Family & medical leave (FMLA)
Job-protected and often unpaid. Typical rule: group health continues on the same terms; the employee share defers or moves to a direct bill when pay stops.
Leave Impact: What Every Absence Does to Benefits
Classified on arrival. Decided by your rules. Handed to payroll, billing and carriers the same day.
Your HRIS or leave administrator approves the leave. Benefits Reimagined decides what happens next — whether coverage continues, whether contributions defer, whether the premium keeps coming out of pay or moves to a direct bill, and what payroll, carriers and ACA need to know. It works with SAP SuccessFactors and is ready for Workday, UKG, ADP, Dayforce, Paycom, any other HRIS and any third-party payroll.
FMLA · USERRA · state paid leave · disabilityPaid · unpaid · partial payPayroll or direct bill, per absenceEvery decision traceable
The Step in the Middle Nobody Else Shows
Leave tools approve absences. Payroll tools stop pay. Between them sits the question every benefits team hears on the first day of a leave: is she still covered, and who collects her premium? Benefits Reimagined answers it as a rule, not a phone call — every absence classified against your catalog, decided across benefit, coverage, contribution, collection and ACA, and turned into work items for the teams and systems that act on it.
Configure Absence TypesMaster data, effective-datedRecord the AbsenceAny source, one recordClassify & DecideFive decision tracksCollect & Hand OffPayroll or direct billAny HRIS & PayrollSame answer on every stack
5tracksdecision tracks — benefit, coverage, contribution, collection and ACA — evaluated for every absence the rule set covers
4switchesimpact switches on each absence type decide which tracks must return an answer before the leave is processed
3pay statespaid, unpaid and partial — normalized from the absence or the type default before any decision is taken
1runper absence: every decision, work item and status change saved together, or none of them at all
What Triggers Leave Impact
An absence becomes a benefits event the moment its record arrives. These are the leave types a catalog is typically built around — every rule shown is a default you configure, not a behaviour hard-wired into the product.
State paid family & medical leave
Paid by a state program — long-running in states such as CA, NJ, NY, WA and MA, with DE and MN paying from January 2026 and ME from May 2026. Typical rule: partial pay, payroll then direct bill.
Short- and long-term disability
Income replaced by the carrier, not payroll. Typical rule: coverage continues per the plan; a long absence past the plan limit can reduce or end coverage.
Parental & bonding leave
Usually paid by the employer. Typical rule: everything continues and payroll keeps collecting; adding the baby stays a life event in open enrollment.
Military leave (USERRA)
Coverage may continue up to 24 months. Under 31 days the employee pays the normal share; longer service can be charged up to 102%.
Reduced schedule & intermittent
The work percentage rides on the absence. Typical rule: payroll collects while pay covers the share, then a direct bill picks up the rest.
Personal & unpaid leave
Not job-protected, so your policy decides. Typical rule: coverage continues for a set period, collection by direct bill, then termination.
Jury duty, workers' comp & sabbatical
Paid or unpaid by type. Unpaid jury duty is special unpaid leave for ACA measurement; workers' compensation follows your plan's continuation rule.
What re-triggers a leave: a changed pay status, work percentage, return date, date range or source reference gives the absence a new fingerprint before it is processed. An identical resend from the HRIS or the leave administrator is skipped and logged — never decided twice.
Before and After: Where Leave Impact Sits
Leave Impact reads from the systems that own the leave and writes work for the modules that act on it. Nothing upstream is duplicated; nothing downstream is guessed.
Before · where the leave comes from
HRIS SyncAbsence records from SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, UKG, ADP, Dayforce, Paycom or any HRISLeave administrator filesApproved leaves and return dates from your leave vendor, with new file layouts mapped by BR IntelliMapEmployee ManagementThe Leave tab of the employee record, where administrators enter or review an absenceBusiness RulesThe leave rule set — benefit, coverage, contribution, collection and ACA tracks — on the shared engineLeave Impact
One run per absence, saved all together or not at all.
