Gateway Login Gateway user guide For employers
Contents Assumptions: 3 Introduction: 4 NOW: Pensions Gateway file cycle 4 Important details to look out for: 5 How to use the NOW: Pensions Gateway 6 Logging in 7 Resetting a forgotten password 8 The home page 9 ER codes, pay codes and scheme codes 10 PDF communications and employer information 12 Uploading a file 13 Next pay period, employee actions and null submission 16 Null submission 17 Dealing with errors and warnings 18 Adding a payroll 19 Adding additional users to Gateway 20 Statement of account, Direct Debit and contributions history 21 Gateway user guide for employers 2
Assumptions This guide assumes that all schemes being handled are subject to auto enrolment and not definedcontributiononly or voluntary schemes and that the payroll software being used is handling the assessment of workers as per the workplace pension legislation. All screen shots are taken from a Google Chrome browser, which NOW: Pensions highly recommends for use with the NOW: Pensions Gateway. Gateway user guide for employers 3
Introduction The NOW: Pensions Gateway provides employers with a simple and modern interface to manage pension submissions for their employees. It has been designed in consultation with business owners and workplace pension experts, focusing on the most efficient way to help employers meet their auto enrolment obligations, while keeping administrative overheads as low as possible. NOW: Pensions Gateway file cycle Since all of the pension data needed is stored in the payroll system, the NOW: Pensions file cycle is aligned with payroll processing: 1 5 Get the pensions data file from payroll 2 Upload the file to Review Employee actions and update payroll as necessary NOW: Pensions Gateway File Cycle www.nowgateway.com Confirm all details are correct and confirm the import View upload details 4 3 1 Get the pensions data file from payroll Once you ve processed your payroll, download your pensions data file which covers the last pay period. Most payroll software providers already have the NOW: Pensions template preloaded, but you may have to contact your payroll provider to assist you in setting this up. It is very important that the data on thi le is accurate and complete. 2 Upload the file to www.nowgateway.com Login to www.nowgateway.com following the login instructions provided in the New account created email sent after you signed up, and upload the pension data file. 4 Confirm all details are correct and confirm the import If the preview is correct then confirm the import. A notification confirming the import will appear. 5 Review employee actions and update payroll as necessary After importing the file and before the next pay date, employees may take actions that will need updates to their payroll records before the payroll for the next pay period is processed. Employees may have opted out, or opted in to the scheme or put an instruction in to add additional voluntary contributions. 3 View upload details The file is checked for formatting first, and then checked for valid data. If these pass our initial validation you will see a preview of all the employees, their contributions and communication activities that will take place. Gateway user guide for employers 4
EM00082.0416/3 1 Important details to look out for It is very important that pension data you submit is accurate and complete. The retirement outcomes for the employees you are managing depend upon it. Some of the crucial points: Ensuring the correct employer code, pay code and scheme code on the pension data file (For example Sage 50 still does not pull through the pay code into the inpu le). See below section on ho nd this data. Submitting the correct assessment categories for employees e.g. employee showing as noneligible jobholder but earnings and age indicate that they should be an eligible jobholder. Calculating the correct employee contribution amounts in comparison to the percentages shown in the percentage column potentially indicating the payroll software is set to Relief at Source as opposed to Net Pay arrangement, which the NOW: Pensions scheme expects. Ensuring enrolment dates or postponement dates are present. Using the correct Pensionable Earnings basis e.g. employee Scheme 101 showing Basic Pay or Total Pay in the pensionable earnings, where it should be on auto enrolment band earnings. Refer to this link for an explanation of earnings for each of our scheme models Ensuring enrolment dates are present for all enrolled employees, including eligible jobholders out of postponement, opt ins, joiners and reenrolled workers. Ensuring the postponement date is not after the enrol date for an employee. Ensure that contributions are showing only for enrolled employees. Your data files explained For a detailed overview of the file format see the Y xplained document on the help centre: http://www.nowpensions.com/wpcontent/uploads/2015/09/yourfilesexplained.pdf Gateway user guide for employers 5
How to use the NOW: Pensions Gateway www.nowgateway.com Please note that NOW: Pensions strongly recommend using Google Chrome to access Gateway.
