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Pension re-enrolment

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Summary

How to process pension re-enrolment and ongoing duties in Sage Payroll.

Description

Every three years, you must reassess all your employees for automatic re-enrolment, also known as cyclical re-enrolment. This means the system may re-enroll employees who previously opted out.

They can then choose whether they want to opt out again, or remain in the pension.

Re-enrolment and re-declaration are legal requirements set by The Pension Regulator (TPR).

Employers with auto-enrolment pension schemes must follow these rules, or face possible fines.

Resolution

Re-enrolment for Pension schemes

Before sending re-enrolment pension data to your pension provider, you need to:

  • Set your re-enrolment date in Sage Payroll
  • Communicate your choice of re-enrolment date to The Pension Regulator
  • Set your re-enrolment date on your Pension Providers portal

The re-enrolment date shows on the Pension Provider portal. This happens when the re-enrolment period becomes available.

Your re-enrolment duties

There are four steps to re-enrolment:

  • Choose your re-enrolment date
  • Assess and re-enrol eligible employees
  • Write to employees who are re-enrolled
  • Complete your re-declaration of compliance

You must complete a re-declaration of compliance. Do this whether you need to re-enroll employees in your pension scheme or not.

For more information about this process. Access the TPR Re-enrolment and re-declaration website. 

What happens when you process re-enrolment:

On your re-enrolment date, your payroll assesses your employees.

▼Criteria to meet
  • Employee has been an eligible jobholder at some point since you staged for automatic enrolment.
  • Eligible jobholders ages fall between 22 to state pension age, work in the UK, and earn more than £10,000
  • Employee has opted out of the pension scheme. Opting out means an employee decides to leave a pension scheme within a month of enrolling
  • Employee has stopped paying into a pension scheme
  • Employee has remained in the pension scheme and reduced their pension contributions below the lowest level required for automatic enrolment
  • Employee is an eligible jobholders who has left the automatic enrolment pension scheme. They left more than 12 months before your re-enrolment

You can get detailed steps on what you must do outside of Sage Payroll, by accessing the TPR Re-enrolment and re-declaration website. 

Employees who re-enrol may want to opt out of the pension scheme again. Get help processing opt-out requests by reading Processing an opt-out request.

How to process re-enrolment in Sage Payroll

▼Choose your re-enrolment date

You enter your duties start date when you initially set up your payroll.

Payroll will use that date to trigger the re-enrolment at the appropriate time. You don’t trigger the re-enrolment process yourself.

This period covers a six-month time frame. It begins 33 months after your original staging date/last re-enrollment date and ends 39 months after it. To find your dates for re-enrolment, access the TPR re-enrolment tool. 

Once you reach the re-enrolment period, you're asked to provide a re-enrolment date. This happens when you try to run your payroll.

Choose a date that falls within your six-month window:
  • You must inform The Pensions Regulator (TPR) and your pension provider of the date you’ll use. Use the same re-enrolment date in Sage Payroll, your pension provider and TPR. This will help avoid any issues when re-enrolling your employees
  • Any future re-enrolment dates and six-month windows depend on your last re-enrolment date

You may want to align the re-enrolment date with other key dates in your business. Consider avoiding any seasonal peaks which may result in an influx of new members.

If you only have one pay frequency, consider choosing a re-enrolment date that is the first day of a pay period. This avoids contributions made for a full pay period and part of the previous pay period.

re-enrolment timeline.

Once you have chosen your re-enrolment date, enter it into Sage Payroll:

  1. Select Summary om the menu bar.
  2. Under Cyclical Re-enrolment, enter your re-enrolment date.
  3. To confirm the date, select Set Re-enrolment Date.

Re-enrolment date selection.

 CAUTION: You can’t amend your re-enrolment date after you process your next pay run. 

▼Assess and re-enrol eligible employees

When you reach your re-enrolment date, process your next pay run as normal. Sage Payroll automatically assesses and re-enrols relevant employees.

  1. Select Process Pay Run. The following message appears:
    Select re-enrolment date within the pay run.
  2. Choose a Re-enrolment Date and select Confirm Re-enrolment Date.
     NOTE: Only dates that fall within your six-month period are available to select. 
  3. Continue to process your pay run up to the Edit Pay stage. The following message appears for any employees who meet the re-enrolment criteria:
    Image
  4. Complete your pay run.
▼Write to employees when you re-enrol

You must write to any employees that you re-enrol within six weeks of your re-enrolment date.

To download templates for these letters, access the TPR website.

▼Complete your re-declaration of compliance

Tell TPR how you’ve met your legal duties for re-enrolment. Do this by completing your re-declaration of compliance. 

Do this within five months of the third anniversary of your staging date.

On the TRP website Complete the re-declaration of compliance. 

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