Automatic Enrolment Guide

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Automatic Enrolment

Guide

AccountEdge Plus

AccountEdge Plus Network Edition

Mamut Software Ltd 90 Long Acre Covent Garden London WC2E 9RZ 0800 032 5616 United Kingdom

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Automatic Enrolment Guide © Mamut Software Limited Page 2 of 15

1)

Key Facts

1.1)

What is Automatic Enrolment?

4 1.2)

Automatic Enrolment in AccountEdge Plus

4 2)

Assess Employee Auto-Enrolment Status

2.1) Assessing your employees – Your responsibilities

4 2.2) How the assessment works

5 2.3) Auto-Enrolment Assessment Report - Assessing your employees’ status

5 2.4) Example Auto-Enrolment Assessment Report

6 2.5) Bonus payments and other pay increases

6 2.6) Wage reductions and deductions

7 3) Setting Up Pension Deductions and Expenses

3.1) When to enrol employees and pay pension contributions to providers

7 3.2) Setup your pension deduction and expenses categories

7 4) Enter Auto-Enrolment Details

4.1) General Auto-Enrolment Information

7 4.2) Employee Auto-Enrolment Information

8 5) Creating Pension Contribution Export Files

9

5.1) Process your payroll

9 5.2) Send Full Payment Submissions (FPS) to HMRC

9 5.3) Create your pension contribution export files

9 Appendix A - Creating Bespoke Contribution Export Files

12 For customers not enrolled with NEST, NOW: Pensions or The People’s Pension, explains

how to use the Auto-Enrolment Contributions report to create bespoke contribution export

files.

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This guide is subject to change.

Please check that you are using the latest guide by visiting the Mamut Support page HERE

AccountEdge Plus 2016

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 

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1. Key Facts

1.1)

What is Automatic Enrolment?

A new law means that over the next few years, every employer must automatically enrol workers into a workplace pension scheme if they:

 Are aged between 22 and State Pension Age

 Earn more than £192 a week or £833 per month if paid monthly (2016/17 limit)  Work in the UK

Every company must have a pension in place, into which employees will automatically be enrolled by the employer. This could be a new pension or an existing pension, as long as the pension qualifies. Employers will have responsibility for ensuring they have a compliant pension scheme in place and that the correct employees and employers contributions are paid into the scheme.

AccountEdge Plus provides several features that will help you meet your obligations under these rules. Further details about auto enrolment can be found at:

GOV.UK - Workplace Pensions

The Pensions Regulator - Automatic Enrolment

1.2)

Automatic Enrolment in AccountEdge Plus

AccountEdge Plus will help you to perform three of the most important auto-enrolment and pension tasks:

 Assess the auto-enrolment status of your employees.  Calculate employee and employer pension contributions.

 Create contribution files for upload to NEST, NOW: Pensions, or The People's Pension.  Create ‘Other’ bespoke contribution export files for upload to alternative pension providers.

2. Assessing Employee Auto-Enrolment Status

2.1) Assessing employees – Your responsibilities

As an employer, you must assess your employees prior to your Staging Date in order to know who should be automatically enrolled into a pension at this date.

You must assess your employees based on their age and how much they earn, regardless of how many hours they work for you. You must:

 Find the age and salary of every member of staff. We recommend doing this as soon as possible to save time later.

 Work out who it is you’ll need to automatically enrol.

 Work out who will be able to choose to opt in to an automatic enrolment pension scheme.  Work out who will have a right to join a pension scheme.

(AccountEdge Plus will help you determine your employees’ status via an Assessment Report)

After your staging date and into the future, you will need to continually assess your employees to ensure that you automatically enrol employees appropriately as their age and wages change over time, and as you employ new staff.

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2.2) How the assessment works

The table below describes how employees are assessed and categorised:

Figures for 2016/17. *SPA = State Pension Age

¹

Has a right to join a pension scheme

If the employee asks you to, you must provide a pension scheme for them, but you don’t have to pay employer contributions.

²

Has a right to opt in

If the employee asks you to, you must put them in your automatic enrolment pension scheme and pay employer contributions.

³

Automatically enrol

You must put these members of staff in your automatic enrolment pension scheme and pay regular employer contributions. You don’t need to ask their permission. If they give notice, or you give them notice, to leave employment before you have completed this process, you have a choice whether to automatically enrol them or not.

2.3) Auto-Enrolment Assessment Report - Assessing your employees’ status

You can carry out a quick review of your employees via the Auto-Enrolment Assessment report.

Note! The report should be used as an aid in assessing an employee’s automatic enrolment status and you should always cross check the reported status against your pension scheme’s rules.

Go to Index toReports> Payroll> Auto-Enrolment Assessment and click the Customise button.

Monthly Gross Earnings

Age

Weekly Gross Earnings

From 16 to 21 From 22 to SPA* From SPA to 74

£486 and below Has a right to join a pension scheme ¹ £112 and below

Over £486 up to £833 Has a right to opt in ² Over £112 up to £192

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Select the Assessment Basis on which you wish to assess your employees:

Recurring Pay

Assesses employee status based upon the Recurring Pay values held on each employee’s card. This option can be useful if employee pay remains static every period but will not take into account any adjustments that you make when processing pay.