Logging in You will have received an email with the subject line New account created with a link to set your password. N.B. you will be informed by email as other employers are added to your Gateway account. After clicking the link, set (or change) your password by typing it in twice and clicking CHANGE MY PASSWORD : You can then login using your email address and the password you ve just set and click LOG IN : Gateway user guide for employers 7
Resetting a forgotten password If you have forgotten your password then just click on the I ve forgotten my password link on the front page of the site, under the LOG IN and Activate my account link: Enter the email address for the account you want to reset and click REQUEST A PASSWORD RESET : Then check your email. Click on the link, enter your new password twice and click CHANGE MY PASSWORD. You can now login with your new password. Gateway user guide for employers 8
The home page If you have more than one payroll set up, you will see payroll selection page after logging in: Click on the payroll group you want to upload your file against in this case Monthly (Monthly). By selecting a payroll you will be presented with the following screen. If you only have one payroll you will also be presented with the following screen. 1 2 3 4 5 1 Home: click this to return to the home page. 2 Employees: click here to get a list of all employees that have been imported into Gateway. 3 Notifications: click this to see all the historic notifications you ve received (e.g. notification of successful file imports, opt outs/ins and system notifications). 4 User account settings: click here to see Employer settings, add/remove users of the system, change your password or logout. 5 Select a file: click here to upload pension data files (you can also drag and drop files directly onto this area from your computer explorer window). Gateway user guide for employers 9
ER codes, pay codes and scheme codes Before you download the pension data file from your payroll system you ll have to enter the ER code, pay code and scheme codes into your payroll software (if it can hold these values see your payroll software provider documentation for details), or directly onto the pension data file in the relevant columns for each employee. The ER code (aka NOW: Pensions Reference) and pay code are visible on the Employer settings page, which you can navigate through to from the User account settings menu in the top right hand corner: e.g. snippet from a sample pension data file showing four employees with the fields populated: Once in the Employer page on the green bar click Employer settings : Click on Scheme tiers to get the scheme code information: Gateway user guide for employers 10
On this page you will see all the relevant scheme codes and the employer and employee contribution percentages. In this case (and in about 90% of cases) it is Scheme Code 101: Note: The pensionable earnings are defined here in this case Band (sometimes referred to as Qualifying Earnings within payroll software). The percentages are also defined. Sometimes these will be customised so be careful to make sure your payroll software is set up with these values. It is possible for an employer to set up more than one scheme tier, for different groups of employees. Here is an example of a multitiered scheme code employer: There are scheme codes here: 102, 103 and 104 all on basic earnings. As you can see, 104 has custom employer and employee contribution percentages. And to emphasise, this is how they should appear on the pension data file: Gateway user guide for employers 11
PDF communications and employer information Back on the Employer settings page, just below the Scheme Tiers button is the PDF communications settings: If using the builtin NOW: Pensions communications function it is very important that the Common mailbox address is populated correctly before you upload a pension data file. You should also check that your employer information is correct: Some fields are editable which is indicated by the grey pencil to the right of the entry others are not. If you spot a noneditable field with an error especially the staging date then please contact Client Support on 0330 100 3399. Gateway user guide for employers 12
Uploading a file Once you ve updated your payroll software, processed the payroll, downloaded the pension data file and checked that required fields are populated you are ready to upload it. Click on Select a file (or drag and drop your file from your computer s file explorer to the area shown): Find the file in your computer s file explorer and choose it to upload: Gateway user guide for employers 13
If your file is in a valid format you will see the positive results in the File check area. Click View upload details : Since in this example there are no problems. click Continue to get through to the import preview page: Gateway user guide for employers 14
Since in this example there are no problems. click Continue to get through to the import preview page: Here you can see the amount of contributions that will be collected by NOW: Pensions, and if you hit the + button on each employee s record, you can view the type of communications that will be sent. If the information is correct, click Confirm import, otherwise Cancel import and start upload again. There is no file recall facility on Gateway so please be 100% sure before you Confirm import. Gateway is designed to help you ensure the data is correct before you import it, as once it is committed to the database it cannot be changed. After confirming the import, you are returned to the home page and a notification appears letting you know it was successful. You can also see the next pay period that is due to be uploaded (in this case pay period 11): That completes the process for one payroll submission. Gateway user guide for employers 15
