Understanding the pension data file

You use the pension data file to import your workers and contribution information into now:u. It’s a CSV file – a plain text file that lets you save data in a structured format.

You generate your pension data file from your payroll and upload it to now:u each pay period.

For each pay period, you should check your worker action file (WAF) for any actions your workers have taken, such as opting out or changing how much they pay in. You’ll have to make these changes in your payroll software. Once you’ve run your payroll, you’ll need to generate a CSV file containing:

all your workers’ details
details of the payments to come out of workers’ salaries, and
your payments in to their pension savings.

This is the pension data file you upload to our system.

Download a blank pension data file.

What type of encoding can the file use?

We support these encoding types for the CSV.

CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited)
CSV (Comma delimited)
CSV (Macintosh)
CSV (MS-DOS)
CSV (Unix (LF)).

Preparing your pension data file

Once you’ve run your payroll, you’ll need to generate your CSV file containing all your workers’ details, details of the payments to come out of workers’ salaries, and your workplace contributions. Once your file is complete, save it as a .csv file and choose ‘Yes’ to use that format.

What must be in your pension data file

Here’s a list of the data items your pension data file must contain (although they don’t have to be in this order). If you’ve got nothing to put in a particular field, you can leave it blank unless it’s one of the required items. The table says which items are required.

Item no	Item	Required?	Format	Explanation
1	Forename 1	Yes	Up to 40 characters	Letters, spaces, hyphens and apostrophes are allowed. Please don’t use initials.
2	Forename 2	No	Up to 40 characters	Include if it’s in the data. Letters, spaces, hyphens and apostrophes are allowed. Please don’t use initials.
3	Surname	Yes	Up to 40 characters	Letters, spaces, hyphens and apostrophes are allowed. Please don’t use initials.
4	NINO	No	AA000000A	National Insurance number. The last letter must be A, B, C or D. If you don’t know a worker’s National Insurance number, please leave this field blank.
5	STARTDATE	Yes	DD/MM/YYYY	The date the worker started work.
6	Title	Yes		See ‘List of titles’ below for the list of titles you can use.
7	DOB	Yes	DD/MM/YYYY	Please check the worker is over 16 and under 90.
8	SEX	Yes	M, F, Male or Female
9	PAYROLLNO	Yes	Up to 25 characters	Your workers’ unique payroll number.
10	PAYSTART	Yes	DD/MM/YYYY	This can’t be more than one month on from today’s date.
11	PAYPERIOD	Yes	Numeric (up to 2 digits)	The earnings period (for example, 3 or 53).
12	PAYFREQ	Yes	Choose from: Weekly Fortnightly Four-weekly or 4-weekly Monthly Quarterly Four-four-five or 4 4 5	The payroll frequency.
13	ENROL DATE	Yes, in first pay period contributions are deducted. No, after that, unless you’re re-enrolling workers.	DD/MM/YYYY	The first date the worker was enrolled. Can’t be more than one month on from today’s date. If you’re re-enrolling workers, this must be your re-enrolment date.
14	POSTPONEMENT DATE	Yes, in first pay period postponement is used. No, after that.	DD/MM/YYYY	The last date of the postponement/deferral period. Can’t be more than four months on from today’s date.
15	ASSESSMENT	Yes	Choose from: Eligible jobholder Non-eligible jobholder Entitled worker Worker	You must include each worker’s assessment status in each pension data file.
16	ADDRESS 1	Yes	Up to 100 characters	Letters, numbers, hyphens and spaces are allowed.
17	ADDRESS 2	No	Up to 100 characters	Include if it’s in the data. Letters, numbers, hyphens and spaces are allowed.
18	ADDRESS 3	No	Up to 100 characters	Include if it’s in the data. Letters, numbers, hyphens and spaces are allowed.
19	ADDRESS 4	No	Up to 100 characters	Include if it’s in the data. Letters, numbers, hyphens and spaces are allowed.
20	ADDRESS 5	No	Up to 100 characters	Include if it’s in the data. Letters, numbers, hyphens and spaces are allowed.
21	POSTCODE	Yes	Alphanumeric (up to 8 characters including one space)	Letters, numbers, hyphens and spaces are allowed.
22	EMAIL	Yes	Alphanumeric (up to 100 characters)	Prefer personal email address. Must include @ and domain name.
23	SAL SACRIFICE	Yes	Y or N	‘Y’ if worker contributes through salary sacrifice, ‘N’ if not. If Y, all contributions must be ER contributions.
24	EE CONTS	No	0.00, no £ symbol	The worker’s gross (before tax) contributions. This value can’t be negative. Remember, now:pensions uses net pay so you must set up your payroll and tax systems to account for this.
25	ER CONTS	No	0.00, no £ symbol	The workplace’s gross contributions. This value can’t be negative. If the workers contribute through salary sacrifice, all contributions must be ER CONTS.
26	AVCs	No	0.00, no £ symbol	The worker’s gross extra contributions. This value can’t be negative.
27	OPTIN	No	DD/MM/YYYY	The date a worker opting in is effective for payroll. Can’t be more than one month on from today’s date. Once you’ve enrolled the worker you must add their enrolment date.
28	OPTOUT	No	DD/MM/YYYY	Workers opt out using now:u. You must update your payroll with the worker’s action. This date will then appear in your pension data file automatically.
29	GROSS PAY	Yes	0.00, no £ symbol	The worker’s total gross earnings. This value can’t be negative.
30	EXIT DATE	No	DD/MM/YYYY	The date the worker leaves employment, or date of death. Can’t be more than one month on from today’s date.
31	EE CONT %	No	0.00, no % symbol	The worker’s contribution rate. This value can’t be negative.
32	ER CONT %	No	0.00, no % symbol	The workplace’s contribution rate. This value can’t be negative.
33	PAY CODE	Yes	Alphanumeric (4 characters)	Payroll code – the 4-character code that identifies each payroll.
34	ER CODE	Yes	Alphanumeric (4 characters)	Employer code – the code that identifies each workplace. We supply this.
35	SCHEME CODE	No, but preferred	Numeric (3 characters)	This code shows which contribution model you have chosen for this payroll. Visit What is a contribution model? for more about this.
36	PENSIONABLE EARNINGS	Yes	0.00, no £ symbol	The earnings used to work out contributions during the pay period. This amount can’t be negative. The system will check this value is correct based on the earnings figure you are submitting.