- Classify against the catalog
- Decide on five tracks
- Queue Ready work items
- Lock and record the trail
After · who acts on the decision
BR ReVerge (360-degree Payroll)Payroll work items: deductions continued, deferred or waived, sent to any third-party payrollDirect BillingPremiums billed to the employee once pay stops, picked up from the flagged absenceCarrier Billing & carrier feedsCoverage reduced or ended becomes a carrier work item; invoices are checked against itACASpecial unpaid leave flagged as an ACA work item for monthly measurement4-Way ReconciliationConfirms payroll, carrier and billing agree once the leave has run its courseA Leave’s Benefits Flow, Step by Step
Who acts, where, what happens and the rule at each step — from the catalog entry to the locked, audited decision.
| Who | Where | What happens | Rule at this step |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1Benefits admin | Absence type catalog | Creates each absence type: code, description, pay default (paid, unpaid or partial), category, type, program and four impact switches. | Descriptions are unique; overlapping dates for one code close the earlier version. |
| 2Admin · consultant | Business Rules | Builds the leave rule set: pay-status check, plan override, benefit, coverage, contribution, collection and, when wanted, ACA — ordered by priority. | No leave rule set, no processing — the engine never borrows another module’s rules. |
| 3HRIS · leave administrator | HRIS Sync or file | An approved absence arrives with dates, type code, pay status, work percentage, return date and source reference. | The type code must exist in the catalog for those dates. |
| 4Administrator | Employee 360 · Leave tab | Reviews, enters or corrects the absence before it is processed. | Cannot overlap an absence that is already processed. |
| 5Platform | Absence record | Saves the absence as Received · Pending and copies the classification onto it. | A later catalog change never rewrites the record. |
| 6Platform | Fingerprint check | Compares dates, type, pay status, work percentage, return date and source with the last completed run. | An identical resend is skipped and logged, not re-decided. |
| 7Rules engine | Five tracks | Normalizes the pay status, then evaluates every track the absence type switches on. | A required track with no answer stops the run with a message for the admin. |
| 8Platform | Decisions | Records one decision per track — such as Continue, Defer, or Payroll then direct bill — dated to the absence. | Decided automatically; explained by the rule that made it. |
| 9Platform | Work items | Creates one Ready work item per downstream action: payroll, direct bill, carrier or ACA. | One key per employee, decision, action and date — never doubled. |
| 10Auditor · support | Absence trail | Received, run started, type mapped, rules evaluated, decided, queued, completed — and the absence locks. | Any failure rolls the whole run back. |
One Leave, Five Stages From Catalog to Hand-Off
Follow Jane Doe’s six-week unpaid medical leave — from the code in your catalog to the payroll and billing work it creates.
Absence Types Are Master Data, Not Code
Every leave starts as a code in your catalog, and the catalog says what that code means for benefits: paid, unpaid or partial by default; which category, type and program it belongs to; and which of four impact switches — benefit, coverage, contribution, collection — demand a decision. Codes are effective-dated, so a policy change on January 1 becomes a new version without touching the leaves already decided.
What the catalog holds
- A short code and a description that no other code may share, ignoring case
- A pay default — paid, unpaid or partial — used when the absence arrives without one
- Category, type and program, so a state program and an employer program never blur
- Four impact switches, plus a display sequence and notes for the team
Why it matters
A new leave program is a row, not a release.
A code still used on any employee’s absence cannot be deleted — history keeps its meaning.
One Absence Record per Leave, From Any Source
Absences arrive from the HRIS or the leave administrator, or an administrator enters one in the employee’s Leave tab. Before saving, the platform checks the code against the catalog for those dates, refuses an overlap with an absence already processed, and copies the classification onto the record so the decision can always be explained later.
What the record carries
- Dates, type code, pay status, work percentage and expected return date
- The source system and its reference, so a resend is recognized
- Received · Pending at entry — nothing is decided while it is being keyed
- Edits allowed until processing begins; then the record locks
Why it matters
The leave belongs to your leave system; its benefits consequence belongs here.
Benefits Reimagined does not approve leave, certify medical conditions or track balances — and never blocks open enrollment because someone is on leave.
Five Decision Tracks, One Rule Engine
When the absence is processed, the platform maps its code to the catalog version in force, normalizes the pay status and runs your leave rule set on the shared Business Rules engine — the same engine that decides eligibility and cost everywhere else. Plan overrides run first; then each switched-on track returns exactly one answer.
What each track can answer
- Benefit — continue, change or terminate
- Coverage — continue, reduce or terminate
- Contribution — continue, defer or waive
- Collection — payroll, direct bill, or payroll then direct bill; ACA when the rule set includes it
Why it matters
Same leave, same answer — every time, for every employee.
