IFC errors are common and relate to issues with the information provided or with contribution validation in NEST.

Quick Reference — Error Codes Covered: IFC01916 | IFC12045 | IFC12005 | IFC12004 | IFC01645 | IFC11646 | IFC12166 | IFC01718 | IFC01802 | IFC01821

Below are the most common NEST error messages:

Contribution Summary Errors

Error IFC01916 means there is a mismatch between the settings in BrightPay and those in your NEST online account. This can occur for one or more of the following reasons:

• Group name entered in BrightPay doesn't match the group name in your NEST online account
• Payment source entered in BrightPay doesn't match the payment source in your NEST online account
• Payment due date entered in BrightPay doesn't match the payment due date in your NEST online account
• Pay reference period in BrightPay doesn't match that set up with NEST
• Payment frequency in BrightPay doesn't match that set up with NEST (i.e. monthly or tax monthly)

Please log in to your NEST account and check that the settings and dates within your schedule match those set up in BrightPay.

Error IFC12045 means NEST is unable to identify the exact contribution schedule. NEST advises that once you log in to your web account, you can select the exact schedule you want to pay for.

This error occurs because there are two contribution schedules for the same period where the only difference is the Payment Due Date, meaning the system cannot identify which schedule should be updated.

Please contact NEST directly, quoting error IFC12045, and they will be able to advise further.

Error IFC12005 means NEST is not expecting a contribution for the pay period you are trying to submit.

Log in to NEST > Manage Contributions and check the next schedule they are expecting — this should match the current period in BrightPay. Once NEST accepts your submission you will be able to approve the payment.

If there were errors on the original contribution summary submission, even if now successfully submitted, NEST does not always feed the payment reference back into BrightPay. Log in to NEST and confirm the contribution summary has been received for the period. If it has and you are not seeing the option to approve the payment in BrightPay, approve the payment directly in NEST for this period. You will be able to approve through BrightPay again from your next successful contribution summary submission.

Error IFC12004 means you are trying to upload contribution data for a schedule that is already being processed or is currently locked.

This usually happens when a file has been submitted and then another upload is attempted for the same earnings period before the first one has been finalised. Wait for the first submission to complete before attempting to resubmit.

Error IFC01645 means the member is not in the NEST schedule for the pay period you are trying to submit.

Check your NEST online account to confirm whether this employee is on the schedule for the relevant pay period, and verify that the NI number matches between NEST and BrightPay.

To investigate: log in to NEST, go to Manage Workers and check whether the employee is active. Review their enrolment date and NI number, then go to Manage Contributions and check whether NEST is expecting a contribution from them for this period.

If the employee is not on the schedule and nothing is showing as outstanding for them, NEST will not be expecting anything further. You can mark them in BrightPay as already included in a submission by clicking the spanner symbol next to their entry.

Error IFC11646 means the information submitted in your payroll file does not match the records held in NEST. This is a data mismatch error indicating that NEST cannot reconcile the provided details with the expected employee or scheme information.

Common causes include:

• Data mismatch — the surname, National Insurance number, or alternative worker reference/RTI ID does not match NEST records
• Schedule mismatch — the Contribution Plan (NEST Group) or sub-group (NEST Payment Source) in BrightPay does not align with the settings in the NEST portal
• Active member error — there are no active members in the scheme for the period being submitted, or the worker has already left or opted out
• Processing delay — if employee details were recently changed, NEST may take 15 or more minutes to update

Error IFC12166 relates to an issue where NEST cannot match or process the specific worker, member record, or contribution schedule data sent via BrightPay. Common causes of this error:

• Data Mismatch: The employee identifiers (such as the National Insurance number, name or surname) do not match the active member records stored in your Nest Pensions portal.
• Schedule Alignment: The pay period or contribution group schedule configured in BrightPay does not align with the specific group schedule set up in your Nest account for that employee.
• Member Status: The worker may have already left, opted out, or ceased contributions, making them inactive for the specific period being submitted. If they are a new member to the scheme, Nest may still be processing their enrolment so please wait before trying to submit again.

1. Check Employee Details: Log in to your online Nest Pensions account and verify that the employee's name, surname and National Insurance number match what you have entered in BrightPay.
2. Verify Schedule and Group Settings: Ensure your pay periods (weekly, monthly) and exact start/end dates align identically between your payroll provider and the active group configuration in Nest. Check that the employee is in the correct group in Nest (ie Nest have not put them into an inactive or brand new group that does not exist on BrightPay).
3. Wait for Updates: If you recently updated an employee's personal details or status inside the Nest portal, allow at least 2 hours for the changes to sync before attempting to resubmit through BrightPay (it can take up to 24 hours for changes to be processed by Nest).

Enrolment Summary Errors

Error IFC01718 means there is an error within the NEST server itself.

To resolve, temporarily change the submission method to CSV file upload. Go to Pensions > NEST > Edit Details > Submission Method and change to CSV File Upload. Create an enrolment and contribution CSV file and manually upload this into your NEST online account. Once the enrolment submission has been processed in NEST, change your submission method back to NEST Web Service — your submissions going forward should process without issue.

Error IFC01802 means the employee has already been enrolled in NEST.

Check your NEST portal to confirm whether the employee is already an active member. If so, click the spanner icon next to the submission in BrightPay and mark the employee as included.

Error IFC01821 means a NEST enrolment submission was attempted too early — before the employee's enrolment date — and NEST has held on to that submission, blocking future web submission attempts even after the staging date has passed.

To resolve, a CSV upload of the enrolment submission must be performed directly into the NEST account. Go to Pensions > NEST > Edit Details and Groups and change the submission method to CSV Upload on the first tab. Once the CSV upload has been successfully processed, you can change the submission method back to API Web Submission. Alternatively, you can log in to the NEST portal and manually enrol the members directly.

Please note this is a known issue on NEST's side and remains unresolved by them.

FAQs 

Q. I’m getting Error 81006 – “…add:TownOrCity: The value provided does not conform to the format outlined in the XSD” when sending an enrolment submission to NEST. What does this mean and how do I fix it?

A. This error usually means that at least one employee has an incomplete or missing Town/City in their address.

To fix it:

1. Check the error details to see which employee(s) are listed as having the address issue.  
2. Open that employee’s record.  
3. Make sure their full address is entered across the first three address lines, and that the Town or City field is completed correctly (no blanks or symbols).  
4. Save the employee record.  
5. Re‑submit the enrolment file to NEST.

Q. We’ve had an issue with a pension CSV created in BrightPay for upload to NEST. When we try to upload the CSV to NEST, we get an error about the date format.

A. BrightPay generates CSV files using the correct date format for NEST. Please ensure that, after creating the CSV in BrightPay, you either:

• upload it to NEST without opening it, or 
• if you do open it to review, do not save it before uploading.

Saving the CSV after opening it (especially in Excel) can inadvertently change the formatting, including date formats, which then causes errors when uploading. 

Q. I'm trying to enrol an employee to my Nest scheme, but I am receiving an error IFC01916.

A. Error IFC01916 during enrolment usually occurs because the Group Name or Payment Source entered in BrightPay does not exactly match the details held by Nest. Please log into your Nest account and check the spelling and capitalisation of the Group Name and Payment Source—both are case sensitive. For example, if Nest shows ‘My Source’ but BrightPay has ‘My source’, the submission will fail. Update the details in BrightPay to precisely match Nest, including uppercase and lowercase letters.