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.
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. | |
Process new starters | Basic employment details of the new employee | |
Process leavers |
Pension tasks
If you are running an "education" style pension scheme, such as LGPS or Teachers' Pension, your pension tasks may be slightly different.
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? | |
--> Create pension memberships | Are any employees opting out of auto-enrolment? | |
Set employer / employee pension contributions | Pension contributions from new employees. | 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? |
Pay pension providers
Task | What do I need to consider? | Link to How To guide |
|---|---|---|
Produce payment file | Which pension providers do you use? | How do I generate pension provider membership/contributions files? |
Send payment file | This step is performed outside Cintra iQ |