BerniePortal

Great and easy platform

Kommentare: The rollout of the company benefits plans was made incredibly easy and it mitigated a lot of issues that we had in the past of using paper forms. I knew exactly when and if employees had signed up for benefits and also if they had submitted their waiver if they weren't taking the benefits.
I've been able to readily sign up new employees as well.

Vorteile:

All the plan data is there for me to download to make comparisons to payroll data being withheld.

Nachteile:

I wish I could've uploaded the info to my payroll company (Paychex)

Eases the burden and keeps things simple

Kommentare: BerniePortal has fulfilled our needs for managing benefits, particularly enrollment for health, dental, and vision insurance and related documentation. We are testing out the PTO module, hoping to replace our basic spreadsheets and email approval system. We've been very pleased with the portal, and recommend you at least check it out to see if it will meet your needs.

Vorteile:

The bernieportal leverages technology to handle the communication and paperwork/documentation necessary for managing benefits. The process is seamless, and employees have easy access to information about their benefits. Each month a webinar is offered, which covers new releases and reminders about the tools available.

Nachteile:

If you have complex benefits, this may not be the best system...but make sure you test it out first. There are some customizations available. Their wheelhouse is probably small to mid-size businesses.

It could be better

Kommentare: Created more work for HR during open enrollment. In the past, when employees did not make changes to their health insurance plans, we didn't have to update anything. Now that we utilize the Bernie Portal and it does not reflect the correct information, HR is essentially stuck doing every single employee's open enrollment (so that the employee does not assume they pay $0 when they do contribute). Very time consuming. Changes are not always reflected. I have also encountered employees who information was not reflected correctly even though entered with the previous elections - i.e. dependents deleted for no reason. I also feel like it could have more functionality and tools that are useful to the HR professional. I don't understand why it includes new employee forms - feels a little disjointed.

Vorteile:

I think the system has potential. It's pretty user-friendly for the most part. I think it could be valuable to an organization but not every single employee will understand how to make sure they are putting in the proper elections for health insurance.

Nachteile:

Not fully functional. Our costs do not show up appropriately. Employees are supposed to see how much they pay towards their insurance and it says $0. Since it says this, they can not use the software which results in HR having to do all of the leg work during open enrollment and through out the year. I see they offer 1094/1095C assistance. It is not a functionality on my end. I questioned our third party and have yet to hear back on how this could be implemented.

Bernie Review

Kommentare: Great

Vorteile:

The software is super simple! I could list a dozen things that I love about the portal.

Nachteile:

I wish we could customize the portal more. I do not like the date feature for new employees.. I wish you could type the date. I also wish their was a button for a passive enrollment.

Good Fit for Mid-Size Company

Vorteile:

Easy to register with and navigate as a user as well as an administrator. Also customized to what our business needed it for which was a place to house our company's benefits plans and summaries and manage open enrollment and new hire enrollments. The BP helped automate a once manual and paper-only process.

Nachteile:

Some delays when navigating to different areas the site, or employee to employee.

New BerniePortal User

Kommentare: I would not recommend the BerniePortal and will be looking for a new solution. It may work for smaller employers with less employees, but it is not the solution for larger employers with more active enrollment needs.

Vorteile:

We just used this software for our recent open enrollment period. Employees were able to enroll easily in their benefits and see their options.

Nachteile:

The biggest problems are on the back side. There is no provision for passive enrollment years. The reports are very difficult to get to and are not well written for the benefit professional. The report request is processed and then you are supposed to be emailed a report, but they don't always come through and then they expire if they get caught in your spam filter. We had major issues with getting accurate change report information to report to the carriers - it was not clear what exactly changed from last year to the new year. There is a very nice dashboard, but it can't be used to pull enrollment data for the plans.

Gets you organized

Vorteile:

Moving us from paper to digital. The best thing was how simple it was to use. I have employees that varies in age and computer knowledge and it was so easy! They were able to log in, fill out the form with ease and submit. Accessing the information after the fact was simple and the staff was just so happy that we went digital. On the back end as the administrator, it has all the reports I need and more. It was easy to go back and review files.

Nachteile:

They have several additional features that you can use. However, they need more updates for it to be worthwhile.

Definitely a little bit of a learning curve, but we're coming around

Vorteile:

Lots of useful tools that we are able to utilize as a broker. Love the 1095 build outs and quick reports.

Nachteile:

Can be a little difficult for a new person to navigate. Would love to see a help feature similar to something you might see on a Microsoft Office programs.

User Friendly but Slow to Process

Vorteile:

I liked the set up of the system. I was able to find where the employees were, the payroll section, the bills section, etc. with ease.

Nachteile:

I did not like how slow the system was to process. When I would try to switch from page to page, it takes awhile to load. Since we are in year 2019, I expect to use systems that are just as fast as my computer's operating system. I was surprised at how slow the Bernie Portal is.

Bernie is a good benefit management tool

Kommentare: Has been excellent and the employees loved it.
Problems have been solved quickly when a solution is available.

Vorteile:

The customer support in getting started and setting up the portal as your benefit enrollment solution. The simplicity of the screens and the ease of following through from start to finish

Nachteile:

Wish the reporting was more customizable Needs development on the more intricate elements of benefit management; beneficiaries designation variances between multiple policies, dependent designations and qualifications Ability to import images to benefit descriptive page to reflect carriers

2 out of 10 stars.

Kommentare: Overall, I wouldn't recommend Bernie Portal. We only have this system because it goes along with our insurance company. If we didn't have to use it, we wouldn't. I'm just glad we're a smaller business so issues are easily fixable on MY end, since I can't count on Bernie Portal to fix it.

