Enhanced Reporting — Gold Certification
All employers are required to switch to enhanced reporting. If your organization hasn’t set up a transition plan, you must contact us immediately to do so.
What may seem like a huge undertaking for your organization can take place in small increments over time, so you and your staff can continue meeting your everyday responsibilities while meeting your obligations as a NYSLRS employer. We’ll work with you to develop a plan and timeline tailored to your organization’s needs, and we provide customized step-by-step training and support.
Begin with 2 Easy Steps
- Email NYSLRSGoldCertification@osc.ny.gov.
- Set a timeframe that works for your organization to switch to enhanced Reporting.
You Provide the Data, We Do the Work
We will let you know what type of information you need to send to begin working on your switch to enhanced reporting.
Benefits of Enhanced Reporting
You need to begin using enhanced reporting so you can continue to submit monthly reports but there are also important benefits. Enhanced reporting maximizes your efficiency and improves the service you provide to your employees. The sooner you switch, the sooner you’ll experience the advantages.
- Automatically tracks and notifies you when a Tier 5 or 6 member reaches their overtime limit.
- Streamlines enrollment and helps eliminate time consuming adjustments and corrections.
- Replaces cumbersome paper records with electronic reporting to process required member data faster and more accurately, especially when your employees retire.
Gold Certification: 4‐Step Process
During Gold Certification, you’ll be assigned a NYSLRS transition coach to guide you through our four-step process for switching to enhanced reporting.
Step 1: Data Mapping
Working with your transition coach, you’ll associate the specific payroll/personnel codes used at your location (job codes, HR transactions and earnings codes) with the new enhanced report standards.
This one-time exercise provides a number of long-term benefits. It ensures new hires are automatically enrolled in the correct pension plan, streamlines HR processes such as leaves of absence and rehiring, and reduces the need for deficiency payments.
The following resources will help you get started:
Step 2: Implement Approved Data Mapping (Data Preparation)
Your transition coach will work with you to implement the approved data mapping in the software used to generate your enhanced report. If you create your own enhanced report or report manually, your transition coach will show you how to apply the approved data mapping accordingly.
During this critical step, your transition coach will tailor guidelines and instruction to your specific needs.
IMPORTANT: You must complete this step before you can begin practicing using enhanced reporting.
Step 3: Practice Using Enhanced (Instructor-Led Training)
During instructor-led training with your transition coach, you will practice using enhanced reporting in a live session.
This may include:
- Updating member information.
- Verifying member data and contribution rates.
- Enrolling new members.
- Reporting non-participating employees, including all public retirees (someone who returned to public employment while receiving a pension from NYSLRS or one of the other six public retirement systems in New York State).
- Submitting a regular monthly report and making adjustments.
- Resolving errors and warnings.
Step 4: Submit Your First Enhanced Report
Working with your transition coach, you will submit your first regular monthly report using enhanced reporting in Retirement Online.
Hypercare & Beyond
Once you have completed Gold Certification, your transition coach will continue to be available to you for an additional three months to:
- Address any questions.
- Assist with reporting errors.
- Ensure you’re comfortable with enhanced reporting.
Beyond hypercare, NYSLRS Employer Services staff will continue to provide support.
Resources & Self-paced Trainings
Data Mapping
Enhanced File Format
Manual Reporting
- Enhanced Reporting Fundamentals: Manual Reporting
- Create a Manual Enhanced Report
- Enter Monthly Data for a Manual Enhanced Report
- Add a Row to an Employee’s Data Before Submitting
- Enter Monthly Data and Addressing Warnings
- Enter Monthly Data with an HR Transaction
- Submit the Manual Enhanced Report
- Enhanced Manual Adjustment Transaction
File Upload
- Enhanced Reporting File Upload: Transactions 1 & 2
- Enhanced Reporting File Upload: Transactions 3 & 4
- Enhanced Reporting File Upload: View and Edit
- Enhanced Reporting File Upload: Adjustments
- Upload a Regular Monthly Report File
- Submit and Post a Regular Monthly Report File
- Upload an Enrollment File for New Hires
- Submit and Post an Enrollment File for New Hires and View New Hire Information
Errors and Warnings
Tips and Tricks
Frequently Asked Questions
The enhanced report will change the way you report employee information to NYSLRS. Below are some frequently asked questions from employers who already transitioned to enhanced reporting.
