Employers are responsible for deferring retirement savings from payroll for each employee who participates in Delaware EARNS until an employee meets the annual contribution limit or decides to no longer contribute.
If your employees make savings rate changes, those changes will be posted on the Delaware EARNS employer portal the following business day. Additionally, you may receive email notices of all outstanding savings rate changes about four days before your next expected payroll contribution date. For those employers that do not have a set payroll schedule, you will not receive email reminders, so make sure to check the portal to confirm savings rates before you process payroll. Updating your payroll files to reflect these changes for this and future payroll contributions is important.
Before you process your payroll, please review the Delaware EARNS portal to see if any employees have recently added or changed their contribution rates.
To begin, log in to your employer portal:
Here, you can see the employee list and their status.
Please follow the below instructions to make your employee savings rate changes.
- Navigate to your dashboard.
- From the "Contributions" tab, see the View Savings Rate Change button.
The Savings Rate Change or No Savings Rate Change button - If your employees submit savings rate changes on their portal, those changes will show here. You must update your payroll files to reflect these changes from now on. We also send an email notification to you four days before your next pay date, giving you time to implement the changes on your files. Again, for employers that do not have a set payroll schedule, you will not receive these email notifications.
- Click on the View Savings Rate Change button.
- Notice the percentage change column.
- Update your payroll system or payroll contribution file for this and all future payrolls. Be sure to calculate the dollar contribution amount in your file for the “Roth Contribution” column.
- Check the boxes next to the employees’ names.
- Then click Mark as Complete.
Once you have accounted for the savings rate change, be sure to click Mark as Complete. This will remove the reminder on this page (and emails) and help you stay current on the savings rates your employees wish to have.
If you included your payroll schedule when you registered for Delaware EARNS, you will receive an email alerting you to any employee savings rate changes 4 days before each payroll. Look for our email notifications before every pay period to stay on top of your employee savings rate changes.
Sample "Employee Savings Rate Changes" email:
You will also receive an email notification whenever a new employee becomes eligible and hasn't had at least one contribution processed on their behalf. This email includes the savings rates for just those employees.
Sample "Newly Eligible Employees" email:
After updating your payroll contribution file, proceed with your payroll contribution submission.
Please see our article, “Contributions - File Upload.” For manual payroll submission, please see our article “How to Submit Contributions Manually.” For employers without a set payroll schedule, please see our article, “No Pay Schedule? No Problem - How To Submit Off-Cycle Payroll Contributions.”