Submit pension data to The People's Pension

Summary

How to to send submissions to The Peoples Pension (TPP) in Sage Payroll.

Description

If you use The People's Pension scheme, you can submit your data directly to them from within Sage Payroll.

Resolution

Before you start

Ensure the pension information in Payroll matches the details in The People's Pension.

▼Check employee details

Check that your employees have National Insurance (NI) numbers entered in their record.
The People's Pension need all employees to have NI numbers. Read their article Why do I have to include all my employees’ National Insurance (NI) numbers when submitting data? If you have further queries, contact The People's Pension.
Check your duties start date is correct. The duties start date is on the payroll Summary screen.

▼Check pension details

The pension information in Payroll and People's Pension must match exactly.

Select Pensions in the menu bar.
Select Edit Pension next to the heading of The Peoples Pension.
Select View/Edit on each group and confirm the details are correct.

Using groups

▼Using Groups in The People's Pension scheme

You can set up groups within your pension scheme.

This allows you to set different levels of contributions for different employees.

For example:

You create a group called Full-time. You add full-time employees to this group so they receive 5% employer contributions.
You create a group called Part-time. You add part-time employees to this group so they receive 3% employer contributions.

It's important to have different groups for different pay frequencies.

For example:

You have both weekly and monthly payrolls
You have part-time weekly paid employees and part-time monthly paid employees
You create a group called Part-time and assign all the part-time employees to the group

You're making weekly and monthly paid employees part of the same group. This will cause you problems when you process your payroll.

The solution is to create a Part-time monthly and Part-time weekly group.

If you have TPP already set up within your payroll, you may already have groups created.

If employees from different payrolls are part of the same group, you may receive errors. This happens when you process your payroll.

You need to create new appropriate groups and make your employees part of the relevant group.

Read our article Fix pension errors - The People's Pension.

Potential errors when processing the Pay Run

There are two possible error messages you may see at the Edit Pay screen of the pay run.

▼Scenarios

Scenario 1:

You already have The People's Pension set up in your Payroll. You receive the following message at the Edit Pay screen of the pay run:

This employee's pension scheme doesn’t have a frequency set. Select the Pensions tab, then Edit Pensions, and choose the scheme frequency.

This is because The People's Pension only allows one pay frequency per pension scheme.

The pension scheme you’re currently using hasn’t had the pay frequency applied.

To apply the pay frequency to the pension scheme:

From the Pensions tab, next to your People's Pension, select Edit pension.
Select the Scheme frequency that matches the payroll you’re currently running.
Select Save.
Run your payroll as usual. You’ll no longer get the message when running this pay frequency.

Scenario 2:

You have set the pay frequency in your pension scheme. You receive the following message at the Edit Pay screen of the pay run:

John Smith has a weekly pay cycle and a Monthly pension scheme. You must change their pension scheme from Manage Enrolment, then Change Pension Scheme.

The employee receives pay weekly, but the pension scheme uses a monthly frequency.

You can change the People's Pension scheme frequency to match the pay run you’re running.

NOTE: Only do this if you aren't going to use the existing pay frequency. For example, the scheme is monthly, but you only have a weekly payroll. Otherwise, you need to set up another People's Pension scheme. Read our article Add The People's Pension scheme.

Change the employee pension scheme:

Run payroll up to the Edit Pay window.
Select the employee.
From Manage Enrolment, select Change Pension Scheme.
Select the Pension Scheme and Pension Plan that matches your employee.
Do this for any other employees.
Run payroll as usual.

NOTE: The system will only let you view schemes applicable to the current pay frequency. For example, if you are in a weekly pay run, you won’t see your existing monthly pension schemes.

You may want to run payroll for more than one pay frequency. For example, weekly and monthly payrolls.

You need to set up a separate People's Pension scheme for any further pay frequencies you have.

Read our article Add The People's Pension scheme.

You need a unique ID for each pay frequency you want to run.

If you can't find needed information on The Peoples Pension website, you can contact them on 0300 330 1280.

If you receive error messages when running payroll, read Fix pension errors - The People's Pension

Send your pension submission to TPP

▼How to submit

Select Summary from the menu bar
Within the Pension submissions section, select View Submission Details.
A summary of employee pension details and contributions appears for you to review. If any warnings appear, you must correct these by selecting Edit Employee.
Select Submit online.
In the Completed Pay Run summary select Pension submissions.
Select View Submission Details. A summary of employee pension details and contributions appears for you to review. If any warnings appear, you must correct these by selecting Edit Employee.
Select Submit online.
Enter your People's Pension credentials and select Login.
TIP: If your Payroll links to an accountant, you’ll use either your own details or your accountants.

Your first submission to People's Pension commences.

When a submission is in progress, you can't edit a completed pay run. This is to prevent inconsistencies between payroll data and data submitted to TPP.

A successful submission will display on your payroll Summary tab.

If you receive any errors, read Fix pension errors - The People's Pension.

▼Outstanding pension submissions

Submit pension files to The People's Pension in date order.

If you don't need to submit the earlier pension files, you can Confirm manual upload. This tells Payroll it has dealt with the item and shouldn’t try to submit it.

Select the Summary from the menu bar.
Under Auto Enrolment/Pensions and The People's Pension, select View Submission Details.
Select Manage Pension File and Confirm manual upload.
On the confirmation window, tick I confirm that I have manually uploaded my pension details to The People's Pension and select Confirm.

Repeat for each outstanding period.

Submission errors

If you receive an error when submitting, read Fix pension errors - The People's Pension.

Corrections to a previous submission

If you’ve edited a completed pay run, the adjusted pension figures will appear in your next submission.

The figures will appear in blue to highlight they include a correction amount as well.