The first step to generate a tax cost estimate is to create a cost estimate template. A template determines the line items to be displayed for an assignment. Each line item represents an assignment cost to the employer.

You can create a cost estimate template at either the system or company level. To create a system level template, select Templates in the Configuration tab. To create a company level template, select Templates in the Company tab. If you intend to use the custom calculation feature to automate assignment costs computation, you need to create the templates at the company level.

You can create multiple templates for each company to reflect the assignment costs specific to each policy or assignment phase. For example, you can create separate templates designed for a tax equalized short-term or long-term assignment. Also, you can create a template designed to estimate the tax grossup of a one way transfer.

After opening the Cost Estimate Template screen, select

to create a new template. Choose from the three available options:

Once option is selected, click

to proceed.

Within the Cost Estimate Template, the Generate Import Template hyperlink will create an Excel Spreadsheet with details for the Cost Estimate Template that may be used to import Cost Estimates for assignees. See the Comp Calc Cost Estimate Flexible CSV Import Guide for more details of this feature.

Cost Estimates has 4 sections:

Each section can be configured using the below details.

Each cost estimate template must have a unique name. Input the desired name to be displayed on the Template lookup on the Cost Estimate screen. You must input a name to proceed to the next section of the Cost Estimate Template screen.

You can inactivate templates that are no longer relevant. Check the Inactive box to remove the template as an available option from the Template lookup on the Cost Estimate screen.

You can provide a brief description for a Cost Estimate Template. The description is displayed alongside the cost estimate template name in the Cost Estimate Template screen. When working with a large volume of cost estimate templates, a description is helpful to guide you and other users to select the correct template.

You can provide a Report Title for a Cost Estimate Template. The Report Title is copied down to a Cost Estimate and will display for Cost Estimate (Years 1 – 6) Report. If you do not enter a title here, the report displays “INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENT COST ESTIMATE” as the default.

Select Allow Cost Allocation to display the Cost Allocation tab on the Cost Estimate Wizard. This tab enables users to allocate each line item’s total costs to at most 3 locations. As a default, the locations are Home and Host. An optional “Other” location may be added if needed by selecting the “Enable Third Location” setting. The labels of each location can be changed using data dictionary metadata override.

Allocation methods for each line may be either a percent (%) or fixed amount ($). Fixed amounts are entered in the data entry currency. Only one of the allocation columns may be left null/blank. However, assigned percentages and fixed amounts from all columns of any line must equal 100% and the total amount, respectively. If the total amount for a line item is positive, only positive fixed amounts can be entered; and only negative fixed amounts can be entered for lines with negative total costs.

Due to rounding for each allocation column, a line item’s total allocation amounts may be slightly different than the amount displayed in the total column.

Select Automatic to create the number of cost estimate columns based on the start and end dates captured for the assignment. Choose 1 to 6 to specify the number of columns; with this selection Partial year Distribution defaults to Rolling 12 months.

Select Default to use the Employee/assignment’s Base Salary, Home, Host or Company currency, if available and the salary amount will be filled in by default. Select Home, Host, or Company to specify a currency for the cost estimate.

Select from Calendar Year or Rolling 12 Months. Calendar Year is the default value where each column on the cost estimate represents a calendar year. With Rolling 12 months, each column will be 12 months and the last column will be any months remaining.

Specify the total number of workdays per year. This value is used to calculate home and host workdays based on host months. The default value is 240.

Select Long Term, Short Term with Deductions, Short Term without Deductions, or Permanent to align with your assignment policy, so that type-specific tax treatments to line items or duration-based concessions are applied appropriately.

When set to Short Term with Deductions, the logic classifies certain costs as business expense if the assignment duration is short term and excludes them from income. All other assignment types will not apply the short term business expense assumption.

This is a required field and a selection must be made in order to save the template.

Fiscal Period Cost Estimates Report is not enabled by default. Enable Fiscal Period Cost Estimates Report under Configuration, System Preferences screen. Select Cost Estimates from the Category dropdown list. Change Enable Cost Estimate Fiscal Period Report to Yes and click

.

Select applicable Fiscal Period Start Month in the Cost Estimate Template configuration screen to generate Fiscal Period Cost Estimates Report.

For assignment related inputs, select from the available lookup for the following tax estimator inputs. The selections populate the Tax Calc Inputs tab for cost estimates created using the Cost Estimate Wizard format.

When this checkbox is enabled, it will not round Months In Host and Total Work Time Months to the nearest whole number but instead, it will display a decimal value (rounded to 2 decimal places). The line items are prorated based on this decimal value for more precise calculations.

Note, that this is only available if Enable Cost Estimate Fiscal Period Reporting system preference is set to no.

The standard “Cost Estimate (Years 1 - 6)” report and “Cost Estimate Calculation Detail” report will show the decimal values. Other Cost Estimate reports (including users custom versions of the Years 1-6 report) will still show the rounded values for Months. Please contact your Equus representative to update these reports.

This Cost Estimate template setting allows users to calculate project costs based on the employee’s project host location or when calculating costs for a commuter moving between two countries, the costs for both locations are included in tax calculations.

This setting appears as a check box on the "Calculate Hypo Taxes on Host Work Time Only" field in the Cost Estimate template screen, and determines if hypothetical taxes are prorated for work time in the host country only or work time in both countries. For Cost Estimates for Commuter populations, leave this unchecked. For Project-based Cost Estimates, check the tick box.

By default, newly created Cost Estimate templates will have this tick box unchecked.

This Cost Estimate template setting allows users to determine the home tax estimator default. The options are Assignment From Location, Company Home Tax Estimator Overrides, Third Country National

Location and authority determine the tax calculation to be performed in the cost estimate. Location options available are home and host. Authority options available are country and state/province. Four combinations of location and authority are available and are automatically defaulted: home country, host country, home state/province and host state/province. A minimum of one combination must be selected and up to four are available.

The order of location/authority selection defines the order the location and authority combination appears on the tax cost estimate screen. The first selection appears on top left, followed by top right, bottom left and bottom right. To view the tax estimator, click the plus icon

.

New - To add an estimator, select

to add location and authority. Each click on

creates one Location and Authority line.

Delete - Check the box next to the relevant estimator and click

to delete an estimator.

If you're planning to include Host Net Pay calculations in your cost estimate, you’ll need to add an Expat4Cast Host Tax Calculation Type to your template and configure specific line items accordingly. See full setup guide here – Configuring Host Net Pay

If the template is used for European Frontier population, you can check configuring frontier worker for additional steps.

Line items defined in this section will appear on the Cost Estimate screen so assignment amounts can be captured for calculations. Additional details on configuring cost estimate line items can be found on this article.