FAQs for Employers

There are statutory deadlines for paying contributions to us. You need to make sure pension contributions can be collected by the 22nd of the month after the deductions were made. This means you need to have uploaded the contribution details to us, and made sure your Direct Debit Instruction is up to date, well in advance.

Keeping on top of collecting and managing your contribution payments will ensure money is credited to members’ pension savings promptly.

What happens if my contributions are late?
The Pensions Regulator (TPR) is interested in all employers who pay contributions late. We’re legally obliged to monitor your contribution payments and report to TPR if contributions are more than 90 days late (or there’s some other significant payment failure). We also have to tell your employees.

The Pensions Regulator (TPR) is interested in all employers who pay contributions late. We’re legally obliged to monitor your contribution payments and report to TPR if contributions are more than 90 days late (or there’s some other significant payment failure). We also have to tell your employees.

Auto enrolment is an ongoing process. Once you’ve enrolled your employees into your workplace pension and they’re active members, you need to meet your ongoing responsibilities for the Scheme – including the following.

• Uploading accurate pension data files to your employer website every pay period.
• Making sure everything’s in place for contributions to be paid or collected on time.
• Checking that statutory employee communications are sent on time, including opt-in and opt-out confirmations, new joiner notices and re-enrolment communications.
• Monitor the age and earnings for new and existing employees every month to check their eligibility for auto enrolment.
• Re-enrolling eligible employees every three years.
• Keeping accurate records of all your auto enrolment activities.

Yes. You must send each employee a ‘postponement notice’. This communication tells them:

• you’re postponing assessing them for auto enrolment to a later date known as their ‘deferral date’, and
• what their deferral date is.

If you’ve asked us to send your statutory communications you’ll need to have successfully uploaded your first CSV file (pension data file) showing the assessment category for each employee, before we can send postponement notices.

Yes. You can delay auto enrolment for some or all your employees by up to three months. This is known as ‘postponement’.

This could be useful if you have staff on short-term or temporary contracts who won’t still be working for you after three months.

You can also delay auto enrolment to align with your company accounting and payroll periods.

Postponing auto enrolment doesn’t affect your duties start date. If you decide to postpone auto enrolment, you must send postponement notices to each employee within six weeks of your duties start date. If you’ve asked us to send your statutory communications you’ll need to have successfully uploaded your first pension data file, showing the assessment category for each employee, before we can send postponement notices.

So even if you choose to postpone, you’ll need to have your workplace pension with us up and running by the time of your duties start date if you want us to send your statutory communications.

If any of your employees write to you before the deferral date and ask to join a pension scheme, you must put them in. If you put them into our Scheme, you’ll have to pay contributions on their behalf

The Pensions Regulator says it is your legal duty to write to all your staff individually about auto enrolment.

If we manage your statutory communications for you, we either send an email direct to the employee (if you’ve given us their email address) or we send you a PDF with their payroll number so you can send it to the correct employee.
Please encourage your employees to provide an up-to-date email address in their online member account. This enables us to keep them informed about their workplace pension.

Yes. We can send statutory communications to your employees, including entitled workers and non-eligible jobholders who don’t join the Scheme.

We don’t charge you extra to send this information by email – either direct to each employee, if you’ve given us their email addresses, or to a common mailbox managed by your HR or payroll department. They’ll be responsible for forwarding the communications to your employees.

You’re legally obliged to tell each individual employee about auto enrolment into a workplace pension scheme and explain how they will be affected by auto enrolment, including what they have to do and their choices. You must do this within six weeks of your auto enrolment duties start date.

If you don’t manage your communications promptly and effectively, you risk not meeting your auto enrolment duties.

If you ask us to manage your statutory auto enrolment communications (assessment, enrolment and postponement letters), we’ll send these communications for you.

For every payroll cycle after your duties start date you’ll need to upload a CSV file, containing details of your employees’ contributions and your contributions, to your employer website. This is your ‘pension data file’ (generic input file). If you’ve asked us to manage your statutory auto enrolment communications, uploading a pension data file will trigger tailored assessment, enrolment or postponement communications for each employee.

Before your next payroll cycle, download your employee action file to see information about employees who’ve opted in, opted out and left the Scheme, or changed their contribution rate. You’ll need to update your payroll with this information so it’s reflected the next time you upload a pension data file.

Your auto enrolment duties start as soon as you employ someone for the first time, even if it’s only one person. You have to set up a workplace pension and assess them for auto enrolment into it.

Not all your employees will be eligible for auto enrolment. But you still need to assess them as part of your auto enrolment duties, and send them an assessment notice telling them what their rights and options are.

The Pensions Regulator has a handy online checklist to help you work out what your duties are.

Once you’ve set up your workplace pension, you must declare to The Pensions Regulator (TPR) that your workplace pension is compliant and all the information you’ve provided is accurate.

You must declare your compliance within five months of your start date, or you may be fined. TPR recommends you do it as soon as possible. They have produced a checklist with all the information you need to send them and where you can find it. This includes the following.

• Your unique Employer Pension Scheme Registry (EPSR) number – this is your four-digit employer (ER) code.
• The Pension Scheme Registry (PSR) number for the NOW: Pensions Trust: 12005124
• Our address: now:pensions Trustee Ltd, 6 Bevis Marks, London, EC3A 7BA

You can start your declaration of compliance here. TPR estimates it takes about 15 minutes once you have all the information to hand.

You’ll have auto enrolment duties as soon as you employ someone. This is known as your ‘duties start date’.

Some of your employees may not be eligible for auto enrolment, but you need to assess them as part of your auto enrolment duties from the day they start working for you. You’ll also need to send them an assessment notice telling them what their rights and options are.

The Pensions Regulator has a handy online checklist to help you work out what your duties are.