Last Paycheque

Assesses an employee’s status based upon their last recorded paycheque.

Paycheque for tax period

Allows you to assess an employee’s status based upon a selected week or month’s paycheque. This can be useful for historical purposes.

Make your selections and click Display.

Note! The report assesses employee status based on the Last Paycheque, a Paycheque For a Selected Tax

Period, or an employee’s Recurring Pay.

Keep this in mind if you make pay adjustments that could affect the current period (i.e., when processing payrolls). When processing payrolls each period, you will be offered the chance to review the Auto-Enrolment Assessment Report. We recommend you review the report when prompted, ensuring that you capture any employees who may require automatic enrolment based on that period’s pay.

2.4) Example Auto-Enrolment Assessment Report

Below is an example Auto-Enrolment Assessment report which covers all the 2016/17 age and wage status, shown in 2.2, above.

The Date column refers to the paycheque date for the period in which you selected to assess the employee, i.e. the employee’s Last Paycheque date, or the date of a selected Paycheque for a Tax

Period, or the current date if assessing by the employee’s Recurring Pay.

2.5) Bonus payments and other pay increases

If a bonus or other wage increase is paid which pushes a member of staff’s earnings over the automatic enrolment threshold amount in that specific pay period, they would need to be automatically enrolled in that same week or month.

When processing payrolls each period, you will be offered the chance to review the Auto-Enrolment Assessment Report. We recommend you review the report when prompted, ensuring that you capture any employees who may require automatic enrolment based on that period’s pay.

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2.6) Wage reductions and deductions

If an enrolled staff member's earnings fall below £112 per week or £486 per month, the employer may stop paying contributions unless the rules of the pension scheme they have automatically enrolled into require them to continue. You should check your pension scheme’s rules.

3. Setting Up Pension Deductions and Expenses

3.1) When to enrol employees and pay pension contributions to providers

From your staging date onwards, your staff (including those on variable or flexible pay) should be automatically enrolled the first time they earn over theautomatic enrolment threshold of £192 a week or £833 per month if paid monthly.

Once staff have been automatically enrolled, the employer must pay regular contributions. If the staff member's earnings fall below £112 per week or £486 per month, the employer may stop paying contributions unless the rules of the pension scheme they have automatically enrolled into require them to continue. You should check your pension scheme’s rules.

3.2)

Setup your pension deduction and expense categories

As an employer, once you've determined your staging date and joined your pension provider's scheme, you will need to create employee and employer pension categories in AccountEdge.

These categories will calculate and deduct employee pension contributions and employer expense contributions when processing employee pay.

Full details about setting up pension deductions and employer expenses can be found in the Pension

Setup Guide.

4. Enter Auto-Enrolment Details

4.1) General Auto-Enrolment Information

Record general automatic enrolment information about your selected pension provider by going to

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Enter your general automatic enrolment pension scheme information:

Note! Payment Source is a NEST only field. Group is a People’s Pension only field. Scheme Code is a

NOW: Pensions only field.

4.2) Employee Auto-Enrolment Information

Enter each employee’s general automatic enrolment information in their card file. Go to the Employee card> Payroll Details> Auto-Enrolment:

Note! The Pension Provider field may not immediately indicate your selected provider. However, after

creating your first contribution export file, this field will be updated to reflect your provider’s name.

Note! The fieldnames provided are of a generic nature. You will only need to enter information into a

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5. Creating Pension Contribution Export Files

Having assessed your employees and assigned the appropriate pension deduction and employer expense categories to their payroll details, you are now ready to process payroll and send the contribution information to your pension provider.

You should check when your pension provider expects you to send your pension contribution information to them via their upload website.

5.1)

Process your payroll

Process your payroll as normal, employee pension deductions and employer pension contribution expenses will be calculated as part of the payroll process.

Note! When processing payrolls each period, you will be offered the chance to review the

Auto-Enrolment Assessment Report. We recommend you review the report when prompted, ensuring that you capture any employees who may now require automatic enrolment based on that period’s pay.

Details about setting up employee pension deductions and exmployer expenses can be found HERE.

5.2)

Send Full Payment Submissions (FPS) to HMRC

Pension contribution information forms part of the Full Payment Submissions sent to HMRC each time you pay your employees. As always, ensure you send your FPS’s on time.

5.3)

Create your pension contribution export files

Having processed the pay and submitted an FPS for the period, you can now create pension contribution export files for upload to your pension provider.

From the Payroll menu, select Automatic Enrolment.

Note! AccountEdge Plus produces export files for NEST, NOW: Pensions and The People’s Pension.

If you are using an alternate pension provider, select Pension Provider ‘Other’ in the following Auto-Enrolment Information window. This will produce a generic .csv export file that can be edited in Excel or Numbers to produce the required file format for upload to your provider.

Alternatively, see Appendix A at the end of this guide, which explains how to use the Auto-Enrolment Contributions report to create bespoke contribution export files.

Please refer to your pension provider’s .csv file format details for more information.