Tracks switched off for a type are skipped; a switched-on track that returns nothing stops the run with a message rather than guessing.
Decisions Become Work Items for Payroll, Billing and Carriers
A decision is not finished until someone acts on it. Each decision becomes a Ready work item for whoever owns the next step — payroll for continued, deferred or waived deductions; Direct Billing when premiums must be billed to the employee; the carrier when coverage is reduced or ended; ACA when hours need special treatment.
Which decision creates which work
- Collection by payroll → a payroll item; by direct bill → a billing item; payroll then direct bill → both
- Contribution deferred or waived → a payroll item for BR ReVerge
- Benefit changed or ended, coverage reduced or ended → a carrier item
- Any ACA decision → an ACA item; any direct bill flags the absence for Direct Billing
Why it matters
One decision, one work item per action — never two, never none.
Every work item carries a key built from the employee, the decision, the action and the date, so a retry can never double a deduction or a bill.
Same Decisions Whatever Runs Your HR and Payroll
The absence record has the same shape whether it comes from SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, UKG, ADP, Dayforce, Paycom or any other HRIS, or straight from a leave administrator’s file. Payroll work items go through BR ReVerge to 360-degree Payroll or any third-party payroll, and the catalog, rule set and trail never change with the stack.
What plugs in
- Any HRIS through HRIS Sync, field by field
- Leave administrator files, with new layouts mapped by BR IntelliMap
- Manual entry in the Leave tab of Employee Management
- ADP, Workday, UKG, Dayforce, Paycom or SAP ECP for the payroll side
Why it matters
Change your leave vendor or your payroll; the rules do not move.
The catalog and the leave rule set are configured once per tenant and apply to every source.
Rules of Leave Impact
Nine rules hold on every absence, whatever the source, the leave type or the payroll — they are why a leave decided today can be explained next year.
| Rule | What it means | Why it holds |
|---|---|---|
| The leave system owns the leave | Approval, medical certification and leave balances stay with your HRIS or leave administrator. | Benefits decides benefits, not entitlement. |
| Leave never blocks enrollment | An employee on leave can still complete open enrollment and life events. | Leave changes the bill, not the right to choose. |
| One code, one meaning at a time | The catalog is effective-dated; descriptions are unique; overlapping dates close the earlier version. | No leave carries two meanings. |
| The record keeps what it was decided on | Category, type, program and pay status are copied onto the absence when it is saved. | Catalog edits never rewrite history. |
| Switched on means answered | If an impact switch is on, its track must return a decision — or the run stops with a message. | No silent defaults. |
| One rule set, no fallback | Leave rules live in Business Rules; if the leave rule set is missing, processing stops. | The wrong rules are worse than no rules. |
| All or nothing | Decisions, work items and the status change are saved together or rolled back together. | No half-decided leave. |
| Same input, same result | A resend with an identical fingerprint is skipped and logged. | No double deductions, no double bills. |
| Processed means locked | Once processing starts, the absence cannot be edited through the normal path. | Downstream teams act on decisions that will not move under them. |
The Law Behind the Decision Tracks
The tracks were shaped by the federal and state rules that govern benefits during leave. Your rule set encodes your plan’s positions on them.
| Rule source | What it requires | How Leave Impact handles it |
|---|---|---|
| FMLA · group health29 CFR 825.209 | Group health coverage continues on the same conditions as if the employee had kept working. | FMLA types switch on the benefit and coverage tracks; the shipped rule answers Continue. |
| FMLA · paying the share29 CFR 825.210 | The employee share can be collected on the payroll schedule, the COBRA schedule, by cafeteria-plan prepayment or another agreed method — with no added fees. | The collection track chooses payroll, direct bill, or payroll then direct bill per absence. |
| FMLA · late payment29 CFR 825.212 | Coverage may end once a payment is more than 30 days late, after at least 15 days’ written notice. | The bill and its grace period run in Direct Billing. |
| Cafeteria plansTreas. Reg. 1.125-3 | Prepay, pay-as-you-go and catch-up options for unpaid FMLA leave; coverage may be revoked and reinstated on return. | The contribution track answers Continue, Defer or Waive; deferrals become payroll work items. |
| COBRATreas. Reg. 54.4980B-10 | FMLA leave is not a qualifying event; one occurs on the last day of FMLA leave if the employee does not return. | The absence record keeps the dates that decision depends on, with its trail. |
| USERRA20 CFR 1002.164–.166 | Coverage may continue up to 24 months; under 31 days the normal share, longer up to 102%. | Military types carry their own coverage and contribution rules. |
| ACA employer mandate26 CFR 54.4980H-3 | Special unpaid leave — FMLA, USERRA, jury duty — is excluded or credited in look-back measurement. | The ACA track flags the absence as an ACA work item. |
| State paid family & medical leaveState programs | DE and MN began paying in January 2026 and ME in May 2026; Maryland collects from 2027 and pays from 2028. Several require health benefits to continue. | Each state program is its own absence type, with its own pay status and rules. |
Summaries current as of October 2026, for orientation only. Configure your rule set with your benefits counsel; Benefits Reimagined does not give legal advice.
