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Sending your Pension Information to the Pension Provider

Bright Support
  • Updated

Where we offer dedicated support for a pension provider, this means that BrightPay can produce the contributions files (and where applicable the enrolment files) in the correct format for the pension provider in question.


BrightPay currently offers dedicated support for the following pension providers:

 

 

 

Where one of the above pension schemes is in operation, BrightPay will automatically prepare the pension file(s) required each pay period for upload into the pension provider's own online portal. As you finalise payslips, the Pensions utility will subsequently notify you as to how many outstanding files you need to submit to the pension provider and also the type of pension file(s) outstanding:

 

 

Once a pension deduction has been taken from the employee, you can move onto the next step of the process by providing the information (via API or csv file) to your pension provider. 

 

Submission File Types

 

API

Some pension providers have enabled direct integration with BrightPay. This is known as API integration and means that the relevant pension files can be submitted directly from BrightPay into the pension provider's portal, similar to how RTI submissions are sent to HMRC.

API integration means that users no longer need to export and save their pension files in CSV format and then log into the pension provider's online portal to upload their pension data. Note - there is no CSV option for Smart pension. 

Currently API options are available for NEST, Smart Pension & The People's Pension. API is currently not available for Aviva.

 

 

General Guidance on submitting an API Enrolment Submission:
 

Please note: when preparing enrolment files / contribution files in BrightPay, care should be taken that details entered at each step 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.

 

If your pension provider first requires an enrolment file submission, click Enrolments Summary

  • Click Send Enrolment Submission 

 

 

 

  • Complete each step accordingly, as per the pension provider's requirements
     
  • At the prompt, click 'Send Now...'. On successful receipt, the pension provider will send back acknowledgement:
     





General Guidance on submitting an API Contributions Submission

 

To submit an API contributions submission, click Contributions Summary

  • Click Send Submission


 

  • Complete each step accordingly, as per the pension provider's requirements
     
  • At the prompt, click 'Send Now...'. On successful receipt, the pension provider will send back acknowledgement:






To mark a submission as accepted, click on the spanner icon on that pension line > mark employees as included in submission.


 

CSV


Where a pension provider that BrightPay currently offers dedicated support for does not offer an API option, then the pension files required by the pension provider can instead be saved in CSV file format and subsequently uploaded into the pension provider's online portal by the user. We have the API option for Smart Pension, there is no CSV option.  

 

General Guidance on creating a CSV Enrolment File for upload

 

Please note: when preparing enrolment files / contribution files in BrightPay, care should be taken that details entered at each step 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.



If your pension provider first requires an enrolment file to be uploaded into their portal, click Enrolments Summary

  • Click Create Enrolment CSV File... 

 

 

  • Complete each step accordingly, as per the pension provider's requirements
     
  • At the prompt, click Save File. Save the file to a location of your choice, ready for upload into your pension provider's portal.

 


General Guidance on creating a CSV Contributions File for upload
 

To prepare a contributions file for upload into your pension provider's portal, click Contributions Summary

  • Click Create CSV File... 

 

 

  • Complete each step accordingly, as per the pension provider's requirements
     
  • At the prompt, click Save File. Save the file to a location of your choice, ready for upload into your pension providers portal.

 

Please contact your pension provider directly if you require specific instructions on how to upload your csv file onto their portal.

If the date format on the csv file is being rejected by the pension provider - this can be the period dates, AE date, employees' DOB for example - this is usually because the csv file has been opened prior to uploading to the pension portal and the version of Excel used to view the file has auto-formatted the dates. BrightPay is programmed to match each provider's requirements correctly so it is Excel that is changing the date format.

If you need to review the csv file before uploading and you are having this date format issue, we would recommend downloading it twice - once for viewing purposes and the other for uploading with the correct (unopened / unchanged) date format.

 

Once your pension submission has been sent from BrightPay and accepted by the pension provider, any further changes to payroll that affect pension contributions cannot be re-submitted through BrightPay for that period. The pension provider “closes” the schedule for that period once a submission is successful and will not accept another corrected or adjusted update from BrightPay.

If you need to make corrections after the submission, you must log in to the pension provider’s portal and make the adjustments directly there.

 

Note: If you have zero pension contributions for an employee but there is an outstanding submission remaining, you can remove this by clicking on the spanner tool icon > mark employee(s) as included in a submission.

