Workplace Pensions legislation requires you to assess your employees each pay period. This is to check if you need to automatically enrol any employees into your pension scheme.

If you don't subscribe to the Pensions Module, you must assess your employees manually. You need to assess each employee using their age, UK worker status and their Qualifying Earnings to find which worker category they belong to.

The worker category each employee is in decides if you need to enrol them. To learn more about these categories and the criteria for each, read The Pension Regulators' Different types of worker guide.

Click the options below to learn where to find these details in your software:

• Age >

  Your software calculates each employee's age as of your process date, in their employee record. To check this:

  1. Click Payroll, then click Change Process Date. Set this to the pay date for which you're assessing your employees.
  2. On your employee list, click on each employee that you'd like to check to select them.
  3. Right-click any selected employee and click Open Employee.
  4. The employee's age is on the right of this tab under the Date of birth field.
  5. Use the Previous and Next buttons at the top of this window to go through the records for the employees you selected.
     TIP: You might prefer to double check the UK worker status too as you go through each record. Click below for where to find this.

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• UK worker status>
  • On your employee list, click on each employee that you'd like to check to select them.
  • Right-click any selected employee and click Open Employee.
  • Click the Employment tab, then check if the Non-UK Worker box is selected, or cleared.
  • Use the Previous and Next buttons at the top of this window to go through the records for the employees you selected.

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• Wage >

  The payments for the period you are assessing must be entered into your software before you assess. Once payments are entered, you can check the Qualifying Earnings value within Enter Payments before moving onto the next employee.

  TIP: Payments are included in the Qualifying Earnings value based on the settings on each pay element.

  1. Click Payroll, then click Change Process Date. Set this to the pay date for which you're assessing your employees.
  2. On your employee list, click on each employee that you'd like to check, then click Enter Payments.
     TIP: You need to check the Qualifying Earnings for your employee in Enter Payments after entering their payments, but before moving on to the next employee. 
  3. Enter the first employee's payments, then click the Information tab.
  4. On the left of the Information window, click the Pension folder.
  5. Note the value against Qualifying Earnings This Period and use this in your manual assessment.
  6. Click Save/Next to move onto the next employee, then repeat the steps above.

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After assessment

If you find that any employees need to be automatically enrolled into your workplace pension scheme, you must manually assign the pension scheme to their record.

You must keep a record of your employees' worker categories and enrolment status each period in preparation for any future audits.

Regulator guidance

For full guidance on your workplace pension duties and how to meet them, visit The Pension Regulators website.