When it comes to benefit changes and elections open enrollment tends to steal the spotlight. But make no mistake, mid-year benefits changes are a constant undercurrent for HR and payroll teams.
Whether prompted by life events, new hires, special enrollment periods, or non-calendar year plans, mid-year benefit changes require just as much attention—often on much shorter timelines.
For organizations running Infor CloudSuite, staying on top of these updates is critical to avoiding compliance issues, costly payroll mistakes, and employee frustration.
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at five tasks organizations should keep front and center when navigating mid-year benefits adjustments.
1. Update Contribution Rates & Coverage Options Mid-Year
Even though most changes to benefits, like updates to contribution rates, coverage tiers, or eligibility rules, typically roll out at the beginning of the plan year, real life doesn’t always align with that. When certain conditions arise, such as regulatory exceptions or contractual changes, mid-year updates become not just possible, but necessary.
Take union negotiations, for example. It’s not uncommon for collective bargaining agreements to wrap up after the plan year has already begun, requiring retroactive adjustments to employer or employee contributions. Similarly, safe harbor 401(k) plans may allow mid-year modifications, provided IRS notice and compliance rules are carefully followed.
When these changes are triggered, your system needs to reflect them. That includes updating contribution and coverage tables, benefit plan structures, and any current enrollments.
Getting this right ensures accurate paychecks, correct benefits deductions, and alignment across your core HR, payroll, and benefits systems.
2. Support Life Event Changes & Special Enrollment Windows
Life doesn’t follow a schedule, and benefits administrators know this all too well. Births, marriages, divorces, and job changes all trigger eligibility for mid-year updates. But each of these life events comes with a tight window for making changes to benefits and subsequently documenting them.
The best way to reduce risk here is to streamline the process. That means ensuring your benefits tools can capture employee-submitted changes, validate supporting documentation, and apply updates directly to benefit enrollments.
Infor CloudSuite can help automate these workflows and eliminate manual steps, so you don’t miss critical changes or fall behind on compliance. Treating life events with the same structure and urgency as open enrollment ensures data accuracy, audit readiness, and a consistent employee experience year-round.
3. Ensure Healthcare Benefits Comply with the ACA
Compliance with the ACA’s Employer Mandate isn’t just a box to check at year-end, and if it’s treated as such, it often leads to costly IRS penalties. Instead it should be treated as ongoing monthly exercise. And when employees make mid-year changes, employers must ensure affordability thresholds are met, coverage options remain compliant, and eligibility is properly documented, especially for variable-hour and newly eligible employees.
The key here is maintaining clean, up-to-date records and ensuring your system can generate accurate IRS 1095-Cs when the time comes. If you’re still doing that manually or after the fact, it’s worth reviewing your current setup to avoid surprises during reporting season.
If you have a non-calendar year plan that begins mid-year, now is also the time to ensure that at least one of your health plans meets ACA affordability thresholds set forth by the IRS. You can use one of the IRS-approved methods for calculating affordability; the W-2, Rate of Pay, and Federal Poverty Line.
4. Review Spending Accounts & FSA Limits
Changes to benefits mid-year can have a big impact on tax-advantaged accounts, such as FSAs, HSAs, and commuter benefits. It’s important to validate that contribution limits are being recalculated properly, balances reflect any changes, and communications clearly explain what’s happening.
If your system doesn’t automatically apply new limits or reset balances based on mid-year updates, that’s a gap worth addressing. Employees count on this information being accurate, and even small errors can create compliance risks or erode trust.
5. Document Everything for Year-End Reporting
When benefit changes happen outside of open enrollment, they’re more likely to be missed during audits or year-end reporting. The summer months present a great opportunity to ensure your ERP system and benefits platform are:
- Capturing every change with timestamped history
- Linking supporting documents to employee records
- Syncing data for downstream reporting needs
Whether it’s ACA documentation, dependent verifications, or historical election changes, keeping your audit trail tight throughout the length of the year reduces chaos come reporting time.
Get Help Navigating Mid-Year Changes
Mid-year benefits updates may not follow a set schedule, but that doesn’t mean they can’t follow a solid process. RPI Consultants can help you streamline benefits administration year-round, including life event changes, FSA recalculations, and ACA compliance.
If your team needs support handling mid-year benefit changes more effectively, we’re here to help. Contact us to learn more about how RPI can support your team.
To learn more about how Infor GHR can help manage mid-year enrollment and benefit changes, register for the upcoming webinar, Mid-Year Enrollment in the Cloud: Tips, Tasks, & Tools for Success below.
