As soon as you have registered with a pension provider and have your pension scheme details, these can be entered in BrightPay ahead of your duties start date.

BrightPay offers dedicated support for a number of pension providers, which are:

 

• Aegon
• Aviva
• Collegia
• Creative Pension Trust
• Cushon
• Legal & General
• Nest
• Now Pensions
• Options
• Penfold
• People's Pension
• Royal London
• Salvus
• Scottish Widows
• Simply Auto Enrolment Solutions
• Smart Pension
• Standard Life
• True Potential
• Workers Pension Trust

Where we offer dedicated support for a pension provider, this means that BrightPay can produce the necessary pension submission files in the correct format for the pension provider in question.    

Where BrightPay does not offer dedicated support for a pension provider, we offer the ‘Other Automatic Enrolment Scheme’ option for you to set up your pension scheme. Please note, however, this option will not create the pension files for upload to your chosen provider. 

Entering your Pension Scheme in BrightPay

To enter your Pension Scheme in BrightPay, click Pensions > Add Scheme > followed by the applicable pension scheme option from the listing.

Please note: when entering your pension scheme details in BrightPay, care should be taken that they are entered to match exactly the details given to you by your chosen provider (including upper and lower casing). This is to ensure that enrolment files and contribution files will upload successfully for you. 

 

1)  Within Edit Details enter your employer account reference in the field provided. This will be provided by your pension provider.

2) On the next tab, enter the Name of your first group/category which you have set up with your pension provider:

3) Select the Contribution Type that is to apply to this group/category by clicking on the drop-down menu: 

4) Next select the Earnings Basis that is also to apply:

 

• 'Standard Qualifying Earnings' will apply the earnings band lower limit and upper limit as set by the DWP for the tax year in question. 
   
• 'Custom Qualifying Earnings' will allow you to remove these limits and set those that you require, if applicable.

5) If you have more than one group/category set up with your pension provider (e.g. to cater for employees on a different pay frequency or employees with different contribution rates), click 'Add Group' (or equivalent) and repeat steps 2 - 4.

 

6) Click 'Save' to save your Pension Scheme details

Please note: contribution rates and earnings bands are set as a default, meeting the minimum requirements for automatic enrolment. However each one of these are flexible to allow the employer to amend to suit their particular pension arrangements.

It is not possible to delete a pension scheme if an employee was enrolled in that scheme during the tax year. The history of enrolment / pension contributions summaries are required. After importing into the new tax year, it will then be possible to delete the old scheme.

Whilst you can run the Pensions report in the Analysis section and using the 'add/remove columns' tailor the report to include fields such as AE Status, AE dates, etc - it is not possible to add a field for which pension scheme they have been enrolled into on this report. In the case where multiple schemes or groups have been set up for different employees, the only way to see which group they are in is by either going to the employee's record > Automatic Enrolment section or by viewing their payslip and the pension provider and group name are displayed under 'Additions and Deductions'.

FAQs

Q. How can I update pension login (API) details in BrightPay for providers other than NEST?

1. First, ensure your new credentials have been set up with your pension provider.
2. In BrightPay, you will need to reset the authentication for that pension scheme:
   • This will log you out and disconnect your existing link to the pension provider.
   • You’ll then be prompted to log in again.
3. Enter your new login credentials when prompted to re-establish the link.
4. You will now be able to submit pension data using the updated credentials.

Q. What is the 'category ID' for an Aviva pension scheme in BrightPay, and where do I find/set it?

A. The category ID is an Aviva issued reference number, starting with either 'TK' or 'SP', followed by six digits. As this is issued by Aviva, if you do not have this reference ID, you will need to contact them directly for the scheme information. To enter this into BrightPay when creating the scheme set up, add the Aviva scheme and there is a tab 'Add category'. Enter the category ID from Aviva in this field.

Q. Can I run a report that shows pensionable pay?

A. Within the Analysis section, there is a pre-programmed 'Pensions' report. This will show employee and employer pensionable gross which includes the total of all pay elements within BrightPay that are set as 'pension can be deducted'. However, if standard qualifying limits are applicable - the pensionable gross you see on the report will not take any lower and upper limits into account when reporting. The report shows the pensionable gross as a total of all qualifying pay elements - the settings within the pension scheme itself (with or without limits) will be what is actually applied when calculating the pension contribution on the payslip. If using qualifying upper or lower limits, these will not be taken into account in the 'pensionable gross' figure.