Continuing Actives and Vesteds Valued as Actives
Measuring the gain or loss attributable to continuing actives and continuing vesteds valued as active by source is optional. However, it may be beneficial for plans that are salary related, utilize U.S., Canadian, German or UK regulatory data items or have data changes amongst continuing actives (including updates to cash balance or career average accrued benefits).
Selecting all continuing active Sources to analyze will produce three groups, or sources: (1) salary growth (referring to the Valuation Salary defined in your Census Specifications and to any alternate Salary Definitions used in your Plan Definition), (2) regulatory increases and (3) gains or losses caused by database field values. You can change the grouping or the order of allocation of each of the sources by clicking the Sources button and changing the Source Number in the next dialog box. Note that a different order for identical groups will produce a different allocation among the groups of gains and losses by source. Each separate group requires an additional pass. For the fastest run, group them all together. On the other hand, for the greatest detail, assign each item to its own group.
Note that the same sources will be run for continuing actives and continuing vesteds valued as actives.
Salary Growth
The salary growth sources measure the gain or loss due to salary increases that differ from expected salary increases, based on your Salary Definitions and Valuation Assumptions. Salary growth may be measured based on your Valuation Salary and on any alternate Salary Definitions that exist in your Plan Definition. If your Plan Definition includes an alternative Salary Definition, then the Salary Parameters button becomes accessible. Click it to enter the Salary Parameters dialog box, in which you map a Beginning of Period Salary Definition to each alternative Salary Definition listed in the End of Period Source Column. Note that a beginning-of-period alternate Salary Definition must be specified, even if there is only one alternate Salary Definition used in your Plan Definition.
Regulatory Items
The regulatory items sources measure the gain or loss due to changes in regulatory items. These sources are applicable only if the plan is affected by the U.S., Canadian, German or U.K. regulatory items. If a regulatory item is selected that does not affect your plan, it will generate a gain or loss of zero.
Database Fields
The database field sources measure the gain or loss due to unanticipated changes in database field values. You may use this source to analyze unexpected changes in:
Service fields and part-time percentages,
Cash balance or career average account balances,
Coded fields, for example, job class or group, plant location.
In many cases, this can bring the unreconciled gain / loss for continuing actives down to zero, saving a lot of time analyzing results.
You may use this feature, in lieu of the Data Corrections topic, to analyze continuing active sources but the results will not be identical. Data corrections measure the difference between using the original and corrected beginning of period data, whereas the Continuing Actives database field sources measure the difference between using expected and actual end of period data.
Any database field referenced in one or more beginning of period runs and one or more end of period runs is available as a source, except for those fields used in a Salary Definition (because salary-related gains and losses are accounted for in the salary growth sources) and character fields. Select the field(s) you wish to analyze, click the Data Parameters button and then click the field name(s), to specify how each field is expected to change from beginning to end of period. The Expected value at end of period may be determined based on (unavailable options will be inaccessible):
Equal to beginning of period. This is a suitable choice for fields that aren't expected to change from one year to the next (e.g., job class, group, birth dates) or are expected to change by a fixed amount (e.g., “service + 1”, as for hire dates and proration dates). This option is available for date fields, coded fields and most numeric fields, such as part-time percentages. For numeric fields, you can also specify "plus" or "times" to adjust the value of the beginning of period database field in order to get the expected end of period database field value. This adjustment may be specified as a constant or a field from the beginning-of-period database. An add-on value of 1 might be suitable for a service field that is expected to increase by 1 year in a one-year gain/loss analysis (for more complicated cases use Projected service from service definition, discussed below).
Projected value of component (available for numeric fields only). This is a suitable choice for fields that specify the accrued benefit on the valuation date for a cash balance or career average component (the amount may represent many things, including a cash balance account balance, employee contributions with interest, career average benefit, etc.). ProVal will determine the expected value by projecting the component's value from the beginning of the period to the end of the period. Select from the list of Benefit Formula Components (that are referenced by Valuation(s) included in this Gain / Loss Analysis).
Projected service from service definition (available for numeric fields only). This is a suitable choice for fields that specify current service on the valuation date for Service Definitions, often used for current service fields that don’t increase by 1 because of part-time percentages. ProVal will determine the expected value by projecting service from the beginning of the period to the end of the period, using fractional service accruals and rounding rules, if any. Select from the list of Service Definitions (that are referenced by Valuation(s) included in this Gain / Loss Analysis).
Projected employee contributions with interest (available for numeric fields only). This is a suitable choice for fields that specify contributions with interest on the valuation date for refunds of employee contributions. ProVal will determine the expected value by projecting this balance from the beginning of the period to the end of the period. Select from the list of Contributions library entries (that are referenced by Valuations included in this Gain/Loss Analysis).
Note: Certain database fields are dependent on other fields. For example, a joint and survivor payment form which references a database field for the percentages paid. When calculating the difference between expected and actual results of the database field, ProVal will require that the dependent fields be populated. In other words, if the actual end of period form is life annuity, but the expected form is the joint and survivor, ProVal will require that the percentages paid field be populated. If that information is missing, there are two options to handle this: