Auto Enrolment - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

SGW · Member

Auto Enrolment

Peaman · Veteran Member

You can tell by the lack of response to your post that most of us have our heads in the sand!

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Richard,

but seriously, it's our problem how?

IFA's think that it's Christmas, business neither want not can afford it, accountants seem to be ignoring it. Employee's listen the The on the advert and think that this is going to be free money.

Has nobody out there cottoned onto the fact that this is not a free pension, in a couple of years people will have a 5% cut in their wages enforced upon them and employers will also need to find an exrtra 3% so pay rises will be out of the window as will quite a few jobs.

Yes, a pension is sensible but at what cost is this dogs dinner of an idea to move responsibility away from NI which is now basically regarded as a tax rather than an insurance.

So, not so much a head in the sand as a sitting behind the sandbags waiting for the explosion when people start to cotton on to what this actually means to their take home and their job security.

MarkS · Expert

We have linked up with a local IFA that has a software solution that will do all the auto enrolment work and talk to our payroll software with the scheme linked to Scottish Widows.

One off cost to clients of £350.

Marky65 · Guru

I am notifying clients of their staging dates and advising them to start to seek advice earlier than they might think is necessary

Then as time gets closer helping them to ensure things are in place so that when the time comes we can process the payroll & supply their pension provider with the necessary information in a format which is needed. Sage work well the The Peoples Pension on this, very smooth process

As payroll providers I think auto enrollment is an opportunity to add value to this service

Leger · Master Book-keeper

Marky65 wrote:
As payroll providers I think auto enrollment is an opportunity to add value to this service

I agree, and although the staging date for any of my clients isn't til May 2017, I am getting myself genned up over the next few months on all the ins and outs. I'm starting to get emails from auto enrolment advisors already so expect a few sharks to be circling the waters, but one local firm is doing free seminars for payroll providers so will hopefully be attending the next one when it comes up

Leger · Master Book-keeper

Shamus wrote:
Has nobody out there cottoned onto the fact that this is not a free pension, in a couple of years people will have a 5% cut in their wages enforced upon them and employers will also need to find an exrtra 3% so pay rises will be out of the window as will quite a few jobs.

Hi Shaun.

AIUI at present an employee can opt out of the scheme (once they've been automatically enrolled) but needs to be wary they will be auto-enrolled again every 3 years. Which seems a bit stupid, why not have an opt-out at start, then given the option to opt in again with timely reminders given?

SGW · Member

Well if any of you are having trouble with the extra administration, we can back office it for you and you wouldn't have to tell your clients, so you can continue to charge a fee but you actually carry out none of the work. We currently offer this service for Accountants nationwide. If you are interested in this or even if you want some more information just contact us enquiries@sgwpayroll.com or call us 01270 500 599 and we'd be happy to help!

FoxAccountancyServices · Expert

Ive been hoping the AAT will have an event on it, as Id like to understand it

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

FoxAccountancyServices wrote:
Ive been hoping the AAT will have an event on it, as Id like to understand it

I almost invited you to a Fed of Small businesses event on this - was at a hotel near Middleton, but I finally got round to reading the email after the event had started. Wonder if they are doing any more?

Princess · Senior Member

I went to an AAT event in Bournemouth last week which was really good, it was run by a bloke from the Pensions Regulator. Seems like a bit of a minefield. HIs answer to a lot of questions was that hopefully some legislation will be passed before the election to resolve that issue. One director only companies don't need to participate until they employ someone else so that's quite a few out of the way. There are certain letters which need to be sent to employees at certain times and a return after to confirm compliance. It's probably not that complex and and opportunity for us to advise and charge a bit for it.

Moneysoft have some good info in their help pages. there is a link on there where you can put in your clients' PAYE ref to find out their staging dates.

Peaman · Veteran Member

Hi Shamus

It's my problem because of the number of clients (many of which I prepare the payroll for) are looking to me for guidance. Although I am not an IFA, they expect me to help them find a solution and I don't want to just turn my back on them.

Over the last year, I have been contacted by many IFA's that want to contact my clients directly to help them with AE (and pay me a commission for the introduction), I have listened to them all and then turned them away. As time goes by their fees are getting lower and lower.

Keeping my head in the sand might be useful, because...

As with many changes proposed by HMRC that have turned into disasters, we may find that the staging dates are moved back, or the system simplified..
I will be approached by more and more IFA's with the fees getting lower each time..
Somebody on one of the accountancy/bookkeeping forums (like here or AWeb) might come up with a solution that will make things easier..
Or, I might just wake up one day and realise that this has all been a terrible dream.

I just noticed today that one of my clients has a staging date in April 2016, so I will take my head out of the sand and have a look around in summer.

RobH · Expert

I have two clients where we do the auto enrolment. It's been pretty awful but it seems to be getting easier. I kind of disagree with Mark though as I really do not see this as adding any value to our clients, it is just more compliance work that the clients do not want, all we can do is help them stay within the rules and escape penalties. Clients see this as a burden and of course we have to charge for our extra time but it is a huge responsibility for little reward in my opinion.

We can't even advise clients to look at NEST, Peoples Pension etc, we have to tell them to seek out an IFA or tell us their preferred pension provider.

Georgie · Guru

Hi Rob,

What do mean when you say it's been pretty awful?

Georgie

RobH · Expert

Hi Georgie,
The first client has about 250 employees over 8 sites/departments and the pension is with Standard Life. Running the pension side on the payroll is fine (took a bit of getting used to and slows everything down, but I upgraded to the pension module on Sage...a snip at £1400!!...so in theory it checks any changes like wage increases, age thresholds etc) but sending the data to Standard Life was a complete nightmare at first. Partly as I didn't really know what I was doing (I'm not sure the pension people did either) and partly because every month they seemed to want the format slightly different. It was taking me hours to get submitted. Even now every time I submit I get around 20 queries, usually because someone has left or been off sick but I've got a handle on it now.

The second is via Peoples Pension. Sage imply that you just have to press a button and the data magically appears in the right place, but in reality it just produces a spreadsheet which you then have to manually upload. No big problem but it all takes time and is easy to forget when you are busy!

Georgie · Guru

Oh dear,...I got this to look forward to..my first one is October :0(

Georgie

RobH · Expert

I'm sure you will be fine Georgie!

Marky65 · Guru

RobH wrote:

The second is via Peoples Pension. Sage imply that you just have to press a button and the data magically appears in the right place, but in reality it just produces a spreadsheet which you then have to manually upload. No big problem but it all takes time and is easy to forget when you are busy!

That's the same as mine Rob, I was quite disappointed after I had completed the 1st payroll after the staging date to discover it didn't upload to the Peoples Pension quite as easily as Sage made out, but at least it puts the file and data in the right format once you have found where the software files it.

At seminars they keep suggesting that they will have more pension companies on board so that you can upload their data at the 'click of a button' but still waiting to see this in the software

Agree that the Pension Module in Sage is quite expensive to say the least but for my client and future ones it is a cost they will be bearing each month, in addition to the pension contributions which whilst low at the moment will not take long before they rise.

KarenBen · Member

If you don't provide AE along with Payroll your clients might go somewhere else. Particularly small and micro employees as they don't know what to do when it comes to AE. The Pensions Regulator is saying that 78% of these employers will look to their bookkeeper or bureau for help and advice.

We (BrightPay) ran a number of free webinars for Bookkeepers and bureaus on how to profit from AE over Feb & March. They are all available here to watch - https://www.youtube.com/user/BrightPay - NEST were one of the guest speakers too. Unlike the larger payroll providers we think Auto Enrolment will be quite straightforward. @Rob £1400 is a really high price to pay for payroll. This charge might be very hard to recoup if you only have a few payroll clients. It will important to make sure that your current provider can handle AE but I think it should be a part of your existing payroll. One of our bureau clients used BrightPay and NEST and charged their payroll client £400 for AE set up. They increased payslips charges from £1 - £1.50 per employee, per month. This was for 15 employees (client staged early).

RedFive · Member

I use Moneysoft payroll for around twenty businesses that I run payroll for. I highly recommend it.

Moneysoft offers exactly the same service as Brightpay - and not much different to Sage, yet the AE option is free (as it is with BrightPay).

www.moneysoft.co.uk/payroll-software/payroll-manager-pensions-auto-enrolment.htm

Once you have run (ran?) the payroll you can produce a csv report with the contributions on for upload to the pension provider. Brightpay has additional functionality with letters to employees, but that's not enough for me to switch just yet. BrightPay does exactly the same as Moneysoft - it produces a csv file - they do not upload directly.

None of the payroll providers have an option where you simply press a button to upload the employee contributions. This seems to be a big misunderstanding about AE and payroll providers.

So if my twenty business all decide to have different pension providers e.g. one with NEST, one with Peoples, One with AVIVA (you get the picture) then once I've submitted my RTi, I then have to produce the csv file, then log in to NEST and upload the file. Then do the next company, again log in to Peoples etc etc. Even if they all decide to go with NEST, at the moment you have to have a separate log in for each company - though this may change in the future.

So multiple log-ins / log-outs and multiple uploads......you are adding a lengthy extra process to running payroll over what we do now. I will be charging accordingly or the client can do the upload themselves and I will provide them with the contribution file as part of existing payroll service.

SGW · Member

We (SGW payroll) can back office the AE and the Payroll services for your clients. It takes the headache away from Accountants and Bookkeepers.

We can quote you for free or visit you personally to talk you through our services and the benefits it can bring to your business.

email us - enquiries@sgwpayroll.com or call us - 01270 500 599.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

SGW wrote:
We (SGW payroll) can back office the AE and the Payroll services for your clients. It takes the headache away from Accountants and Bookkeepers.

We can quote you for free or visit you personally to talk you through our services and the benefits it can bring to your business.

email us - enquiries@sgwpayroll.com or call us - 01270 500 599.

How?

Georgie · Guru

Redfive: Are you using the AE function in Moneysoft now then for your clients?

Georgie

SGW · Member

Cheshire: How do we back office it do you mean?

It's quite simple really, we carry out the work for both the payroll and AE services - white labelled, so as far as your client is concerned it would be yourselves carrying out the work. We would bill you and you would bill your client - simple!

Alternatively, we can deal directly with your client on referral from you or billing through you, it's completely your choice, whatever you prefer!

TrevorD · Senior Member

SGW - What software do you use ? If I may please ask.

SGW · Member

Hi Trevor, of course, we use payrite software

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

SGW wrote:
Cheshire: How do we back office it do you mean?

It's quite simple really, we carry out the work for both the payroll and AE services - white labelled, so as far as your client is concerned it would be yourselves carrying out the work. We would bill you and you would bill your client - simple!

Alternatively, we can deal directly with your client on referral from you or billing through you, it's completely your choice, whatever you prefer!

What are your fees?

SGW · Member

Cheshire: Hi Joanne, if you could pass me your email address We'd be more than happy to talk you through our prices. Alternatively you can email us your details and we can contact you from there: enquiries@sgwpayroll.com Many thanks!