How do I prepare for automatic enrolment?

Summary

The following article explains how to set up Platinum for the new employer duties dictated by The Workplace Pension Reform, known as Automatic Enrolment.

More Information

See information about Automatic Enrolment on The Pensions Regulator website.

Staging Date

The Staging Date is the date from which your new duties as an employer are set to begin. If you don't already know it, see What is my staging date? on The Pensions Regulator website to find out.

Once you know your Staging Date, you must enter this in Platinum so that it can start aiding your new required business processes.

Go to " Payroll Maintenance Options Payroll Settings Company Parameters Pension Schemes".
At "Automatic Enrolment Staging Date" enter your Staging Date.

Postponement

Once you have identified your staging date, you will need to decide whether you intend to use postponement at your staging date in respect of one, some or all of your workers. This can be used to delay automatic enrolment, or to align with your other business processes or to the start of a tax period.

Automatic enrolment is based on HMRC tax period dates, so, for example, if processing the payroll for June then the relevant pay period is from 6th June to 5th July.

Do not tell Platinum about postponement details yet though, this is done when you " Run Payroll" for the first time.

Identifying Workers

You must look at the contractual relationships you have with the people working for you to ensure those who are considered "workers", as far as the Automatic Enrolment regulations are concerned, are correctly identified. Platinum initially marks all employee records as "workers", but for any that this does not apply you can remove this classification.

You must also identify all workers that are already a member of a pension scheme that removes them from the need to be automatically enrolled.

Go to " Payroll Maintenance Options Add or Edit Employees".
For all records that are not "workers" according to the Automatic Enrolment regulations, set "Auto. enrolled worker" to 'No'.
For all workers that are already a member of a qualifying pension scheme, set "Scheme joined date" to the date that they joined the scheme.
It is not necessary for this to be absolutely accurate, as long as it is before your Staging Date indicating that the worker was already a member at that time.

Do not enter or change any other employee pension details at this stage, in particular, do not set "Pension scheme" or "Scheme joined date" (except as indicated above). Platinum will fill in these details automatically as appropriate when the first payroll period on or after your Staging Date is processed, and any manual entry will interfere with the automatic process.

Initial Assessment of Workforce

You may want to take an initial view of your workforce to determine what preparations you will need to make before your Staging Date. See http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/employers/know-your-workforce.aspx for guidance.

Pension Scheme for Automatic Enrolment

Having completed the initial assessment, you should know whether you are likely to have an automatic enrolment duty from your staging date.

If so you will need to select a pension scheme that meets the automatic enrolment and qualifying criteria.

Go to " Payroll Maintenance Options Payroll Settings Company Parameters Pension Schemes".
Enter or amend the pension settings for your automatic enrolment scheme. See How do I setup a Pension Scheme in Platinum?
At "Automatic Enrolment Scheme" enter the number of the pension scheme.

Getting Information Ready

One of the employer duties is to provide information to workers, irrespective of the category into which those individuals fall. Every employer will have an obligation to provide certain specific information to groups of their workers within prescribed time limits.

Platinum automatically produces letters containing the information as part of the " Run Payroll". It comes with some basic letters already set up but you should customise them with information specific to your business and chosen Automatic Enrolment Scheme.

Go to " Payroll Maintenance Options Payroll Settings Report Details Configurable Reports".
Amend the "Info" reports as needed.

Platinum can also produce a report listing information to give to the pension scheme about eligible jobholders.

Go to " Payroll Maintenance Options Payroll Settings Report Details End of Period".
Add the 'Information to pension scheme' report to your " Run Payroll" regular reports.

For more detailed information on this, see this article.

Automatic Enrolment

Once your system is set up, whenever you process a payroll period through " Run Payroll", Platinum automatically assesses your workers and enrols them into the pension scheme according to the government rules.

" Run Payroll" will show which employees are to be automatically enrolled in the "Pension" column.
You may choose to postpone one or more eligible jobholders using the [Postponement] button. You can set the postponement date up to three months after your Staging Date, or up to three months after the point at which they first become an Eligible Jobholder.
" Run Payroll" will produce a report listing information to give to the pension scheme about eligible jobholders, as set up above, when you use <F6> to produce your regular reports.
" Run Payroll" will assign the "Auto Enrolment Scheme" pension scheme to the employee and start making deductions.
" Run Payroll" will produce the letters you must give to your employees, as set up above, after everything is final and you close off the period.
You the employer must use the information provided to make arrangements to achieve active membership for the eligible jobholders, effective from their automatic enrolment date.