Core Capabilities of Leave Impact
Six parts working as one: a catalog, an intake, a rule set, a decision engine, a work queue and a trail.
Absence Type Catalog
Effective-dated codes with unique descriptions, a pay default, category, type, program and four impact switches. A code in use cannot be deleted.
Absence Intake
From any HRIS, a leave administrator file or the Leave tab — with type, date and overlap checks before anything is saved.
Leave Rule Set
Tracks built on Business Rules, ordered by priority, with plan overrides evaluated first. No code, no second rule table.
Decision Engine
Pay-status normalization and five decision tracks; switched-on tracks must answer, so nothing defaults silently.
Work Item Queue
Ready items for payroll, Direct Billing, carriers and ACA, each with a unique key; direct bills flag the absence automatically.
Absence Trail
Append-only runs and events — received, mapped, evaluated, decided, queued, skipped, completed — with processed absences locked.
Leave Tool and Spreadsheet vs. Leave Impact
Leave vendors and HCM suites publish approvals, balances and pay. The benefits consequence is usually left to email, a spreadsheet and the next reconciliation.
| Moment | Leave tool + benefits portal | Benefits Reimagined |
|---|---|---|
| Leave approved | The benefits team hears about it by email, days later. | The absence record arrives and is classified against your catalog the same day. |
| Pay stops | Deductions fail quietly; arrears surface at reconciliation. | Contribution and collection are decided up front — defer, payroll, or payroll then direct bill. |
| Collecting the premium | Someone mails a coupon book. | Direct Billing picks up the flagged absence with its billing reason. |
| Coverage changes | The carrier is told late, or not at all. | Reduce or terminate becomes a carrier work item the moment it is decided. |
| ACA hours | Leave weeks counted as zero hours by mistake. | Special unpaid leave is flagged as an ACA work item. |
| The vendor resends a file | Processed twice — a double deduction. | Same fingerprint, skipped and logged. |
| The audit question | Reconstructed from emails and spreadsheets. | One trail: absence, run, rule, decision, work item. |
Athena on leave questions
Meet Athena: Answers While You’re Out
Employees on leave ask three things: am I covered, what will I pay, and how. Administrators ask why. Athena answers both from the absence record, its decisions and the plan documents — with sources — and never changes a decision.
- “Am I still covered while I’m on leave?” — the decisions on her own absence, with the plan rule cited
- “Why am I getting a bill instead of a deduction?” — the collection decision and the date pay stopped
- “What do I owe when I come back?” — deferred amounts and how your plan collects them, from the record
- For administrators — “which absences stopped this week, and why?” — each with its message and a retry link
- Also for administrators — “who moves to a direct bill in November?” — the list, from the work items
I start unpaid medical leave on Oct 1. Do I keep my medical?
Athena · from your recordYes. Your leave is recorded as medical leave (FMLA), unpaid, October 1 to November 15. Medical, dental and vision continue on the same terms, family tier included. Your October 2 paycheck still takes your share; after that, your share moves to a monthly bill.
See my bill scheduleAsk HR
Is there an extra fee on the bill?
Athena · from your planNo. The bill is your normal employee share with no added fees. Statements start in November, and your account status shows in Employee Home.
Open Employee Home
Ask about your benefits… / Pregunta sobre tus beneficios…
Why We Built Leave Impact This Way
Benefits impact is its own job
Leave tools stop at approval and payroll tools stop at pay. The benefits consequence — coverage, contributions, who collects the premium — was the step nobody owned, so it got its own engine.