Next pay period, employee actions and null submission Before you start processing the payroll for the next pay period, you should log into Gateway and check if there have been any employee actions: In the above example, an employee has requested to opt out, and another employee has requested to opt in. You are also prompted to Download actions in the Action column associated with that payroll, or you can Download employee action file for a file which contains all employers and their employees and actions for all payrolls. In this case, we click on Download actions and open the eaf.csv (EAF is short for the Employee Action File formerly known as the Generic Output file or GOF): This file can be directly imported into some payroll software systems (check with your payroll provider), otherwise you can use data to manually update the employee records in payroll. In this case there is an opt out date, and opt out indicator for one record and an opt in date and opt in indicator for another. If an employee has opted out within the opt out period (must be before the opt out last day) your payroll software should be updated and automatically calculate any refund due to the employee in the next pay period. See: http://www.nowpensions.com/wpcontent/uploads/2015/09/aguidetogenericoutputfilesnowpensionstopayroll.pdf for a full specification and definition of this file. Once you have updated the payroll with all the employee actions, you can process your payroll and produce the pension data file for the next upload. If you process the employee actions directly from the notifications, you can dismiss the notifications by clicking on I have updated my payroll : Gateway user guide for employers 16
Null submission The null submission button is a special action to take only if there are no employee actions, no additional employees, no changes to employee s data, no contributions to submit and no communications to be issued. Clicking on it displays a disclaimer: Note that incorrectly submitting a null submission, could result in failing to meet your auto enrolment obligations under UK Pension Law, so only use this option if you are sure there are no updates needed for the next pay period. Gateway user guide for employers 17
Dealing with errors and warnings Data integrity is key to ensuring employees are getting the correct auto enrolment outcomes, contribution amounts are correct and communications are accurate. Gateway is designed to help you ensure the data is correct before you import it, as once it is committed to the database it cannot be changed. There are very clear error messages and warnings, which alert you to exactly what the problems are. Here we ve tried to upload a file that has some errors: Immediately there is a warning showing you there is something wrong with the file. Click on the View upload details button to view the errors: Here you can see that the scheme code in the file does not match any of the scheme codes associated with this employer (see the ER codes, pay codes and scheme codes earlier in this document for the details on this). The correct process is to Cancel and upload a new file. Ideally you would fix this at source in your payroll software, alternatively you can edit the file directly and resubmit. Gateway user guide for employers 18
Adding a payroll When you need to add a payroll group navigate into the Employer settings page: Scroll down to the payroll information section and click Add payroll : Enter a display name for the payroll group, it s frequency and click Apply : Gateway user guide for employers 19
Since contributions are collected according to payroll group, you will need to download a Direct Debit form: Save the Direct Debit form to your desktop then email it to the employer with the ER code and new pay code created (you can see this back on the payroll information page below). The employer should print off the instruction form, complete it (ensuring it is signed and dated correctly) and then they can email it directly to NOW: Pensions at directdebit@nowpensions.com. Note that the status is set to Pending you will not be able to upload a pension data file for this new payroll group until the Direct Debit form is received and confirmed by NOW: Pensions. Gateway user guide for employers 20
Statement of account, Direct Debit and contributions history From the Employer payroll page you can see all of the contribution based information: Click through on these options to get more detailed information. Please note that contributions are only collected once employees are out of their opt out window (see Amount reserved for opt outs above). Gateway user guide for employers 21
Smarter. Simpler. Better. Information correct as at October 2016 NOW: Pensions is a UK occupational pension plan. Membership is only available through an employer, following satisfactory checks on the employer. This is written as a general guide only. It should not be relied upon as a substitute for specific professional advice. ER00175.1016/2 NOW: Pensions 2nd Floor 25 Christopher Street London EC2A 2BS Tel: +44 (0) 330 100 3336 nowpensions.com