Hello Community members.
I have some clients with AE staging dates in the coming 6 months.
I currently look after their payroll.
I'm looking for a reliable and cost effective consultancy who can guide us through the AE process and take responsibility for the pension compliance.
I'm happy still to look after the payroll.
I would be most grateful if any community members would be able to point me towards a supplier who could do this.
Many thanks
Albie
Replies (23)
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Why not do it yourself? It's not hard, and with the right payroll software you have an end to end solution.
AE is a good fee earner once you know what you are doing. It gets easier after the first few. You have to research what to do and put terms in place but I try and get my clients to use the same provider (although it is their choice).
In my view the monthly compliance goes hand in hand, I don't know how you would do the payroll and a consultancy do the pensions. Once set up then it is just a matter of a submission and you would have to enter the pension contributions on the payslips anyway.
Well you are quite late to the game so should do some reading, there is plenty of useful info on here from others.
You should get up to speed quickly or your clients will engage an FA at great expense with a scheme that may not fit into your software.
I use Moneysoft and True Potential but you could equally use Moneysoft/Nest or Brightpay gets excellent reviews.
You set a fee which covers your risk. I have added my fees already to many threads on this topic.
No it is not much additional work once set up but I take the responsibilities seriously, I don't love either payroll or AE but I would not want my clients to go elsewhere and the fees are not huge but add up.
Moneysoft handles it well and at no extra cost. I believe Brightpay also has it included now.
Stay away from the big boys, they'll charge you through the nose.
Be careful if you suggest one pension scheme over another as you are not an authorised advisor
I just stick to NEST, which is relatively straight forward
TPR has confirmed that to make suggestions or recommendations to employers does not breach any regulations. Only advise to individuals is restricted to appropriately regulated persons.
As per the other replies, it's not as daunting as you imagine. I use Brightpay and this makes it a breeze along with some research I did with NEST and The Pension Regulator.
Once you've done a few and get used to it, it's a nice fee earner
PTP Absolute offer a one off set-up service for £299 - I have just appointed them to look at my probably only AE client to ensure the right procedures/choices are made. Their IFA reviews the client and it's employees, advise on and set up the pension scheme and procedures. They then hand to me for the on-going payroll services for which I now use Moneysoft.
I was concerned that I would not have sufficient knowledge to support the pension scheme choice etc.
Give it a go yourself, it is very straightforward with the right payroll software. BrightPay and Moneysoft are excellent value for money and do AE very well. I agree with @SteLaccastay, stay away from the big boys.
I am a big fan of Brightpay. The software is excellent for payroll and Auto Enrolment. I was anxious about taking on AE for my clients but Brightpay handles everything seamlessly - pre-assessment of employees, communications, ongoing monitoring of employees, opt in/outs, refunds, reports etc. You can even submit your pension contribution file direct to NEST or Smart Pensions from BrightPay with the click of a button, similar to an RTI return. It is also possible to authorise payment to NEST within BrightPay rather than having to log onto the NEST portal.
AE is a nice little earner, look at your options again before outsourcing it.
Best of luck!
I thought you said you were following all the advice and doing it yourself? Don't give fees away to an IFA.
Do it yourself and earn a bit of extra money. I use BrightPay and it's very automated. Takes a couple of minutes per client to assess, send letters and enrol everyone. Most of my clients use NEST and it's fairly straightforward too.