Is your client giving you any reason why you haven't got the paperwork with you? Who has set the scheme up (eg IFA) and who is it going to be with? Without details of the scheme, how can you hope to run the AE side?
First of all it's not your responsibility if you can't get the info, it is the employer who will be fined.
Can you get it postponed for 3 months, that would be my first call, in agreement with the employer of course. Disregardless, I would simply run payroll next week without AE if you haven't got what you need in time.
If the employer isn't playing ball still, send an email stressing the urgency of you needing the right info, and reminding them of the fines that can be incurred, and get a read receipt. Then de-stress there's really not much more you can do
I found this which might help you further https://www.autoenrolment.co.uk/knowledge-bank/in-depth-articles/missing-staging-date
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John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
There is no reason i simply think they do not grasp the urgency or legal deadlines
All i know is they say it has to start from October payroll and needs to be backdated to June. their deadline for their declaring to HMRC was 1st October
I have been asking them every time i have sent payslips over last 4-5 months to let me know what they are doing and over the last couple of months sent extra emails and phoned - but nothing!!!!!!!!
I know the accountant well and have today asked him to email stressing urgency
There is no reason i simply think they do not grasp the urgency or legal deadlines
All i know is they say it has to start from October payroll and needs to be backdated to June. their deadline for their declaring to HMRC was 1st October
Ahem, ooops. Perhaps the £400 fine plus £50 per day per employee might sharpen it up a bit!! Whats the betting they haven't done the compliance declaration either?
On a general note, the brown stuff will hit the fan next year I think, when lots of small employers will reach their staging dates. I heard on the radio the other day that fines have quadrupled this year, which can only get worse if employers stick their head in the sand like client is doing.
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John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
I left it in the hands of my companies financial advisor, and our staging date was June. All I got from him was its ok you can postpone for 3 months. Constantly.
Even though I have done payroll for years this was my first AE and being a bit naïve I trusted him. BIG MISTAKE. My gut knew better!!
After numerous and I mean numerous calls to sage and peoples pension, I finally understand and I never thought I would say this, but Sage support have been superb.
I should have had the Pensions Module in place before the staging date. When the staging date is reached, the pensions kicks in automatically. This is when you set to postpone. When the postponement period ends the pensions will start being deducted.
I run a weekly and a monthly payroll, which I had to redo from the last but one week of May.
It was an absolute nightmare, and it took me 3 days to get the whole thing up and running as could only upload one file a day to the pps. Although if you ring them they can manually authorise it, which helped push it through quicker.
To be honest, now it is up and running, and takes about 5 minutes each week.
I would really stress how important it is to the employer that this is set up properly as the costs involved for you to correct all the payroll for the last x months, plus the fines will make it an extremely expensive "casual attitude"
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Em
MAAT, CIMA student, avoider of Tax as much as possible and going greyer by the day.
there's really not much more you can do 