Opting In and Joining

For workers who are not Eligible Jobholders and have been automatically enrolled, they may choose to Opt in or Join, depending on their circumstances. If a worker gives you written notice that they wish to Opt in or Join:

From " Run Payroll", press <Shift+F10> on the employee.
On the " Tax, NI and Pension" tab, enter the date into "Notice received date".
Click [Accept] and exit.
When Platinum processes the payroll for that date it will reassess the employee.
Platinum will then take action depending on their circumstances, from the next pay period:
- If the worker is a Non-eligible Jobholder then Platinum will automatically Opt-in Enrol them in the same manner as Automatic Enrolment above.
- If the worker is however an Entitled Worker then you the employer must make arrangements under the scheme rules or policy terms to create active membership of a pension scheme for the entitled worker. The scheme used in this situation does not have to be the automatic enrolment scheme or even a qualifying scheme.
  - Once set up, from " Run Payroll", press <Shift+F10> on the employee.
  - On the " Tax, NI and Pension" tab, enter the date into " Non-qualifying scheme" -> "Scheme joining date".
  - Click [Accept] and exit.

Opting Out and Ceasing Active Membership

Before a jobholder can choose to opt out of pension scheme membership, they must:

have become an active member of the pension scheme under the automatic enrolment or opt-in provisions, and
have been given the enrolment information from their employer.

After this a worker may wish to opt out. They do this by handing you an Opt Out Notice, usually provided by the pension scheme.

If they do this and you receive a valid opt out notice within the allowed opt out period then:

Note: It is important to follow the steps in the following order, in particular: the adjustment for the refund must be added before the "Pension scheme" is removed from the employee.

From " Run Payroll", press <Shift+F10> on the employee.
Press <Shift+F7> to run the 'Employee Pension Refund' report to find the amounts of employee and employer contributions paid before opting out.

Enter 'pRF' in the "Report" box.

Press<F2> to run the report, then <F2> again to print.
Press <F8> and add an " Adjustment" record to refund the contributions paid before opting out. This is done by entering a date within the current payroll period, a comment of 'Pension Refund' and the figures shown on the 'Employee Pension Refund' report you produced earlier as negative figures in the "Company Pension EE" and "ER" figures.

You cannot refund, via the EPS, more than has been deducted in this current tax year. To refund amounts taken in the previous tax year please complete an Earlier Year Update. Platinum cannot submit an EYU so please use the service provided by the HMRC website.

Press [Esc] then [Accept] and exit the adjustment.
On the " Tax, NI and Pension" tab in " Employee Properties", enter the date into "Opt out date".
Set "Pension scheme" to 'No pension' and clear any pension contribution amounts.
Press [Esc] then [Accept] and exit the employee record.

If they wish to opt out after the allowed opt out period then:

From " Run Payroll", press <Shift+F10> on the employee.
On the " Tax, NI and Pension" tab, enter the date into "Scheme end date".
Set "Pension scheme" to 'No pension' and clear any pension contribution amounts.
Press [Esc] then [Accept] and exit.

Declaration of Compliance (Registration)

Automatic enrolment declaration of compliance (previously called "registration") is the legal requirement to submit information to the regulator about how you've complied with your employer duties. Platinum can help provide some of the information you will need.

When you are ready to submit your registration information:

Go to " Payroll Procedures/Reports Payroll Report Generator".
Run the 'Pension Declaration Info' report.

See Automatic enrolment registration on The Pensions Regulator website for more information.

Re-enrolment

Every three years you must put certain staff back into a pension scheme. This is called 're-enrolment'.

Your re-enrolment duties must be carried out approximately three years after your automatic enrolment staging date (and every three years after that). Your duties will vary depending on whether Platinum identifies that you have staff to re-enrol, or whether you have no staff to re-enrol.

Choose your re-enrolment date from within a six-month window, which starts three months before the third anniversary of your automatic enrolment staging date and ends three months after it. When you " Run Payroll" within the six-month window, Platinum asks you to enter your chosen re-enrolment date.

Once your re-enrolment date has been entered and you " Run Payroll" for the first period that covers it, Platinum automatically assesses your workers and re-enrols them into the pension scheme according to the government rules.

" Run Payroll" will show which employees are to be automatically re-enrolled in the "Pension" column.
" Run Payroll" will produce a report listing information to give to the pension scheme about eligible jobholders, as set up above, when you use <F6> to produce your regular reports.
" Run Payroll" will re-assign the "Auto Enrolment Scheme" pension scheme to the employee and start making deductions.
" Run Payroll" will produce the letters you must give to your employees after everything is final and you close off the period.
You the employer must use the information provided to make arrangements to achieve active membership for the eligible jobholders re-enrolling, effective from their automatic re-enrolment date.

Re-declaration of Compliance

Re-declaration of compliance is the legal requirement to submit information to the regulator about how you've complied with your employer duties. Platinum can help provide some of the information you will need.

When you are ready to submit your re-declaration information:

Go to " Payroll Procedures/Reports Payroll Report Generator".
Run the 'Pension Re-declaration Info' report.
Enter the date that you are submitting your re-declaration of compliance (just press <Enter> to use todays date.)

See Complete your re-declaration of compliance on The Pensions Regulator website for more information.