Eligibility
What is the definition of an eligible employee?
An eligible employee is any employee who meets the criteria for mandatory or optional membership.
- Mandatory Enrollments: Full-time, permanent, regular, 12-month positions earning at least the current state minimum wage, and all police officers and paid firefighters (including part-time positions).
- Optional Enrollments: Temporary or provisional positions (under Civil Service Law), employment of less than 30 hours per week, or less than the standard number of hours for full-time employment as established by the employer for this position, duration of employment for less than one year, or employment on less than a 12-month per year basis, annual compensation less than the New York State’s minimum wage multiplied by 2,000 hours.
Enrollment and Hiring
Will non-members have NYSLRS IDs and employment instances?
Yes. All employees who meet mandatory membership criteria, employees who are eligible for optional NYSLRS membership regardless of enrollment status, and public retirees should be reported on the enhanced file. They will receive NYSLRS IDs and employment instances when you hire (not enroll) them at your location through Retirement Online. If an employee is in another retirement system, such as NYSTRS, you do not need to report them to NYSLRS. Employees who are not eligible for NYSLRS membership should NOT be reported.
If we are using the NYSLRS ID moving forward, will we still need to have the registration number for reporting purposes?
The registration number will not be reported by the employer after they have transitioned to enhanced reporting. However, registration numbers will continue to be issued for all new employees until the transition to enhanced reporting is complete, at which time registration numbers will become obsolete.
How will we get reporting information (NYSLRS ID and employment instance) for employees currently working in our system in reportable positions?
You will need to hire (not enroll) your new and non-member optional personnel that work in NYSLRS-eligible positions as one of the final steps in the Gold Certification transition process in the Retirement Online training environment. “Hiring” an optional member into the system allows NYSLRS to collect days and earnings information that can be referenced if they choose to enroll in NYSLRS later. At the end of the transition process employers will complete this step again in the live Retirement Online system before submitting their first enhanced report.
If a new hire is already a member from a prior employer will we still need them to complete an enrollment application?
No, NYSLRS membership is for life. If you hire an employee who participates in NYSLRS, they are already enrolled. However, you will be required to hire them at your location and report them using their new employment instance.
How often can an enrollment-only report be submitted?
An enrollment-only report can be submitted at any time on an as-needed basis. Please note, biographical data for a member can only be entered once, as it generates their unique (permanent) NYSLRS ID.
Reporting
Will ERS and PFRS be reported on the same report or will they still be separate?
In enhanced reporting, ERS and PFRS can be reported together.
How many earnings transactions can one employee have on an enhanced report?
An employer may report as many earnings transactions as necessary per employee to NYSLRS.
If an employee with a single employment instance had three different types of earnings for the month (for example, regular, overtime, and holiday), each of these earnings would be reported as separate earnings transactions. The result would be one days and contributions transaction and three separate earnings transactions.
Will we be reporting days worked or hours worked?
You will be reporting both days worked and hours worked. In the days and contributions field, you will be reporting the number of days the employee worked for the reporting period. This is what NYSLRS uses to determine the service credit owed to an employee. In the earnings transaction, you will be reporting the number of hours worked at each relevant earnings type (such as regular, overtime, etc.).
Contact Us
Call your transition coach: 866-805-0990 | Monday – Friday, 8:30 am – 4:00 pm
- When prompted, choose option 1 to be connected to employer resources.
- You will then be asked for your location code, followed by the pound “#” sign.
- After you enter this code, you will begin to hear our traditional options for employer-related questions. At this point, you can dial your transition group code and be connected to a Gold Certification transition coach. This is a special code that was provided on your transition plan. It is not listed as an option on the Help Desk line.
Send an email: NYSLRSGoldCertification@osc.ny.gov
Rev. 4/25