Auto Enrolment Services

What is Auto Enrolment?

Auto Enrolment is all about pensions – compulsory workplace pensions. All employers must enrol all eligible staff into a qualifying pension scheme. Eligible staff and/or their employer must contribute to the pension scheme. Employers are being gradually phased into Auto Enrolment between 2012 and 2017, until every employer must comply by 2018. For more details please see our post Auto Enrolment – What is it?

Our Auto Enrolment Service

We offer a fixed fee Auto Enrolment Service as an add-on to our fixed fee Payroll Services. Our Auto Enrolment service can also take care of most of the setting up as well as the ongoing administrative burden, ensuring that you comply with the new requirements. See the What’s Included section below to find out what is included in our service.

Our Auto Enrolment fixed fees start from just £10pcm plus VAT and is based on the number of employees and the pension provider used. See the Fixed fees section below for details.

What’s Included in our Auto Enrolment Service

Setup

Included
The staging date is the date you must start enroling and contributing to a pension scheme. We will work out your staging date and remind you of your responsibilities at the appropriate time.
At least one and up to two contacts must be provided to the pension regulator. We will be either the primary or secondary contact for you.
You can apply to postpone the date you enrol employees (not the staging date) by up to 3 months. We can do this for you and provide the letters you would need to send/email to staff.
We’ll work out which of the 4 different categories each of your current employees would fall into at your staging date. This will help you communicate with all staff and plan for the cost of the contributions.
We’ll register you and your chosen pension scheme with The Pension Regulator.
After your staging date you must declare your compliance with the legal duties of auto enrolment. We’ll ensure you comply and get your permission to declare compliance on your behalf.
Not Included
Unless you already have a qualifying pension scheme you need to choose one. We’re not authorised to advise you on which pension scheme to choose. You would need to consider which one is the most appropriate for you and your staff. You will also need to agree to the terms and conditions of your chosen pension scheme.
We provide the letters you’re required to send/email to staff, and some guidance. However, all other communication about Auto-Enrolment must be between you and your staff.
There are various combinations of contributions you and your employee can make to meet the minimum requirement. We’ll explain the options but you must decide which option to take.
If you have an existing workplace pension, it may be used for Auto Enrolment if it meets the new requirements. Our service doesn’t include the assessment of whether your existing pension scheme can be used.

Ongoing

Included
We’ll enrol all eligible staff onto your chosen pension scheme.
You can apply to postpone the enrolment of new staff e.g. if they have a probationary period. We can do this for you and provide the letters you would need to send/email to staff.
We’ll provide you with the letters you are required to send or email to your staff. The letters will be tailored for your business, not just templates.
Non-eligible staff can opt-in, and eligible staff can opt-out. We’ll enrol or opt out those staff with your pension scheme.
On each payrun we’ll calculate the contributions, deduct the employee contribution from their pay, and tell you how much to pay or will be collected to/by the pension scheme.
We’ll submit the details of the contributions to your pension scheme at each pay run.
Not Included
We provide the letters you’re required to send/email to staff, and some guidance. However, all other communication about Auto-Enrolment must be between you and your staff.
You must make payments or set up a direct debit with the pension scheme. Any communication regarding payments or refunds must be between you and the pension scheme
Your pension scheme may have different options for what and how they invest your employees pension fund. We are not authorised to give advice about this.

Auto Enrolment Service Fixed Fees

These fees are in addition to our payroll service fees which you’d be required to sign up for. All of our fees are stated excluding VAT which will be added at the prevailing rate.

Set Up Fees

If you would like us to set up your Auto Enrolment pension service (see above) we charge 6 times the applicable monthly rate shown below. So for SMART/NEST 4 that will be £60 plus VAT. This will be charged either as a one off fee or if it’s not too late you can start paying the monthly fee 6 months before your staging date.

SMART or NEST Pension Only

NEST is the National Employment Savings Trust. It’s free for employers and deducts low fees from the employee’s fund. NEST has been built specifically for auto enrolment. It accepts all employers, in contrast to some other pension providers who don’t accept smaller employers. See the NEST website for more details. 

SMART Pension is an alternative low cost pension provider. Their service is also free to employers and they deduct low charges from employees’ funds. See more about Smart Pension website for more details. .

The following fees are added to our payroll fees if you only want to use either SMART or NEST and you would like us to do the ongoing administration, and optionally the setting up for you (see What’s Included above). It effectively doubles our payroll fees if you’d like to add on SMART/NEST.

Please note that CloudBook Accountants Ltd is not authorised to give investment advice. You must ultimately decide for yourself which pension scheme is most suitable, therefore we suggest you obtain advice from a financial adviser. Our offer of the service with SMART or NEST at a lower fee is not a suggestion that SMART or NEST is better or worse than the others. It simply reflects our potential cost saving if most of our clients choose the same pension provider.

  • SMART/NEST 4

  • £10pcm

  • 4 Employees pcm

  • 4 Starters & Leavers pa

  • 8 Employees pa

  • £60 set up fee

  • SMART/NEST 8

  • £20pcm

  • 8 Employees pcm

  • 8 Starters & Leavers pa

  • 16 Employees pa

  • £120 set up fee

  • SMART/NEST 12

  • £30pcm

  • 12 Employees pcm

  • 12 Starters & Leavers pa

  • 24 Employees pa

  • £180 set up fee

Other Pension Schemes

If you choose to use a single pension provider for all employees that is not SMART or NEST, the fees shown below are added to our payroll fees if you would like us to do the admin for you. It effectively trebles our payroll fees.

  • ENROL 4

  • £20pcm

  • 4 Employees pcm

  • 4 Starters & Leavers pa

  • 8 Employees pa

  • £120 set up fee

  • ENROL 8

  • £40pcm

  • 8 Employees pcm

  • 8 Starters & Leavers pa

  • 16 Employees pa

  • £240 set up fee

  • ENROL 12

  • £60pcm

  • 12 Employees pcm

  • 12 Starters & Leavers pa

  • 24 Employees pa

  • £360 set up fee

Here is a list of other pension schemes that we can help you with:

  • Aegon Pension
  • Aviva Pension
  • FriendsLife Pension
  • GenLife
  • Hargreaves Lansdown
  • Legal and General Pension
  • NEST (see above price table)
  • NOW: Pensions
  • People’s Pension
  • Prudential Pension
  • Royal London Group
  • Salvus Master Trust
  • Scottish Widows
  • Standard Life
  • True Potential