Re-enrolment: Don’t let your software let you down

When it comes to pension re-enrolment, do you know which of your employees need to be placed back into the pension scheme, and when? Perhaps you do. However, it is much more likely that you rely on your payroll software to notify you when re-enrolment is due, ensuring you don’t miss any deadlines.

However, perhaps you should double check that your confidence in your payroll software isn’t unwarranted. Are you certain that your payroll software automatically notifies you when re-enrolment is due, or do you in fact, have to manually check for this information?

What is re-enrolment?

Every three years, employers are required to re-enrol certain employees. This involves assessing the employee’s eligibility for auto enrolment and re-enrolling them into a pension scheme. The employer will then need to complete a re-declaration of compliance to inform The Pensions Regulator (TPR) that their duties have been met. An employer must submit their re-declaration within five months of the third anniversary of the automatic enrolment staging date. If you have no staff to re-enrol, you will still need to submit a re-declaration of compliance.

How to choose your re-enrolment date:

The re-enrolment date is chosen by the employer and can occur anytime within a six-month timeframe of the ‘staging date’ or ‘duties start date’ three-year anniversary. It can be set three months before or three months after the anniversary date. Regardless of whether you used postponement at your staging date, re-enrolment occurs three years after your staging date, not your deferral date.

For example, if your duties start date was 1st April 2018, you can choose to re-enrol on any day between the 1st January 2021 and 30th June 2021. In this example, the deadline for completing the re-declaration of compliance would be 31st August 2021.

Employee Assessment:

• Employees who are eligible for re-enrolment are:
• Aged between 22 and up to the State Pension Age
• Earn over £10,000 a year
• Employees who have previously left the scheme or who have reduced their contributions to below the statutory minimum requirement for auto enrolment.

Employees who are not eligible can request to join the scheme.

BrightPay payroll software monitors any changes to an employee’s work status each pay period. As soon as you reach your re-enrolment date in the payroll, BrightPay will automatically assess the employees and will determine which employees qualify for re-enrolment. If employees meet the criteria, on-screen flags and alerts will appear to notify you that you now have re-enrolment duties to perform.

Employee notification:

After re-enrolling eligible employees into a pension scheme, they must be notified in writing of their re-enrolment within six weeks of their re-enrolment date. BrightPay will automatically prepare the employee’s enrolment letter. These letters can be printed, exported to PDF, emailed to the employee, or if you are a BrightPay Connect customer, the letter can also be automatically added to the employee's self-service portal.

Choose the best payroll software for re-enrolment:

Unlike other payroll software where you must check for re-enrolment duties, BrightPay Payroll automatically assesses employees and will notify you immediately when re-enrolment is due. This feature helps avoid last minute stress, back-dating pension contributions, and potential fines. To learn more about BrightPay’s full payroll functionality and how it can improve your payroll processes, schedule a personal demo and speak to a member of our team today.

Related Articles:

• Payroll in the Connected Era: How integration has transformed the world of payroll
• Auto enrolment delayed in Ireland until 2023
• How will auto enrolment work in Ireland?

Posted byÁine CourtneyinAuto EnrolmentPayroll Software