Automatic Enrolment…What do I do about that?

April 19, 2015 by Andy Crow @ Chorus Business Advisers

Automatic Enrolment…what do I do about that?

If you are a local business owner the chances are that you have recently received a letter informing you of your obligations towards Automatic Enrolment.

In October 2012 the Government introduced its auto-enrolment pension scheme which makes makes it compulsory for employers to automatically enroll their eligible workers into a pension scheme. It was initially rolled out to a few large companies as it was felt they would be better equipped to deal with the changes. It also gave more time for smaller businesses to establish what they would need to do and by when. Over the past two years it’s been rolled out to large companies through to medium sized businesses.

Now it’s time for all small businesses to begin their Auto Enrolment Schemes with almost everyone needing to offer a workplace pension by October 2018.

Put simply, if you have people working for you who are between the age of 22 and the State Pension age and earn over £10,000 per a year then you have to set up a scheme for your employees.

The contributions come from three places.
1. The employer
2. The employee will themselves pay from deductions you make from their pay.
3. The government will contribute via tax relief.

There are number of stages that you must go through to begin the process which may take some time.

These include you needing to find out when your scheme has to start (known as your staging date), nominating your internal contact, allocating a pension scheme provider and then begin the process of informing and enrolling your staff on to the scheme. (All staff must be enrolled even if they choose to opt out at a later date).

As a business owner you may well not have the resources or the time you need to deal with these new and additional responsibilities. As a result you may find it more challenging to incorporate these new duties into your day to day business than you think.

So make sure you know exactly what you need to do and by when. If you’re not sure of your staging date, you can find this out on The Pensions Regulator website.

If however you would like to speak to an expert, Chorus Business Advisers can put you in touch with specialists that will help you through the process. Please call 0845 867 1263 or email info@chorusadvisers.co.uk for more info.

1. Name of payment source. You'll be asked to put a name on the payment source you will be using to pay contributions. You can use any name you like e.g. Bank1

2. Group name. If you are just applying the one rule for all employees, then you will only have one group. You could call this group "Group1".

3. Pay periods. If you pay your staff monthly, enter the start and end date of your actual pay period and NOT the tax period

4. Contribution rates and workers' pay. Again, assuming you are going for the bog standard, your contributions rates will be the current minimum and this will be calculated on qualifying earnings

Chorus Business Advisers can help you in all aspects of your business and help you make the right choices.
Please call 0845 8671263 or email info@chorusadvisers.co.uk for more info.