Under the Pensions Act 2008, every employer in the UK must put certain staff into a pension scheme and then contribute to it. This is called ‘automatic enrolment”. Some businesses have been keen to get the ball rolling and are well prepared for this new chapter in employment legislation.

But others have either not made the time, or had the correct advice to begin putting auto enrolment into action. So first things first. If you are an employer, at the very least you will need:

– the PAYE reference for each member of your staff who is eligible

– your 10-digit auto-enrolment code which you will have received from HMRC

– the age and salary of your member of staff to enrol

You then need to pay the correct contribution on time into you staff pension scheme. If you don’t do this, you risk being fined by the UK Pensions Regulator. As at August 2017, the correct contributions are:

Employers staging date to 05/04/18 = 1% from Employer. Total minimum contribution = 2% (inc 1% from staff)

06/04/18 – 05/04/19 = 2% from Employer. Total minimum contribution = 5% (inc 3% from staff contribution)

06/04/19 onwards = 3% from Employer. Total minimum contribution = 8% (inc 5% from staff contribution)

As you can see, auto-enrolment is rather a complex area. But not if you have expert accounting advice. We can help you whatever staff your company’s auto-enrolment process is at. For an information discussion, please contact Paul.Edwards@affordbond.com at our Nantwich accountants office, or use the contact form on our website. Auto-enrolment is not optional for employers – get ahead with our help.