With presenters from across Nest, the webinar covered the upcoming multi-factor authentication process, an update on pensions regulations for 2024 and a live demonstrations on bulk assigning and moving members between groups.
The presentations and live demo are available below to watch again or share with colleagues:
Speakers :
Helen Dowsey – Director or Employer and Intermediary Experience
Paul Terry – Pensions Technical Manager
John Hale – Head of Technical Account Management
Gary Ball – Senior Technical Account Manager
The slides from the webinar are available here: Tips for running your accounts effectively
After the webinar we received some additional questions, answers can be found below:
| We get notifications sometimes that an employee's details have changed it gives you the employee name but not the employers name so unless we remember who that person works for we have to search every employer we have on Nest which is very time consuming is there a way of giving the employer name as well as the employee | Currently we are not in a position to provide the employer name with the mentioned communication. This comm has been issued to you because the welcome pack we've sent to a particular member has been returned to us as gone away. As you've only recently provided us with the member's address when you enrolled them into Nest you may not have a more up to date for this member and can therefore ignore this comm (if you're unable to find them). | |
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| We run a pay schedule that runs from the 26th of one month to the 25th of the next month and the payment date is the 5th. Nest doesn't allow us to set this schedule from the beginning. We always have to submit an exception schedule for the first month. Is this something that can be changed? | It sounds like you may be running an in arrears payroll and that the dates are not aligned between your payroll and Nest account. There should be no need to use an Exception Schedule. You should check that the start date you put on the new member record is the correct one. To ensure that we provide the correct information / solution I would suggest attending one of our surgeries to talk this through. | |
| I assume the restriction for opting out of salary sacrifice is due to HMRC's definition of successful salary sacrifice arrangement. So I would still be interested what would be the solution here. Keeping an effective SS arrangement and having the right to leave the SS pension scheme | The key point here is that you need to allow the member not to be a member of the pension scheme and you cannot restrict that to a once a year option date. Salary sacrifice is operated by many employers on a more flexible approach, so the once a year change date is unlikely to be an HMRC requirement. | |
| We already have an account which we use to manage a number of employers. Is it possible to merge these into a Nest Connect account? | Yes, a full access delegate of each employer account can give the Nest Connect account access to the account. | |
| Is there a way of seeing clients with 'unpaid schedules' in one go rather than going through each page (we have 30 pages!)? | On the home screen when logged into your Nest connect account you have the option to view in the order of oldest contribution schedules first. To do this click on the drop down arrow next to 'Payment due date'. You can also download the list to an Excel spreadsheet and sort the data that way. | |
| Also when uploading the file, would it be 2 separate files or does it automatically assign them to the correct accounts? | If set up correctly on Nest both the salary sacrifice and the non-salary sacrifice elements would appear on the same contribution schedule. For help with this book one of our surgery appointments and we can help you. More detail can be found in the useful links below. | Setting up a Nest Connect account | Nest pensions |
| We receive a number of automated emails confirming a clients direct debit source, which are always correct. How can we stop these notifications? | Unfortunately, you can't stop these notifications. | |
| As a payroll bureau, we often find out after the event of any changes. If we find out late that someone is changing groups, i.e. from regular employee contributions to sal sac, can it be backdated in any way? | You can use the move member to another group within the oldest unpaid contribution schedule. Details of how you move members between groups on a contribution schedule (file-upload or manually can be found here) | Changing a member's group manually | Nest pensions |
| We are an agent with roughly 40/50 NEST pensions. I am happy for my colleagues to access all of our clients apart from one (our own payroll pension account). Can I password protect this single company as a double protection? | Any 'Super User' within your Nest connect account can view / assign employer accounts to themselves or another delegate. To keep your account separate I would suggest that you don't link to your Nest connect account and keep it as a sole employer account. | |
| At the moment we submit Pension info direct from our payroll software. I assume the new authentication will not impact this? | Correct - Multi factor authentication will notbe applicable when using APIs (Nest web services) | |
Useful links :