I will be affected by the introduction of auto-enrolment next year but as an employer. I know you have written extensively on the subject but I cannot find any information on what I have to do to make sure my employees are correctly registered.
The scheme is due to go live in January. I am aware there will be a portal available to employers to register next month but I have no idea what this will involve and how much information is required. It seems a very tight window especially as, with Christmas looming, like most businesses, we will be extremely busy.
I know this is not the sort of query you normally deal with but, as it will affect my team if there is a delay, I wonder can you tell me what I need to do when the employer portal opens?
Mr R.R.
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I hadn’t realised until your query landed just how little specific information has been made available to employers on how to ensure everyone is registered in time for the much-delayed mandatory workplace pension scheme.
And, as you say, it does appear to be a very tight window, especially at this time of year. However, the Department of Social Protection, which is managing the whole process, assures me that it will be hassle free and take you a matter of minutes.
As you say, there has been a lot written about the impact on employees of the arrival of this new mandatory workplace pension, though survey evidence suggests many of the 750,000 people likely to be affected have yet to inform themselves of what is coming.
From January, anyone who is aged between 23 and 60 and earning more than €20,000 who is not already part of a workplace (occupational) pension scheme will find themselves automatically signed up to a State-run workplace pension called My Future Fund.
[ Preparing for auto-enrolment: What Irish SMEs need to knowOpens in new window ]
Figuring out who needs to be signed up will be determined by your November payroll. Anyone who meets those criteria above and who is not paying into a workplace pension already will be automatically enrolled in the fund.
For most companies, that November payroll will be more or less complete by this stage.
So what do you need to do when the MyFutureFund employer portal opens on December 1st and what details do you need to have to hand?
The department says that signing up is a very simple three-stage process. First you complete your profile on the portal, then you set up a payment method and then you simply run your payroll as you usually do.
In terms of that first stage, employers will be asked to use their ROS credentials that they currently use to log in to Revenue Online Services. You won’t need any new usernames or passwords to remember.
Once in, you will need your company name, its trading name if different, and the applicable business sector in which it operates. Then, from a drop-down list, you choose the number of employees involved.
You will also need to supply the company address and details of the primary contact (their name, phone and email). This should be whoever normally deals with Revenue on payroll issues.
Once that is done, you’ll just need to sort the payment details – with direct debit or via card.
The department reckons the process should take no more than 10 minutes, which sounds right as long as the system does not fall over under pressure from the number of people trying to access it in what is essentially a three-week window.
You say no information has been made available until now. To be fair to the department, it has organised a number of information sessions for employers. For whatever reason, it appears that notice of these sessions appears to have passed many employers by.
The department is running another two online sessions – on Monday, November 24th at 2pm and on Thursday, November 27th at noon – and it might make sense to tune into one of them. You’ll need to sign up via Eventbrite if you want to tune in, and you’ll find more details here.
There is also a very practical “walk-through” of the process, which you can find here. It’s fairly long but the piece on how the employer portal works kicks in at 34 minutes 40 seconds.
That €20,000 earnings limit is not tied to any one employment. If you work a number of jobs which, between them, pay more than €20,000, each of those employers will have to sign you up.
If they are signed up to a workplace pension with one employer, the others will still need to register the employee in relation to work done for them.
If an employee falls outside the parameters but still wants to join the scheme, they can; you, the employer, will have to facilitate them by registering their details and organising deductions from their pay via payroll.
It is certainly a tight window and the extraordinary recent intervention by the secretary general of the department accusing some employers of trying to undermine the scheme – and their employees’ pensions – shows how seriously the behaviour of employers will be scrutinised, so it makes sense to take the time to make sure the process is completed in full and on time.
Please send your queries to Dominic Coyle, Q&A, The Irish Times, 24-28 Tara Street Dublin 2, or by email to dominic.coyle@irishtimes.com with a contact phone number. This column is a reader service and is not intended to replace professional advice
