions count toward the same yearly limit.

To change the election, click the pencil icon; it can’t be lowered below what has already gone in this year. To stop the account, click the stop icon, enter the Last day and click End account. You send the money to the account provider yourself.

ACA (Affordable Care Act)

If your business has 50 or more full-time employees (including full-time equivalents), you are an applicable large employer and must offer health coverage and file Forms 1094-C and 1095-C. The ACA Tracking tab measures the hours that decide who counts as full-time.

1. Open the ACA Tracking tab and choose the tax year.
2. Click Measure hours for [year]. Bokapsys adds up each employee’s hours for each month from posted pay runs and timesheets. A salaried employee with no hours logged is counted as 8 hours a weekday.
3. The table shows each employee’s Months measured, Full-time months (130 hours or more in the month), Months coverage offered, and the hours so far This month.
4. Click See each month for an employee to see each month’s hours, whether they were full-time, the coverage offered and the affordability test used.

Only months that have started are measured, and the current month stays open until it ends. Run Measure hours again any time; it replaces that year’s figures.

Create the forms. Click Create 1095-C forms for [year] (you need permission to draft tax filings) to create a Form 1095-C for each employee and the 1094-C transmittal. Bokapsys first checks last year’s measured hours. If they don’t show an average of 50 or more full-time employees and equivalents, or there are no hours recorded for last year, no forms are created and the message explains why. If you are a large employer, generate the forms from Tax → Payroll filings instead, where you can tick the large employer confirmation. Review the forms there too. See Payroll filings.

The coverage reported on each form comes from your enrollments, and the employee cost on line 15 comes from each plan’s Monthly employee cost for self-only cover, so fill that in on your health plans.

Compare plans

Compare plans lets you look up plans a person can buy on their own through the health insurance marketplace, with the premium tax credit a household may qualify for. Use it to help an employee who is not on your group plan. It is for reference only: it is not a quote, not an offer of coverage, and not your company’s own group plan. Final plans and prices come from the carrier.

1. Open the Compare plans tab.
2. Fill in the search fields below.
3. Under Who needs coverage?, enter the Age (primary) and Tobacco use of the first person. Click Add household member for each extra person.
4. Click Search plans. A list of plans appears.
5. Narrow it with the tier filter (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Catastrophic, with a count for each) or click Cheapest per tier.
6. Tick the box next to plans to see them side by side under Compare.

Field	What it means	Example
ZIP code	Where the person lives.	73301
State	The state to search.	TX
County	Shown when the ZIP code covers more than one county.	Travis
Household income (annual)	Used to estimate the tax credit the household might get.	45000
Plan year	This year or next year.	2026

Each plan shows its Tier, Type, Premium / mo, Est. after subsidy, Deductible, Max out-of-pocket and whether it is HSA eligible.

States that run their own exchange instead of HealthCare.gov can’t be shown; you see a message pointing you to that state’s own exchange.

How to check it worked

• Run a pay run after the start date and click the employee’s name: you should see the plan’s deduction, the 401(k) Pre-tax or Roth 401(k) line, or the HSA / FSA line. See Run payroll.
• On the posted payslip, the employee’s share appears under Deductions and your share under Employer costs (not taken from your pay).
• The Year to Date by Employee report shows 401(k), Roth and HSA totals for the year. See Payroll reports.

Common mistakes

Problem	Cause	Fix
The deduction is missing from a pay run.	The pay date is before the coverage or account start date, or the run is not a Regular run.	Check the start date. Bonus, off-cycle and other non-regular runs don’t take fixed benefit, HSA or FSA deductions.
A waived employee still has a deduction.	The enrollment was not recorded as declined.	End that enrollment and enroll again with Employee declined this plan ticked.
Employer and employee shares cannot add up to more than 100%.	The plan’s two percentages are too high.	Correct them.
An HSA election is refused.	It is above the IRS limit for that cover.	Lower it, or check Health plan covers.
Form 1095-C line 15 is blank.	The plan has no Monthly employee cost for self-only cover.	Edit the plan and fill it in.

Related

Run payrollWhere deductions are calculated.

Payroll in your booksWhere benefit costs and amounts owed are recorded.

Payroll reportsLabor cost including benefits.

Payroll filingsForms 1095-C and 1094-C.