Before generating a Monthly Contributions Reconciliation (MCR) return for Teachers' Pension (TP), set up the MCR's Start Date and Payment Method. You can also set up voluntary contributions if needed.
Go to Cintra iQ: System Administration > Preferences/Installation Name... > Preferences tab.
Set Teacher's Pensions - Monthly Contributions Reconciliation to yes.
Note: Please ensure that yes is set to lowercase, otherwise your entry will be rejected.
Update and Save.
The MCR's Start Date can be any month and be set retrospectively. Once the first return is filed, you can only move forward and not skip any months.
Note: The first MCR return was generated on 01/04/2019, then I tried to generate another one for 01/03/2019. This was rejected as I can only generate the return for 01/05/2019.
Navigate to the Employer definition window.
Go to Cintra iQ: Payroll > Payroll Setup > Employer Setup > Employer.
Open the desired Employer definition.
Navigate to the Education Details tab.
Enter the desired date in the Teachers Pension Monthly Contributions Reconciliation Start Date field.
Click the OK button.
Navigate to the Employer definition window.
Go to Cintra iQ: Payroll > Payroll Setup > Employer Setup > Employer.
Open the desired Employer definition.
Navigate to the Education Details tab.
From the Teachers Pension Monthly Contributions Reconciliation Payment Method drop down list, select the desired payment method.
Click the OK button. The payment method appears on the MCR return.
Teachers' Pension requires two schemes to be set up: Final Salary and Career Average.
For the TPA Final Salary scheme, include a line for contributions.
The TPA Career Average scheme requires additional setup details.
Set the bandings for employer and employee contributions, updating them as needed when Teachers' Pension changes the percentage rates.
Ensure all pensionable headings are set up in the relevant pay tab and tick the section if included in the salary banding.
Within Cintra iQ, if the Teacher's Pension scheme type is either Final Salary or Career Average, you can allow your TP members make additional contributions to the scheme, by setting the Additional Voluntary Contributions flag and selecting the type of contribution to be made.
Navigate to the Pension/Benefits Scheme definition window.
Go to Cintra iQ: Payroll > Payroll Setup > Benefit Schemes
Open the desired Pension/Benefit Scheme definition.
Navigate to Contributions tab.
Open the desired contribution.
On the Main Contribution Attributes tab, select the Additional Voluntary Contributions check box. The TP AVC Type drop down becomes active.
Select the desired option from the TP AVC Type drop down.
Click the Apply button when finished.
To generate a MCR return, you must establish unique Role Identifiers. The Role Identifier (RI) has been introduced to allow Concurrent Service within the same establishment to be reported without the need for employers to "roll up" the service into one row of data.
An RI is an employer-generated reference number, following specific naming conventions, which identify each employment contract and the individual post(s) role under that contract.
The RI is based on the contractual arrangement you, the employer, have with the Teachers' Pension member.
Note: When generating the RI, you need to understand the member’s contractual arrangement as this ultimately determines the format in which this identifier is produced.
The purpose of the Role Identifiers is to identify the rows relating to individual contracts and employee roles for a person that require independent calculations within the MCR template/submission.
Within Cintra iQ, the Role Identifier identifies the employee's contracts/roles and is held on the employee post post-history record.
For more information about role identifiers, see What are Unique Role Identifiers?
For more information about the Employee Role Id tab, see the Employee Role Id tab section in Where Do I Collect MCR Data?
Note: If you have multiple establishments, you need to carry out an extra setup step. For more information, see How Do I Report on Teachers in More Than One Authority?