Add The People's Pension scheme

If you have a pension scheme with The People's Pension, you can easily set this up in Sage Payroll

This article explains:

  • The NOW: Pensions information you need and where to find it.

  • How to set up The People's Pension scheme in Sage Payroll.

  • What you need to do after you have set up your pension scheme.

Before you start

Before you can set up your pension scheme in Sage Payroll, you need certain bits of information from The People's Pension.

It is really important to get these, so the pension calculates correctly for your employees.

To find this information, you should log in to your online account (opens in a new tab).

You will need the following details:

  • Your unique ID. Find out more about your unique ID (opens in a new tab).
  • The worker group ID for this pension plan.
  • The type of contribution. Whether it is salary sacrifice, deducted before tax or deducted after tax.

  • The type of deduction. Whether it is a percentage or fixed amount.

  • The employee and employer contribution percentages or amounts.

  • Your earnings basis. Whether it is based on unbanded earnings, banded earnings or custom earnings.

Note: Earnings basis does not apply for salary sacrifice pensions.
  • Your contributions payment date. When you pay your pension contributions to The People's Pension.

After you've gathered all the information you need to accurately set up your pension scheme, you can add it to Sage Payroll.

How to set up The People's Pension scheme

  1. Select Pensions, then Add a new pension.
  2. Select The People’s Pension.
  3. In the Unique ID box, enter your unique ID provided by The People's Pension.

  4. Select Add Group and complete the relevant fields from the table.

    Group name Enter a name for this plan.
    Worker group ID

    The Worker group you've set up for this plan.

    The People's Pension uses Worker groups where you have different contribution rates for your employees.

    Set up a plan for each worker group.
    Type of contribution

    Choose the type of contribution you have with The People's Pension.

    • Salary sacrifice - The money paid into the pension is taken from your employee's gross pay before tax and National Insurance is calculated.
      Note: If you choose Salary sacrifice, you then need to enter the percentage contribution for the employer and employee. The employee contribution is shown as a negative payment on the payslip.

    • Contribution deducted before tax - The money paid into the pension is taken from your employee’s gross pay, before tax is calculated. Taxable gross pay is reduced by the amount of the pension contribution, therefore your employee does not pay tax on this contribution.

    • Contribution deducted after tax - The money paid into the pension is deducted after tax is calculated, and the pension provider claims back the Basic Rate tax paid on this contribution, direct from HMRC.
    Type of deduction Choose whether the rates are a percentage of the employees’ pay or a fixed amount.
    Note: This option is not available for Salary sacrifice contributions.
    Employer Contribution Enter the percent or fixed amount you pay into the pension scheme.
    Employee Contribution Enter the percent or fixed amount your employee pays into the pension scheme.
  5. Select Next and complete the relevant fields from the table.
    Earnings BasisIf you chose a percentage deduction, choose one of the following options:

    • Pensionable Pay – All payments that you’ve selected the Pension Earnings check box for are included in the pension calculation for that pay period.
    • Qualifying Earnings – All payments that you’ve selected the Qualifying Earnings check box for are included in the pension calculation for that pay period.
    • Custom Earnings Basis – To specify your own thresholds for pension contributions, choose this option. You can then specify an annual lower and upper earnings limit. When you process your pay run, Payroll automatically adjusts the thresholds based on the pay frequency and only deducts pension on earnings between the two bands.

    Note: These options are not available for Salary sacrifice contributions.

    Annual lower earnings limit (£)This option only appears if you chose Custom Earnings Basis. Enter the annual lower earnings limit for your pension.
    Annual upper earnings limit (£)This option only appears if you chose Custom Earnings Basis. Enter the annual upper earnings limit for your pension.
    Contributions payment dateSelect the date you pay the pension contributions to your pension provider.
    Default plan (optional)To automatically enrol all employees into this pension scheme, select this check box. You can change this for individual employees when you process their pay run.
  6. Select Save. You can repeat the process to add more groups if required.
  7. Select the Qualifying Scheme check box.
  8. To read the terms, select the our terms link. Then to accept them, select the Terms check box.
  9. Select Save.

Next steps

If you couldn't find all your information for The People's Pension, you can contact them directly on 0300 330 1280.

If you already use Sage Payroll and have set up a new pension, you need to add your employees to the scheme

If you have set up pensions as part of an FPS import, you can now continue the FPS import process

You can run a pension contributions report in Sage Payroll. You can use this to manually enter your pension data on The People's Pension online template, or save it as a file and upload it.

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