I’m an employer with an existing account

Minimum contribution increases

This is the minimum amount employers are required to pay in to their employees’ pension. The minimum contribution amounts were gradually increased in 3 stages (known as phasing) by The Pensions Regulator.

Since 6 April 2019 these have been 5% of qualifying earnings from employees and 3% from employers.

For more information visit The Pensions Regulator’s webpage on contributions and funding.

Pension consolidation

Visit our webpage about pension transfers for more information.

Worker groups

You can view your worker groups within your Online Services account. Once you’re logged in, simply select the ‘Manage account’ button on the homepage, followed by ‘Manage worker groups’ beneath the ‘Manage employer’ section.

A worker group is a group of employees who have the same contribution level. An employer can set up as many different worker groups with different rates of pension contributions (subject to minimum requirements for auto-enrolment). Each worker group will have its own unique worker group ID.

The unique worker group ID is needed so each worker group can be easily identified on the employee data file.

Employee data submission errors

Our troubleshooting guide is a useful go to for when you come across any errors when submitting your employee data. Or you could also check out our other guides on uploading employee data:

• Uploading your employee data file
• Manually entering employee data

Adding a new employee

Log in to your Online Services account and select the ‘Manage account’ button, followed by ‘Submit employee data’. On this page, you can include new starters and employees who have asked to join The People’s Pension.

If you’re new to The People’s Pension, check out our 6 steps to auto-enrolment to set up your workplace pension and your Online Services account.

Opt-out refunds

Once your employees have told us they don’t want to stay enrolled in The People’s Pension, we’ll let you know in your Online Services account.

You can check if you have any employees who wish to opt out in your account by:

• logging in to your Online Services account
• navigating to the ‘Manage employees’ section on your account homepage
• finding the ‘Mange opt outs’ area.

You’ll then see a red exclamation mark symbol next to the employees who have chosen to opt out.

Not all employees who opt out of The People’s Pension are eligible for a refund of their contributions. We’ll let you know which employees can get a refund and which can’t.

For more information about how the opt-out process works read our ‘Opt-out factsheet’.

Enrolling all eligible employees

If your employee has been assessed as eligible, by law they’ll need to be enrolled into the pension scheme and then opt out themselves.

After being enrolled, if your employee opts out within their one calendar month opt-out period and are eligible for a refund, they’ll receive a refund of their contributions. But if they choose to opt out of The People’s Pension after their one calendar month opt-out period has passed, their contributions will stay in the pension scheme until they’re age 55 (proposed to increase to age 57 from 2028) and they can access their pension savings or until they transfer their money to another provider.

Read our ‘Opt-out factsheet’ for more about how the opt-out process works, including what you’ll need to do once an employee has opted out.

Adding a new user

You’ll need to start by:

• logging in to your Online Services account
• scrolling down to the 'Manage user access' section
• selecting ‘Add new user’
• entering their details
• selecting the account(s) you’d like them to have access to.

We’ll then email them about registering to your Online Services account.

And if you ever wish to edit their access, click ‘Edit’ beside the person’s details.

Paying more in to The People's Pension

If your employee would like to increase their pension contributions, you could check if you’re able to set up the extra payments on your employee’s behalf through your payroll.

If this isn’t possible, your employee can make personal payments in to their pension by Direct Debit or by a lump sum payment through their online banking (sometimes called BACS). They can do this by completing our ‘Making personal contributions to your pension’ form.

Changing your company's details

You can change some of your company’s details by:

• logging in to your Online Services account
• selecting the account you’d like to change the company details for
• navigating to ‘Manage account’
• selecting ‘Company details’ under the ‘Manage employer’ section.

If you’d like to update your company name or company address, please get in touch with us by clicking the 'I still need to contact you' button below and then filling out our contact us form.

Marking an employee as a leaver

This will depend on how you send us your employee data.

• If you carry out full file uploads, you can either remove your employee from the next submission or add a leave date in the next submission, then mark them as a leaver when asked by the system.
• For maintenance and contribution file uploads, you should remove your employee from the file and mark them as a leaver when asked by the system.
• If you use the online keying approach, you’ll need to submit the employee data, set earnings to ‘0’ and then select ‘Confirm’. This will unlock a tick box under the ‘Leaver’ column that you need to tick before submitting the data.

You should mark opt outs as leavers in the pay period after they opt out.

You can only view employees who have opted out when you need to confirm that you acknowledge their decision and you’ve updated your payroll. You can do this by selecting, ‘Manage opt outs’ from your account homepage and then following the on-screen instructions.

Making a payment

You can make a payment by logging in to your Online Services account and selecting ‘Manage account’ on the homepage, followed by ‘Make a Payment’. You’ll firstly need an active Direct Debit on your account.

Payments are made by either:

• Automated collection – we’ll automatically collect your pension contributions on or immediately after the date you’ve chosen. You can turn this off at any time by clicking ’Deactivate’ besides ‘Automated collection’ on the ‘Make a payment’ webpage. If you do turn it off, you’ll need to make a payment every time you submit employee data.
• Direct payment – you can choose the amount you’d like to pay and the date you want us to take the payment. You’ll need to do this each time you submit your employee data. You can change this to automatic collection by selecting ‘Activate’ besides ‘Automatic collection’ on the ‘Make a payment’ webpage.

Re-enrolment

Re-enrolment is when you need to re-assess and potentially re-enrol any employees who have previously opted out, ceased active membership or reduced their contributions to below the minimum level, back in to a pension scheme.

Visit our re-enrolment webpage to discover more.

Closing your account

We’re sorry to see you go. To close your account with The People’s Pension, you’ll need to:

1. let your employees know
2. mark all your employees as leavers
3. make sure all your contributions have been paid
4. get in touch to tell us you’re closing your account by clicking the 'I still need to contact you' button below.