Configuration over code
Absence types are catalog rows and decisions are rules on the shared engine, so a new state program or a policy change is configuration — dated, reviewable and superseded by the next version.
Snapshots protect history
Copying the classification onto each absence means a decision made in March can still be explained in December, whatever happened to the catalog in between.
Decide once, hand off many
Keeping decisions separate from work items lets one answer — payroll, then direct bill — fan out to every team that acts on it, each with its own key.
Fail loudly, never guess
An unknown code, a missing rule set or a required track with no answer stops the run with a message for the administrator, instead of applying a default nobody chose.
Built for the audit
Append-only runs and a full event trail answer the support question — which absence, which run, which rule, which work item, why skipped — on one screen.
Four Leaves, Four Outcomes — and One on Another Stack
Every story runs on the same catalog, rule engine and trail; only the absence and the rules it meets differ.
Six weeks, unpaid
Jane Doe’s medical leave arrives from the leave administrator. Coverage continues, her share is deferred, collection is payroll then direct bill, and two Ready work items go to payroll and billing.
Covered, billed, no surprise arrears.Twelve weeks, fully paid
A paid parental leave keeps pay flowing, so every track answers Continue and collection stays on payroll. No billing item is created; the baby is added as a life event.
Nothing changes that shouldn’t.A 90-day deployment
A military absence is unpaid and longer than 30 days, so the configured USERRA contribution rule applies, coverage continues and the premium moves to a direct bill.
USERRA as configuration, not memory.The file comes twice
The leave administrator resends Monday’s file: identical fingerprints are skipped. One row carries a sabbatical code not in the catalog — it stops, the admin adds the type and retries.
Nothing doubled, nothing guessed.Workday · UKG · ADP · Dayforce · SAP SuccessFactors · third-party payroll
The same leave on Workday and ADP payroll
An employer running Workday, ADP payroll and an outside leave administrator sends the same absence. The catalog, rule set and decisions are identical, the payroll work item goes to ADP through BR ReVerge, and the absence trail is the same screen.
See SuccessFactors & HRIS SyncSee What a Leave Does to Your Benefits
Bring your leave types, your premium-collection policy and three anonymized absences — one unpaid, one partly paid, one military — and we’ll classify, decide and queue them live.
Any HRIS or leave administratorPayroll or direct bill per absenceEvery decision traceable
Leave Impact FAQs
It is the step that decides what a leave of absence does to an employee’s benefits: whether coverage continues, whether contributions continue, defer or are waived, whether the premium is collected through payroll or a direct bill, and what payroll, carriers and ACA measurement need to know.
No. Leave requests, approvals, medical certification and leave balances stay with your HRIS or leave administrator. Benefits Reimagined receives the approved absence and decides its benefits consequence.
Any type you add to the absence type catalog. Typical catalogs include FMLA, state paid family and medical leave, short- and long-term disability, parental leave, military leave under USERRA, reduced schedule and intermittent leave, personal unpaid leave, jury duty, workers’ compensation and sabbaticals.
The collection track decides per absence: payroll, direct bill, or payroll then direct bill. A direct-bill decision creates a billing work item and flags the absence for Direct Billing, which produces the employee’s statements.
Yes. Being on leave never blocks open enrollment or a life event. The leave changes how the premium is collected, not the employee’s right to choose.
Each processed absence has a fingerprint built from its dates, type, pay status, work percentage, return date and source. A resend with the same fingerprint is skipped and logged, so nothing is decided or deducted twice.
The run stops with a message that the type is not in the catalog, nothing is half-saved, and the absence stays retryable. The administrator adds or corrects the type and processes it again.
When the leave rule set includes the ACA track, the absence becomes an ACA work item so special unpaid leave — FMLA, USERRA and jury duty — is treated correctly in look-back measurement.
Yes. Add a new version of the absence type or change the rule in Business Rules with its effective date. Absences already decided keep the classification they were decided on.
Absences can come from SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, UKG, ADP, Dayforce, Paycom or any other HRIS, or from a leave administrator file. Payroll work items go through BR ReVerge to 360-degree Payroll or any third-party payroll.
The absence trail records every event — received, run started, type mapped, rules evaluated, decision recorded, work item created, run skipped or completed — so support can answer which absence, which run, which rule and which work item in one place.
Explore Benefits Reimagined Today
Leave is approved somewhere else. What it does to benefits is decided here — by rule, on the day, with the trail to prove it.