Payroll staff: Managing pensions

Modified on Mon, 3 Nov at 9:22 AM

Managing pensions as part of a payroll requires understanding both the technical setup of your pension schemes and the day-to-day processes that keep them running smoothly. Whether you're handling auto-enrolment assessments, processing contribution changes, or generating provider files, pension administration touches every payroll cycle and affects every employee's financial future.

If you are unfamiliar with any of the terminology found in this article, see Pensions: Key Concepts, Glossary, and Terminology.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Understand pension schemes
Regular payroll tasks
- Non-pension tasks
- Pension tasks
Calculate the payroll
Send pension letters
Reporting
Pay pension providers

Understanding pension schemes

While your Cintra iQ administrator is responsible for setting up and maintaining the pension schemes that you will be using, you should have an understanding what they consist of. This includes:

The pension provider
Employer and employee contributions
Auto-enrolment
Salary sacrifice
"Education" payrolls

For more information, see Administrators: Setting up Pension Schemes.

Regular payroll tasks

Non-pension tasks

Areas that need to be considered prior to performing the pension-related tasks below include:

Task	What do I need to consider?	Link to How To guide
Complete pay roll data entry	Salary, rates, hours worked etc.	Payroll input folder
Process new starters	Basic employment details of the new employee	How do I create/update a personnel record?
Process leavers		How do I exclude leavers from auto enrolment?

Pension tasks

If you are running an "education" style pension scheme, such as LGPS or Teachers' Pension, your pension tasks may be slightly different. XX

Each of the tasks below should be performed during every payroll cycle.

Task	What do I need to consider?	Link to How To guide
Assess employees for auto-enrolment	Does the employee qualify for auto-enrolment? Are there are any postponements?	How do I run auto-enrolment assessments?
--> Create pension memberships	Are any employees opting out of auto-enrolment?	How do I auto-enrol employees into pension schemes?
Set employer / employee pension contributions	Pension contributions from new employees. Any requests for changes to existing employees' pension contributions	How do I set the employee's auto enrolment assessment detail?

Calculate the payroll

Once all the tasks above have been completed, you're ready to calculate the payroll. See How do I perform a payroll calculation?

Send pension letters

Sending letters to employees keeps them informed about enrolment or changes to their pension. For more information, see How do I create auto enrolment letters?

Reporting

Task	Link to How To guide
Reporting to pension providers	How do I produce pension provider files in payroll workflow?
Pension reports	How do I produce a pension scheme summary report? How do I produce a salary sacrifice pension contributions report?

Pay pension providers

Task	What do I need to consider?	Link to How To guide
Produce payment file	Which pension providers do you use? Do they require separate membership and contribution files?	How do I generate pension provider membership/contributions files?
Send payment file	This step is performed outside Cintra iQ