Occasionally, you might encounter an error when submitting details to The People’s Pension.

For example - Error message : Something went wrong 

It might look something like this 

If this happens the best first step is to reset the Authentication and login to the Peoples Pension again. 

Here are the steps 
 
When you click to Send you can select the arrow beside Send and will see an option to Restart People's Pension Authentication

You will then be asked to Sign in again - and then Resend the submission.

You can also check if the People's Pension Alternative Unique IDs have been entered for each employee. If there is a missing ID for one or more employees, you may get an error when trying to submit the pension contributions. To check this, within the Pensions section, click on the 'More' spanner > View/Enter People's Pension Alternative Unique ID Values. If there are any missing, they will need filling in. You can get this information from The People's Pension online portal.

If you are still getting an error - please send the details on to Support who can assist further. 

If you receive an error message stating the Auto Enrolment date is in correct "AE Date is incorrect. Expected AE Date is 2021-04-20" (for example) - check the AE date in the employee's record matches that expected by The People's Pension. If it does not match, you can click on the AE date in BrightPay and amend it to the one that they are expecting if necessary.

For queries about obtaining the correct login credentials or permissions for The People's Pension portal, you will need to contact The People's Pension directly — this falls outside of BrightPay support. Once you have your credentials, you can enter them into BrightPay to enable API submission.

Common Errors

 D/W02 – "An Eligible status must have an AE Date" error usually means BrightPay is sending an employee to The People's Pension as an Eligible Jobholder, but the employee's Auto Enrolment (AE) Date is blank.

Here's how to fix it:

1. Open the employee's record.
2. Go to Automatic Enrolment 
3. Check that the employee's status is Eligible Jobholder.
4. Ensure there is an Enrolment Date (AE Date) entered. This is normally:
   • the date they were automatically enrolled, or
   • your staging/duties start date if they were enrolled immediately.
5. Save the employee record.
6. Recreate or resend the pension file to The People's Pension.

If the Enrolment Date field is blank

This can happen if:

• the employee was imported from another payroll,
• auto enrolment was set up after payroll had already started, or
• the employee's AE settings were edited manually.

Enter the actual date they became an active member of the pension scheme rather than today's date, unless they are genuinely being enrolled today.

If the employee is already in the pension scheme

If they have been an active member for some time, check:

• The Enrolment Date matches the date held by The People's Pension.

• The payroll ID and National Insurance number match the pension provider's records.

   

Q: I’m getting an H/PO1 error when submitting to The People’s Pension. What does it mean and how do I fix it?

A:
The H/PO1 error appears when the system detects that the user account you’re using does not have permission to process contributions for the customer account you’re trying to submit for.

The error means that the accountId included in your /contributions request is not an admin account that your user profile has access to. This often happens when:

• The wrong accountId has been entered, or 
• Your user/agent credentials are not authorised for that specific client in Online Services.

To resolve this:

1. Check the account ID

   • Confirm that the accountId you are using is the correct admin account ID for the customer you’re submitting contributions for.

2. Check your permissions with People’s Pension

   • Make sure your user account has been granted permission to access and process contributions for that customer’s account.
   • If you are an agent, confirm that your agent credentials are authorised for this particular client.

3. Update access if needed

   • If you do not have the required permissions, ask your scheme administrator or the relevant admin user to update your access in the People’s Pension  so you are authorised for that customer.