With manual reporting, you enter data directly into Retirement Online to create a report, which updates each employee’s record for the report period. You can report:
- Job data for status changes, for example, a leave of absence, a return from leave, military leave or termination;
- Days, contributions and payments made during reported pay periods; and
- Employee earnings.
This method is useful when you need to submit a small number of transactions, such as correcting previously submitted information (adjustments), or if you are only reporting a small number of employees.
Please check Enhanced Reporting Resources for quicks guides on Manual Reporting.
Please note: if you need to report an employee who is eligible to join NYSLRS but is not a member, they will need to be assigned a NYSLRS ID before you can report them. The NYSLRS ID is a unique identifier for members of NYSLRS. To assign a NYSLRS ID for these employees, the Enrollment Dashboard in Retirement Online should be used to hire (not enroll) them for reporting purposes. For instructions on hiring employees during the enrollment process, refer to the “For Optional Members” section of our Enroll a Member quick guide. An enrollment confirmation message will provide their NYSLRS ID at the end of the process.
Employment Instance
When you report manually, an employee may have more than one employment instance. An employment instance refers to the specific job the employee holds. Employees may have more than one job under the same employer. If the standard work day, retirement plan or pay frequency for each job is different, a separate employment instance is needed. The employment instance identifies the earnings and service credit being reported for each job.
When a new employee is enrolled or hired for reporting purposes, Retirement Online generates and displays the employee’s employment instance for you to keep for future reports. If the employee has multiple employment instances at your location, be certain to report their earnings under the correct instance.
Employee Summary and Earnings Detail
When reporting manually, each employee you report will be listed in the report details. You can scroll or search through the report details to select each employee’s View/Edit page.
The View/Edit page is where you enter an employee’s monthly data. In the Employee Summary section, you enter an employee’s days worked, member contributions and any loan payments or service credit payments for the payroll period. You must also report the number of pay cycles in the payroll period you are reporting (pay frequency).
In the Earnings Details section of the employee’s View/Edit page, you report all earnings, both pensionable and non-pensionable, for your employee. Earnings are what you pay your employees before deducting health insurance, dental insurance, etc., and are considered pensionable if they can be used in the calculation of a member’s retirement benefit.
To identify the pensionable and non-pensionable earnings that make up an employee’s pay, you assign them NYSLRS earnings codes that are matched to the payroll codes you use internally. The use of earning codes in your report reduces the need for payroll records requests and breakdowns of salary when an employee applies for certain member benefits or retirement. Earnings codes also determine which earnings will be included in your annual invoice.
Earnings codes are only for NYSLRS reporting purposes. You do not need to change how you label earnings (payroll codes) internally.
For a detailed listing of NYSLRS earnings codes, please read our earnings codes guide.
Job Data
An employee’s job data should only be updated in the Job Data section of the employee’s View/Edit page to inform us of a change in an enrolled employee’s job status, for example, a leave of absence, a return from leave, military leave or termination.
Rev. 2/23