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The Auto-Enrolment Information window will appear:

1. Select the Pension Provider for which you wish to create an export file.

Note! NEST requires you to create either a Contribution or Enrolment file for upload to their records.

NOW: Pensions, The People’s Pension and ‘Other’ will produce a combined enrolment and contribution file.

2. Select the Pay Frequency and Tax Period for which you wish to create an export file.

3. Enter any required Employer References, Employer Codes, Scheme Codes, Pay Codes, and so on. These fields may or may not appear, depending on your selected pension provider.

4. If required, use the ‘’ button to select the employer and employee Pension Contribution

Categories for which you wish to create an export file.

5. Tick to select the employees that you wish to be included in the export file for the selected employee and employer pension categories.

6. Click the 'zoom' button [

»

] if you wish to view and edit an employee’s export information. 7. Click the Review button to check the information that will be used in the export file. 8. Click the Create button to create an export file for the selected employees.

Note! If you receive a message about a selected employee failing validation checks, click the ‘zoom’ button [

»

] to edit and correct the employee’s information.

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Note! Use the window expansion button (circled red above) if you cannot see the full Save window as shown above.

9. Select the folder in which you wish to save your export file. We recommend you create a folder into which you save your pension export files. For example, in your Documents folder you might wish to create a folder called NEST Exports, or NOW Exports, or People’s Pension Exports, or similar.

In the Save As field, enter a name for your export file.

Give your export file a name that will allow you to clearly identify it for later upload to your pension provider. Examples might be:

2016-05-20 NEST Export 2016-05-20 NEST Upload

2016-05-20 NEST Contributions Export 2016-05-20 Peoples Pension Export 2016-05-20 Peoples Pension Upload 2016-05-20 NOW Export

2016-05-20 NOW Upload

When you are happy with your file name and location, click Save.

10. Repeat steps 3 – 9 if you need to create additional export files for different pension categories and employees.

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Appendix A - Creating Bespoke Contribution Export Files

For customers not enrolled with NEST, NOW: Pensions or The People’s Pension, this section explains how to use the Auto-Enrolment Contributions report to create bespoke contribution export files.

Note! You will need to ask your pension company to provide you with their contribution file format

(and possibly some example export files) in order to create your own bespoke file from AccountEdge.

Note! Once your export file has been produced from AccountEdge, further editing in Excel or Numbers

may be required to match your pension provider’s exact file specifications.

A.1) Locate and customise the Auto-Enrolment Contributions Report

Go to the Index to Reports> Payroll> select the Auto-Enrolment Contributions report and click

Customise.

A.2) Set the Advanced Filters for your required employees and period

Use the Advanced Filters tab to select employees, tax period and contribution categories.

Enter earnings period start and end dates and the payment date due, if required by your pension provider.

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A.3) Select your required Report Fields

Click into the Report Fields tab, similar to below:

Use the selection column to tick the fields you would like to be included in your contribution export file.

Refer to your pension provider’s contribution file format for details about their required fields.

A.4) Display your report and move fields

Click Display. Your contribution report will be displayed, similar to below:

Ensure the View is set to Screen Report.

The report is likely to be very wide, so expand the window from the bottom right corner.

To help reduce the amount of additional editing that may be required in Excel or Numbers, you may wish to move some of the column field positions to match those of your provider’s contribution file format.

To move a field, drag and drop its column heading, as shown in the example above with the NI Number

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A.5) Save your report as a Custom Report

Saving your report as a ‘Custom’ report will avoid the need to select and re-edit your column positions in the future.

When you’re happy with the selected fields and their positions, click the Save As button. Give your custom report a name and description, example to below:

Once saved, close the Auto-Enrolment Contribution report.

A.5) Open your Custom auto-enrolment contributions report

From now on, you can open your custom auto-enrolment report from the Index to Reports> Custom

tab:

You will still need to use the Customise button to set the Advanced Filters for the tax period and employees per Step A.2 above, however the report fields and locations will remain as previously selected.

You may wish to Display the report again, to ensure you’re happy with the information that will form the file export.

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A.6) Export your auto-enrolment contributions report

Click Send> Comma-Separated Text File…

The Save window will appear, similar to below:

Note! Use the expansion button (circled red) if you cannot see the full Save window as shown above.

Select the folder in which you wish to save your export file. We recommend you create a folder into which you save your pension export files. For example, in your Documents folder you might wish to create a folder called L&G Exports, or RIBAExports, or Scottish Widows Exports,or similar.

In the Save As field, enter a name for your export file.

Give your export file a name that will allow you to clearly identify it later. Examples might be:

2016-05-20 L&G Export 2016-05-20 RIBA Export

2016-05-20 Scottish Widows Upload

When you are happy with your file name and location, click Save.

Note! AccountEdge saves csv files with the file extension .txt.

In the example above we would therefore create a file called 2016-05-20 L&G Export.txt

If your pension provider requires .csv file extensions, use Finder to locate and edit the filename, replacing .txt with .csv.

A.7) Make final edits to your export file and upload to pension provider

Depending on your pension provider’s file format requirements, you may need to use Excel or Numbers to make final edits to the contribution export produced from AccountEdge before upload.

Automatic Enrolment Guide