You might want to defer when new employees are assessed for their eligibility in your pension scheme. In Pensions > Postponement Set-up, in the Deferral tab, you can set the rules that govern when employees are assessed once a deferral is applied.
Before You Begin: The feature described in this topic (and sub-topics) only applies to organizations offering auto-enrolled pension schemes in the United Kingdom.
Deferral rules can be based on one of the following attributes:
- Pay Group
- Pay Type
- Pay Class
- Employee Property (you are prompted to select an employee property if you choose this option)
- Plan Name
- Payroll Policy
- Legal Entity
While you can have multiple deferral rules, those rules must all be based on one attribute. For example, your organization can have four pay groups and each of those pay groups can have a different deferral period rule.
You cannot, however, have three deferral rules based on pay group and one deferral rule based on pay type. If you want to change the attribute that your deferral rules are based on, all of the rules that you have already configured are deleted.
When you have selected the attribute your rules are based on, you can begin adding rules for different pay groups, pay types, pay classes, or employee properties.
An employee's deferral date is determined by the time period of the deferral rule. Deferral rules can have one of the following time period types:
- Next Relevant Pay Period Start Date: The employee's deferral date is the start date of the next relevant pay period. The employee is assessed in the pay period beginning after the hire date or the date on which the employee becomes an eligible jobholder.
- Number of Weeks (1 to 13 weeks): The employee is assessed in the pay period within which the deferral date falls.
- Number of Months (1 to 3 months): The employee is assessed in the pay period within which the deferral date falls.
- Number of Pay Periods (1 to 4 pay periods): The employee's deferral date is the start date of the appropriate pay period and the employee is assessed in that pay period.
In all cases, if the deferral period exceeds the allowed deferral time (three months), then the assessment will occur on the last allowable assessment date.
Following are examples of how each time period type works.
Next Relevant Pay Period Start Date
Jane is hired on February 1 and her assessment is deferred until the next relevant pay period. The current pay reference period runs February 1 - 28. Because her assessment is deferred until the next relevant pay period start date after her hire date, she will be assessed during the pay period that runs March 1 - 31.
Number of Weeks or Number of Months
Jane is hired on March 1 and she has a deferral of six weeks applied, so her deferral date falls on April 11. That date falls within the pay period that runs from April 1 - 30 so she will be assessed in the pay period starting April 1.
Another employee, John, is hired on March 15 and has a deferral of three months applied, so his deferral date falls on June 14. That date falls within the pay period that runs from June 1 - 30, so John will be assessed in the pay period starting June 1.
Number of Pay Periods
Jane is hired March 1 and has a deferral period of three pay periods applied, so her deferral date is set to the start date of the third pay period after the pay period in which her deferral is applied. The pay period when her deferral was applied ran from February 24 - March 9, so her deferral date is April 21, the start date of the third pay period after the pay period ending March 9.
After you have configured deferral periods for different employee groups, Dayforce applies them to the auto-enrolment process. When an employee is determined to be in a deferral period during the Calculate Payroll background job, Dayforce generates a deferral record for that employee with the following data:
- Worker Category: Deferred
- Member Status: Postponed
- Deferral Date: The date determined by the deferral rule.
The following topics describe how to configure deferral period rules: