1. Ensure you have your Sage account and pension account log in details to hand.
2. Open Sage 50 Payroll and back up your data of your data.
3. On the navigation bar, click Company then Pensions Module Settings.
4. Click Set up Pension Data Exchange.
    NOTE: If this button isn't available in your software, get in touch to request it's activated. 
5. Click Next then, next to step one, click Do it now.
6. Enter your Sage account login details.
7. Select the company you want to set up and click Confirm.
8. Click Manage pension accounts then click NEST.
9. Enter your NEST employer ID.
   TIP: This is your unique reference that begins with EMP followed by nine digits. For example, EMP123456789. To check this reference, contact NEST.
10. Enter your user name and password for your NEST online account.
11. Click Save, thenClose.
12. Wait for this to load then click Please assign a company.
13. If you've previously sent pension data for this scheme, enter the process date for the last period NEST received.
14. Select the company to assign to the pension scheme then click OK.
15. Close the Management Centre using the cross in the top right-hand corner.
16. Select the check box to mark the task as complete.

You've now set up your NEST pension scheme in the Management Centre and you're ready to complete the second stage of setup.

1. Next to step two, click Do it now.
2. Enter your Sage account login details.
3. In the 'Schemes to match from the Management Centre' section, select the required scheme.
4. In the 'Schemes in your payroll software' section, click the relevant scheme.
5. Click Match Scheme.
6. Click Next then click Save.
7. To take a backup of your data, click Yes then follow the on-screen prompts.
8. Click Finish.
9. Select the Done check box to mark the task as complete.
10. Click Next then click Finish.

If your pension scheme is salary sacrifice, you need to take extra steps now. To find out what to do, follow the Send Pension Data returns employer contributions only for Pensions Data Exchange (PDX) article.