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When OPTrust receives each employer’s biweekly payroll data file, we carry out a
series of data tests and data corrections. We then generate a Confirmation
Report which is sent to the employer.
The Confirmation Report identifies any variances between the biweekly
contributions received (excluding buyback and LTIP contributions) and those that
were expected, based on OPTrust data. Only those members with a year-to-date
variance greater than the prescribed minimum will appear on the report. This
means that any error occurring during a pay period may be offset during a
subsequent period, provided they occur in the same calendar year.
This report serves many purposes:
- It allows for the continual, timely cleanup of member pension information.
- Can be used to identify systemic data issues.
- Creates an automatic invoice process for year-end data/cash reconciliation.
At year-end any unresolved discrepancies will lead to a debit/credit situation
There are two main data sources used to generate the results for the
Confirmation Report.
- The Employer Payroll Record –The biweekly payroll records containing the pay
period start date, pay period end date, pay date, reported pension & CPP
contributions and actual hours worked.
- OPTrust’s Member Database – Data extracted from the member records on OPTrust’s database are the days credited, standard hours, job classification,
salary base and actual salary rate.
The Confirmation Report consists of three sub-reports with increasing levels of
detail:
- Confirmation Variances by Organization – This report summarizes, all
year-to-date variances by ministry. It displays the number of members with a
variance greater than the tolerance level and the total amount of variance for
each ministry.
- Annual Confirmation Statement – This report summarizes by member and
ministry, all year-to-date variances. All members that have a variance greater
than the tolerance level are displayed on this report for a particular ministry.
Details of each member’s SIN, name and amount of variance are provided.
- Pay Period History – The final report that is available is a detailed
breakdown, by pay period received of every contribution for a specific member
during the prescribed timeframe.
Please see the Forms and Tools section
for a sample of the confirmation report.
A brief description of the main fields will provide a better understanding of
the Confirmation Report. Some of the key report fields are:
- Actual Salary Rate – The member’s salary rate for a given period based on the
data extracted from OPTrust’s database.
- Calculated Salary Rate – A converted annualized rate of the actual salary.
- Reported Hours – The actual hours worked for the period as reported on the
biweekly payroll files.
- Reported Contributions – The actual amount of contributions remitted by the
employer as per the payroll files.
- Expected Contributions – The expected contribution is a calculated field based
on the member’s applicable salary and the actual hours worked by the member
during the period. This field represents the contributions expected based on the CPP deductions and salary rate for the member.
- Variance – The difference between the member’s expected and reported
contributions. A positive variance indicates a credit/over contribution and a
negative variance indicates a debit/under contribution.
- Credited Days/Credit – Credited Days is a calculated field, based on the ratio
of standard to actual hours to a maximum of 14 days per record received every
biweekly period. Total credit for the period is displayed in the Credit column
on the Annual Confirmation Statement
- Employer Contributions – The employer contributions are a calculated field
based on the member’s data.
The Confirmation Report is a comparison of member’s calculated expected and
reported contributions. The expected contribution is a calculated amount based
on the information extracted from OPTrust’s database. The variables used in the
expected contribution formula are: salary rate, salary base, standard hours,
reported hours and year to date CPP contribution. Therefore, any discrepancies
in the data used to calculate the expected contribution or in the reported
contributions would contribute to a variance.
The following are some of the common data issues that will create a variance on
the Confirmation Report.
- Salary – A missing or incorrect salary rate will cause the Calculated Salary
and Expected Contribution to be incorrect. If the salary rate is understated or
overstated, the expected contributions will also be understated or overstated
respectively.
- Salary Base – An incorrect salary base will cause the annualized salary to be
incorrect and impact the expected contribution calculation.
- Actual Reported Hours – Missing or incorrectly reported hours for each pay
period will result in a variance.
- Reported Contributions – Contributions on the employer payroll file do not
support expected contributions for the reported hours worked. The employer may
have deducted and/or reported an incorrect amount of contributions for the
period.
- CPP Contributions – Reported CPP contributions for the period or year-to-date
CPP contributions deducted may be incorrect.
- Retro Contributions – For contribution records that include a retroactive
payment for a prior year, the confirmation report will not be able to
differentiate between regular and retroactive contributions and correctly
calculate the expected contributions. Therefore a variance will occur for these
contribution records.
- Difference in Contribution Algorithm – Any difference in deduction algorithm
logic from the Plan standard. This will primarily affect any employee that does
not have a full year of credit.
Revised March 31, 2004
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