List of titles

This is a complete list of the titles the system will accept.

Code	Code
Air Commodore	Major
Air Vice Marshall	Major General
Baron	Mother
Baroness	Mr
Brigadier	Mrs
Canon	Ms
Captain	Master
Commodore	Mx
Commander	Professor Dame
Colonel	Prof
Dame	Professor Lord
Dowager Countess	Professor Sir
Dr	Rabbi
Earl	Reverend
Eur In Dr	Reverend Dr
Eur Ing	Reverend Professor
Executors of	Sheriff
Group Captain	Sir
His Honour	Sister
His Honour Judge	Squadron Leader
Honourable	The Honourable
Lady	The Reverend
Lieutenant	The Honourable Sir
Lord	The Ven
Lieutenant Colonel	The Right Honourable Sir
Lieutenant Commander	The Rt Revd Lord
Misc	The Very Revd
Miss	Wing Commander

You can only upload one file at a time

If you’re currently uploading a pension data file for a particular payroll, you won’t be able to start a new file upload until that process is finished. If a file is already being processed following a payroll API call, you also won’t be able to start a new file upload manually until that process is finished.

What to do if you don’t need to upload a pension data file

If you don’t need to upload a pension data file for the current pay period – usually because you don’t have any worker updates or contributions to upload – you can tell us by choosing I don’t have contributions in this pay period.

We scan your files for extra security

To make sure your payroll data is secure, we scan all uploaded files for viruses or malicious content before processing. If our software detects any potentially harmful content, the system will not accept the file.