Payroll - Auto Enrolment Assessments

An employer must assess each worker to determine into which AE category they fall. Note, in the legislation the term used is worker as distinct from employee. This is because personal services contractors are considered as workers and subject to AE assessment and enrolment.

At any assessment a Worker may be categorised into one of the following categories: -

Less than 16 (age): Outside of AE legislation
More than 74 (age): Outside of AE legislation
Entitled: Entitled workers are workers who do not need to be automatically enrolled by their employer. Employers must ensure that entitled workers have access to a pension scheme if they request one, but this does not have to be a qualifying pension scheme and the employer is not required to make contributions.
Opt-in: A worker can require the employer to arrange for them to become an active member of an automatic enrolment scheme. by giving the employer an opt-in notice.
Auto Enrol: The worker must be automatically enrolled in an AE scheme.

We recommend that appropriate professional advice is taken to fully understand the nature of Auto-enrolment obligations.

Preparing to do Auto Enrolment Assessments

Ensure that employee details, tax and nic information and pay values are set up in the normal way.
Set up details of pensions schemes available
Run a payroll and as part of the process an AE assessment process is available
Respond to the assessed AE Status for each employee as appropriate

AE Status on the Employee Record

Navigate to the Employee Details menu

Payroll - Manage Employees - Action Box - Employee Details - Auto Enrolment Details Tab

Information is presented with respect to Auto Enrolment. The date of the previous assessment and the assessed status is presented (if any yet). Where an Auto Enrolled employee has opted out, the date of the opt-out is entered on this tab and subsequently displayed. Once the employee has been created the date of their statutory retirement date is computed and presented. Where an employee is not working or ordinary working in the UK for AE purposes the box can be un-ticked and the employee is subsequently excluded in any further AE assessments.

Completing an AE Assessment

Set up a payroll run in the normal way on the payroll run settings screen.

Payroll - Payrun Processing

When all the relevant information has been set click SUBMIT to prepare the payroll run. The screen redraws displaying the run that has been created.

To complete an Auto Enrolment (AE) assessment using the payrun data to determine the pay reference period assessment date, from the Action Menu click AUTOENROLMENT ASSESSMENT A list of employees in the payroll is displayed together with the AE assessment information. This information is stored when the payroll is closed and/or FPS filed.

The screen presents a list of all relevant employees associated with the payrun. By hovering over each employee the assessment date of the pay reference period is displayed. It has been determined from the payrun data.

The Action Menu EMPLOYEE takes the user to the employee details screens. and PENSION takes the user to the employee pension details if they exist.

The data is as it is at the assessment date, and it is stored as historic information when the payroll is finally closed and/or FPS filed. The historic data may be accessed again from the payroll run records via: -

Payroll - Payroll Batch History

The Action Menu click AUTOENROLMENT ASSESSMENT to take the user to the auto enrolment assessment screen.

Data Fields displayed are: -

Employee

The name of the employee

Date of Birth

Used in the determination of the AE status.

Age

For information

SPA Date

A system determined date computed from Government data using the date of birth and gender. Used in the determination of the AE status.

AE Opt-out Date (Days Left>

Displays the Opt-out date entered on an employee record and the number of days before AE must be re-instated.

AE Assessed earnings

The pay period earnings for the employee used in the assessment. Note those pay elements tagged as subject to PAYE are included. Used in the determination of the AE status.

Pension Scheme

The pension scheme ,if any yet, to which the employee is enrolled.

Assessment

The assessed status of the employee. The status can be:

Auto Enrol - The employee must be enrolled in a complaint pension scheme
Opt-in Candidate - The employee has a right to opt-in to a pension scheme
Entitled - The employee has a right to join a pension scheme

Age Alert

A system message providing alerts at critical age points.

The assessment may be re-run using the RERUN ASSESSMENT button.