Vorteile:

When employees enroll into benefits, we receive a detailed and easy to read enrollment form.

Nachteile:

You cannot upload your own documents for employees to digitally sign, you have to send to your rep, and sometimes we've had another company's documents uploaded onto our profile. The pto feature is not user friendly whatsoever, and you can only use time off in half day or full days. The time tracking feature is nice, allows employees to clock in and out, but sometimes there are glitches and issues and all of a sudden everyone's times are missing - and no one has any idea on what's caused it. The customer service is also very slow, representatives take days to get back to you, a lot of them don't know the answers to questions, and have to keep sending you on over to others.

Review by Company Administrator

Kommentare: From the brokers admin standpoint the software provides an online solution to administer and maintain benefits, especially for the smaller to midsize groups. It gets more complicated with larger groups that have multiple levels. Working closely with a BP rep that is a good fit for the firm is extremely important to make these build outs and renewals go smoothly.

Vorteile:

The software's functionality is fairly easy to use from the standpoint of the brokers admin. I am able to easily train our groups admins to manage their groups benefits, enrollment and renewal process.

Nachteile:

The reports feature is limited and not very robust. It would be great to create reports with only the information needed and in the order your like to see it displayed.

Bernie Portal is great!

Kommentare: I am finding Bernie Portal to be a great value add for my agency. My groups like the portal, it is easy to use, and it helps me get new business and retain what i already have. I am a big fan!

Vorteile:

I like the fact that Bernie Portal is so focused on the broker. The fact that they build each website for me and update each year on renewal makes Bernie Portal such a great partner for my agency.

Nachteile:

Every now and then i run into something that a group may want to do that Bernie Portal just can't accommodate. Usually however, many of these small issues at some point in time get resolved as Bernie continues to innovate and upgrade their portal.

Great HRIS system for small employers

Kommentare: This improves the employee experience from on boarding to benefit renewal.

Vorteile:

The system is easy to use. It does a nice job on ACA reporting and benefit administration. The applicant tracking software with indeed is a nice feature.

Nachteile:

The reporting is improving but still needs improvement.

BerniePortal - Outdated

Kommentare: I've been using BerniePortal for a little over a year to track our benefit enrollments, etc. If it would get some upgrades I'd use it much more often.

Vorteile:

Has a lot of cool features but the look and feel are very outdated. Layout is easy to use and easy to navigate.

Nachteile:

The system has a lot of potential but the look and feel of the program are old and extremely outdated. If some upgrades were made it would be great.

Bernie is our BFF

Kommentare: Love how all types of employees are able to access and use; easy to understand verbiage.

Vorteile:

Bernie Portal is very user friendly; I love this system :-)

Nachteile:

Need to be able to filter reports per employee status, etc.

Broker and Employer User

Kommentare: Overall is very strong. This time of year things are busy for us all, but the team works hard for us.

Vorteile:

Very user friendly from an admin and employee perspective. Customization is easy as well.

Nachteile:

Wish there was a way to send automatic reminders to employees and a way to have a passive enrollment.

Great Concept

Kommentare: Like having all in one place but for us that has not happened, still have to go to each carrier.

Vorteile:

The idea behind the Bernie Portal is awesome.

Nachteile:

That it does not work like we were told it would.

Onboarding/Applicant tracking Review

Vorteile:

The software is really easy to use and understand

Nachteile:

it would be nice if there were more customization options for paperwork.

Not Impressed

Kommentare: I like how I can access all the employees info for them, as they're not all computer savvy, etc...

Vorteile:

I liked the idea that it was supposed to tell employees their per pay period costs, and allow them to modify their choices

Nachteile:

That it didn't work correctly. It wasn't allowing us to change the Voluntary Life (slider bar). And I have employees who's calculations were incorrect vs what we were billed from the carrier. It's not easy to go back and ask for more money after the fact.

Great for Insurance benefits

Kommentare: We just started using BerniePortal last year, it was the first year we offered employee benefits, and there are so many different things that are useful just with the one portion that we use. The reports are nice that it can pull and send to you.

Vorteile:

What I like about this software is that there is ease when onboarding new employees and then the employees also have it pretty easy when selecting the benefits that they wants. Nice that is makes it a step by step process but it is self explanatory.

Nachteile:

It is sometime a little more complicated to get into the masquerading option from the admin login, sometimes things don't always work correctly but it always works eventually.

Making communication with clients much easier.

Vorteile:

Intuitiveness and ease of use. Slick interface. Clients love it. Relatively small learning curve. ...

Nachteile:

Having to redo elections when we make small changes. Not being able to term or add a dependent without redoing elections.

Enhancements Needed

Kommentare: I love that we are not having to read employees handwriting.

Vorteile:

I like the ease of moving around in the system.

Nachteile:

1. We need to be able to ask a question once (example: are you married?) and not repeat the question for every benefit because it is on the enrollment form. 2. More explanation is needed on the dependents screen as to why the dependent information is needed. it is currently blank and doesn't give direction. 3. The inability to manipulate an employee's per pay check deduction based on a state based subsidy program that can change the amount quarterly. 4. Not listing the carrier name on the benefit. 5. Not being able to use different policy numbers within the same carrier.

BerniePortal Review

Vorteile:

Easy to track and real time notifications of changes.

Nachteile:

Some people don't use computers making it difficult to on board 100%.

Okay for small business

Vorteile:

I liked that I didn't have to post separately on Indeed.

Nachteile:

Lots of things are missing, and my biggest feature improvement recommendation would be in the onboarding. It doesn't allow candidates to save and return at a later time. Also, candidates cannot sign on to actual documents; they have to download the attachment to read the documents. I could go on about how minimalistic this software is.