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Qualification plans and entitlement bands

Conceptadvanced

The plan type that pays workers who qualify for it during an absence, without accruing a balance. It has a term type (calendar year, rolling backward, rolling forward, or absence duration) that defines the assessment period, an overlap rule (include, exclude, split) for rolling backward terms, an entitlement band matrix that maps worker criteria (length of service, grade) to duration and payment percentage rows, and enrollment/termination rules that decide whether payments survive termination or loss of eligibility.

What people get wrong

The confusions are the difficulty. Each one is a belief that sounds right and is not.

  • That a qualification plan accrues a balance like an accrual plan. It decides entitlement and payment directly; no balance is maintained.
  • That the plan term is just a calendar year. Four term types exist, and rolling backward needs an overlap rule because absences can straddle term boundaries.
  • That the overlap rules are interchangeable. Include, Exclude and Split produce materially different payments for the same overlapping absence (5 vs 20 vs 15 full-pay days in the worked scenario).
  • That entitlements always stop at termination. The plan decides separately for termination versus loss of eligibility — e.g. the maternity example continues payments on termination but stops them on loss of eligibility.
  • That an open-ended absence’s estimated end date matters. It does not — entitlement is calculated for 365 days, and beyond that a Pending Evaluation record allows a 90-day extension when Evaluate Absences runs.

Recall it

What distinguishes a qualification plan from an accrual plan, what are the four term types, and what does the overlap rule decide on a rolling-backward term?

A qualification plan pays workers who qualify for it during an absence and maintains no balance — it decides entitlement and payment directly, unlike an accrual plan which banks time. It configures four rule areas: plan term, plan eligibility (an eligibility profile), enrollment and termination, and payments via an entitlement band matrix whose unit rate can come from a rate definition or formula. The four term types are Calendar year, Rolling backward (period preceding the absence start date — requires an overlap rule), Rolling forward (from the first absence start date for the term duration), and Absence duration. On rolling-backward terms the overlap rule decides how a straddling absence counts: Include counts the whole overlapping absence (5 full-pay days left in the worked scenario), Exclude ignores it (20), Split counts only the part inside the current term (15). Enrollment happens when an associated absence type is scheduled; termination and loss of eligibility are decided separately. Open-ended absences are calculated for 365 days regardless of the estimated end date, with a Pending Evaluation record allowing a 90-day extension.

Memory hook: No balance, just bands. Four terms; rolling backward needs an overlap rule — Include all, Exclude none, Split the inside part.

Rests on ABS-QUAL-001, ABS-QUAL-002, ABS-QUAL-003, ABS-QUAL-004, ABS-QUAL-009.

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