UK Pensions

Payroll Administrator Guide

Version
R2025.2.1
ft:lastEdition
2025-12-01
UK Pensions

This section describes the tasks required to enrol eligible UK employees in a workplace pension scheme. When you calculate payroll, employees are assessed for their eligibility in the pension scheme. You can create postponement periods to specify an assessment deferral date for new hires. Dayforce creates pension records for the assessed employees, and those records include their worker category, member status, and assessment details. Then, eligible employees are enrolled in the pension scheme.

Before You Begin: Dayforce Support must enable the features required for pension auto-enrolment. For more information, contact your Dayforce representative.

In Dayforce, you can complete the following pension auto-enrolment tasks:

  • Set up allowance (or deduction) codes as well as a payroll policy that will be associated with the pension scheme.
  • Enter the auto-enrolment contribution percentages in a benefit plan for use in the assessment job.
  • Add staging/previous re-enrolment and next re-enrolment date information and configure postponement period rules.
  • Import initial existing pension records from outside of Dayforce, if required.
  • Run assessment as part of your regular payroll process.
  • Re-enrol employees who have opted out after three years as part of your payroll process.
  • Review multiple employee pension records at once.
  • Add, edit, or delete individual employee pension records.
  • Enter or import opt-in, opt-out, and cease membership request notifications.
  • Enter or import notification of an employee's enrolment in another qualified scheme.
  • Create payroll elections for employees who want to contribute more to the scheme.
  • Run reports that display data about your auto-enrolled pension scheme.
  • Configure employee pension system notifications.

Important: There are some elements of pension scheme implementation and maintenance that aren't done in Dayforce, such as the communications and mechanisms that are required for employees to submit opt-in, opt-out, and cease membership requests. You must ensure that you have completed these duties, or provided means for employees to carry out these tasks, outside of Dayforce.

If this is your first time running auto-enrolment for your pension scheme, these instructions assume that you've already completed the following tasks:

  • Determined your staging or duties start date
  • Chosen your earnings basis
  • Selected your pension scheme

If you haven't already done these things, you should refer to The Pensions Regulator for employer information and current earnings thresholds:

http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/

Note: While you can use one of the available tier-based methods to calculate contributions, Dayforce only supports the use of the "qualifying earnings" method for calculating contributions.

This section contains information on the steps you must take in Dayforce to prepare for the auto-enrolment process and to manage your ongoing duties. The topics listed below are separated into two categories: directions for initial setup and directions for ongoing maintenance of your pension scheme.

Setup

  • Role Features and Access Authorizations: Enable the appropriate role features and access authorizations to allow you to carry out the auto-enrolment setup process.
  • See UK Pension Role Features and Authorizations.
  • Payroll Setup: Set up corresponding allowance definitions and a payroll policy.
  • See Payroll Setup for UK Pension.
  • Plan and Option Configuration: Set up the auto-enrolled pension plan and option in Benefits Setup > Plans and Options. This configuration controls the percentage of the contribution at which employees are auto-enrolled and allows you to set minimum and maximum contribution amounts.
  • See UK Pension Plan and Option Configuration.
  • Postponement Period Rules: Configure postponement period rules in Pensions > Postponement Set-up so that you can defer assessment for employees.
  • See UK Pension Deferral Periods.
  • Staging/Previous Enrolment and Re-enrolment Dates: Enter your initial staging date or previous re-enrolment date and your next re-enrolment date.
  • See Add UK Pension Staging and Re-Enrolment Dates.
  • Import Pension Records: Import existing records for your auto-enrolled pension scheme from another application into Dayforce.
  • See UK Pension Employee Data Import.
  • Employee System Notifications: Configure notification templates that are triggered at payroll commit and delivered to employees based on their worker category and member status. See Pension Notifications.

Ongoing Maintenance