 

There is no way to amend the pension contribution amount on BrightPay is using the % (percentage) method. If the amounts are not matching the pension provider due to roundings, the only way to match would be to change the % sign to £ and then manually enter the amount.

 

If you are having issues submitting the pension contributions, check that the schedule you are trying to submit matches the pay period on BrightPay and the schedule expected with your pension provider.

 

It is not possible to delete a failed pension submission. You will need to correct the error so that it can be accepted by the pension provider. If the submission has been uploaded directly outside of BrightPay, you can mark employees as included in submission to clear the outstanding submission notification.

 

Note: To generate a pension upload CSV file for any pension scheme, all payslips for the relevant pay period must be finalised in BrightPay Cloud. If the option to create a CSV file is not available, please check that all payslips have been finalised for that period. The export option will only appear once payslips are finalised and all contributions are confirmed.

The CSV file will be saved in your downloads folder on the pc, unless you have the settings turned on the browser where you can choose the file location.

 

 

If a pension contribution isn’t showing and it has not been submitted:

  • Check that the payslips in the relevant pay period have been finalised. Pension contributions cannot be reported if payslips are still drafts.
  • If the correct period shows but says “all employees have been included in a submission," first check on your pension provider's portal to confirm whether that period has already been received.
  • If you can see the relevant period but it is still outstanding and nothing has been received by the pension provider, click the spanner (tool) icon in the pension area > choose Unmark employees as included in a submission.
  • You can then resubmit the pension contributions for that pay period.
    Important: Only unmark and re-submit if you have positively confirmed contributions were not received, to avoid submission errors when trying to re-submit.

 

If you need to amend the dates before submitting via API or generating the csv file for upload, you can select the date field on the first page of the pension contribution summary & overtype the date. Then continue to the next page.

 

Q. How do I make sure bonuses or other addition types are excluded from pension contributions in BrightPay?

A. When setting up or adding an addition type to the payslip, ensure that the boxes for ‘employee pension can be deducted’ and ‘employer pension can be deducted’ are unticked. This will exclude the bonus from pension calculations for both employee and employer contributions. By doing this, the bonus amount will not be considered when BrightPay calculates pension contributions for the NEST scheme. You can check these settings by clicking on the spanner icon on the addition element line.

 

Re-enrolling an employee after their pension has been closed

If an employee has closed their pension (with any provider), there is no action that can be taken within BrightPay to reopen it — this must be handled directly with the pension provider. Contact the provider to discuss how to reinstate or reopen the employee's membership; in most cases this will require a manual enrolment to be completed with the provider directly rather than via BrightPay.

Once the provider has confirmed the employee's membership has been reinstated or a new enrolment has been set up on their side, return to BrightPay and go to Pensions > Enrolment Summary > click the spanner icon > Mark employees as included in a submission. This will clear the outstanding notification in BrightPay without resubmitting, since the enrolment has been handled directly with the provider.

 
 

Salary sacrifice calculation method — controlling what is included

When setting up a salary sacrifice in BrightPay, the calculation method determines what pay elements are included in the base figure used to calculate the sacrifice amount. There are four options:

  • % of gross pay — this is the default. BrightPay looks at all pay elements, additions, and deductions when calculating the sacrifice amount. If you have multiple pay elements (such as a car benefit, commission, or overtime) these will all be included in the gross figure.
  • % of basic pay — select this if you want the sacrifice to be calculated on basic pay only, excluding other additions and deductions. To change the calculation method, click the spanner icon next to the salary sacrifice entry and select % of Basic Pay. This will only include elements in the Pay & Benefits section.
  • % of AE qualifying earnings — this will apply the salary sacrifice % on the pay elements (including additions and deductions) that fall within the lower and upper limits set up as the qualifying earnings in the pension scheme set up on BrightPay.
  • Basic amount (£) — if neither of the above options gives you the correct result; for example, if you want to include some elements but not others - BrightPay does not support a partial selection. In this case you will need to manually calculate the correct sacrifice amount outside BrightPay and then set the calculation method to Basic Amount, entering the pound value directly.

There is no facility in BrightPay to select individual pay elements for inclusion in the sacrifice calculation; it is either all gross pay, basic pay only, pay elements that fall within the AE qualifying limits or a manually entered basic amount.

 

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