What-If Cost Estimates (WICE) are managed on the WICE screen. You can create group or individual estimates on this screen.
Create an Individual Estimate
To create an individual estimate, navigate to the What-If Cost Estimates screen at the Company Level.
Enter a description for the WICE, and click on
.
Clicking on
will open the Cost Estimate Request pop-up, where the necessary input can be provided to generate the What-If Cost Estimate.
You have an option to leave the description blank and fill it out together with the other details on the Cost Estimate Request pop-up .
The following fields can be filled out for the request:
Context: Select Individual. This determines if your estimate is an Individual or Group estimate
Description: Enter a unique description, such as the location(s) or policy of the assignment. This field is how the What-If Cost Estimate will be recorded and displayed in the What-If Cost Estimates
Type: Choose the template to apply to the Estimate. This dropdown list is populated only with templates that are configured to be available for What-If Cost Estimates and displays the Alias of the template (editable on the What-If Cost Estimate tab of the Cost Estimate Template screen).
Policy: Choose an Assignment Policy to apply to the Estimate. External users will see the External Policy Name.
Note: Although What-If Cost Estimates can be run with an applied Assignment Policy, What-If Cost Estimates details can never be transferred to a real assignmentProject: Choose a Project to associate the record to an existing project in the platform. The start and end dates will also auto-populate to the configured start and end dates in the Project record. You can still change the dates as necessary.
Note: This option will be available after activating the system preference: Enable WICEs to be associated to a project record (EQEGRWIAPR)
From Location: Choose a supported tax authority. This includes Country, State (if applicable) and City.
To Location: Choose a supported tax authority. This includes Country, State (if applicable) and City.
Start Date: Enter the start date of the assignment for the assignee
End Date: Enter the end date of the assignment for the assignee
Annual Base Pay: Enter the salary grade of the assignee
Salary Grade: Enter the salary grade of the assignee
Family Builder icons: Indicate whether the potential assignee is married or single, how many total children the assignee has, and which members of the family will be accompanying the assignee on the assignment.
Work Time (for Host Country and Home Country): Note, the Values entered in the Work time in Host and Home field are used to help derive a host percentage which is then applied to the Months in Host calculation. This Host % is also used in the Equus Tax Engine for the “Include Home Work-time Cost”. See What-If Cost Estimate with Include Home Work Time Costs for more information.
Generate Report
Click
(or
if there are additional calculation inputs necessary for the report generation). Once the What-If Cost Estimate has generated, a PDF icon will appear with a link to the report. Click the link to download it.
You can click the PDF icon next to any What-If Cost Estimate to download it.
If the What-If Cost Estimate isn’t generated successfully, an error warning will be displayed reading “Your request has been received but requires additional attention. You will be notified when your report is available.”
If the What-If Cost Estimate was created using a template that is set to require review before delivering the report, a message will be displayed reading “Your Cost Estimate is being reviewed. A team member is completing your estimate. You will be notified via email when it is ready.” Click
to return to the list of completed What-If Cost Estimates.
Note, the default currency in the output of the report is the currency of the entered Annual Salary, which is limited to the company’s base currency and the base currencies for the departure and destination locations.
Individual what-if cost estimates can be prevented from generating if there are line items that have errors. To enable this feature, tick the Prevent Report Output for Errors and Warnings check box in the what-if cost estimate template configuration screen.
If the check box is ticked and there are line items that have errors within the individual what-if cost estimate, the following prompt will be shown to the user:
Furthermore, the What-If Cost Estimate Contains Errors standard quick workflow will send out a notification that the individual What-If Cost Estimate has failed due to line item errors.
Review
The five most recently submitted What-If Cost Estimate requests will appear in the list on the What-If Cost Estimates screen.
Click the
next to a What-If Cost Estimate to be directed to the What-If Cost Estimate detail screen, which mimics the functionality of the regular Cost Estimate Wizard. If there are errors they will appear in the red box at the top of the screen
Click
to view the complete list of all What-If Cost Estimates. You can toggle between “My Estimates” and “All Estimates” to view only What-If Cost Estimates that you’ve requested or What-If Cost Estimates requested by all users.
Enter text in the Search box to filter the grid by Requestor or Description:
Navigate to the Review & Reports tab and scroll to the Documents section. Click
to post the report to the What-If Cost Estimates screen and make it available for download. The Sad Face icon or Clock icon next to the What-If Cost Estimate will transform into a PDF icon, from which the report can be downloaded.
Delete
To delete a What-If Cost Estimate, click
on any tab of the What-If Cost Estimate detail screen. When a What-If Cost Estimate is deleted, it will disappear from the list on the What-If Cost Estimates screen and cannot be accessed or downloaded by any user.
Things to Note
You can apply Advanced Data Restrictions to certain Security Roles for the What-If Cost Estimates screen so that users can only access What-If Cost Estimates that they’ve created and cannot access What-If Cost Estimate reports created by any other user.
The report associated with a What-If Cost Estimate is automatically generated and attached to the Documents section on the Review & Reports tab, per the Cost Estimate template setting. Every recalculation of a What-If Cost Estimate regenerates the report and overwrites the attached PDF, so the report will always reflect the most recent calculation.
Any What-If Cost Estimates with errors or What-If Cost Estimates configured to require review are not automatically delivered to the Requestor and need to be manually posted to the What-If Cost Estimates screen. When the Reviewer is ready and/or all errors have been resolved, click
, which will trigger a re-calculation of the What-If Cost Estimate and a regeneration of the associated report.
A What-If Cost Estimate can only be posted once. After posting, the
button will be disabled and the Cost Estimate will be locked. Users with appropriate screen rights can unlock the Cost Estimate, but the
button will never be re-enabled.
Any production report can be configured to appear in the Reports section of the What-If Cost Estimate Review & Reports tab. However, not all production reports will run successfully - please contact your Equus Representative to configure any additional reports.
Cost Estimates and Compensation Calculations now include troubleshooting messages for line items backed by Business Rules when table lookups or functions return no results.
What‑If Cost Estimates fully support generating accurate reports for Global Employment Company (GEC) scenarios. To ensure correct values are produced, select a Policy whose template configuration has the Global Employment Company option enabled. The GEC Country will replace the Home Country in General Tab once WICE is created.