Service and age can be specified in ProVal as either an attained numeric value as of a valuation date or decrement date or as a start date for measuring the attained value, again, as of a valuation or decrement date. If a start date is specified then, for purposes of calculating exact (unrounded) service or age (for example, to measure service and/or age when applying eligibility Conditions of a Benefit Definition), ProVal calculates the service or age as elapsed time since the start date. (For many other purposes, such as computing service and age for table lookups, ProVal computes a rounded age and might not use elapsed time.)

The methodology used to calculate elapsed time depends on the ProVal computational mode, as follows:

 

All modes other than German mode

1. First, each date is converted to a decimal year using the equation:

 

 * note: February is assumed to contain 29 days.

2. The decimal years are then subtracted.

EXAMPLE:

Date of birth: 4/14/78

Valuation date: 10/1/93

 

 

German mode

The start date is always treated as beginning of day and the end date is treated as end of day. That is, both the start date and the end date are included in the age or service. The steps in the calculation are:

1. Completed months between the two dates are calculated using the equation:

An additional month is added if the start day is the first of a month and the end day is the last day of the month. A month is subtracted if the end day is less than the start day minus 1 (e.g., start day is 15 and end day is 13).

 

2. Days in excess of completed months are calculated.

1. The completed months from step 1 are added to the full start date. A completed month from the start date ends on a day that is one less from the start day (e.g., 1 month after October 15, 2013 is November 14, 2013), but limited to the last day of the month.

2. Days from step 2a are subtracted from the end days to obtain the remaining days.

3. Years, months and days are converted to decimal years using the equation:

,

in which:

Years = the number of months from step 1 divided by 12 and rounded down,

Months = the number of months from step 1 minus 12 x Years,

Days = remaining days from step 2b.

 

EXAMPLE:

Date of birth: 4/14/1978

Valuation date: 9/30/1993

Elapsed time between 4/14/1978 and 9/30/1993:

4/14/1978 + 185 months = 9/13/1993

Further examples of age / service measurements in German mode:

Start date	End date	Elapsed Time
1/1/2012	12/31/2012	1.00000
12/1/2012	12/31/2012	0.08333 (1 month)
12/31/2012	12/31/2012	0.00274 (1 day)
1/1/2012	2/29/2012	0.16667 (2 months)
1/1/2013	2/28/2013	0.16667 (2 months)
1/30/2013	2/28/2013	0.08333 (1 month)
1/31/2013	2/28/2013	0.08333 (1 month)