Auto-enrolment outsourcing for accountants

A recent report by the Pensions Regulator showed that 74% of small and micro businesses are turning to their accountants for some help with auto-enrolment (AE).  So as their trusted advisors, how will you offer the support they need.

Although it’s unlikely that you will provide financial advice (unless are a regulated financial advisor), you will be expected to support your clients to comply with the new legislation.  And with the process taking up to 12 months to sort prior to the staging date, you might want to consider how you can benefit financially from this sooner rather than later.

Of course, just like you, QXAS cannot provide advice on which pension provider to choose, but we can handle:

• all the other activity relating to your clients’ Auto Enrolment staging date
• provide ongoing employee monitoring post-staging date to ensure compliance and manage ongoing pension deductions.

Meaning you can provide them with a comprehensive service without actually doing anything.

Our outsourced auto-enrolment service takes away the stress and administrative burden of auto-enrolment. It can be customised to fit any practice size and we will provide all necessary templates and letters to comply with AE requirements. Our AE process is divided in 3 stages:

Stage 1: Initial review

• Find the staging date for each of your clients (if you’ve already completed this task, please send us detail for your clients)
• Postponement: if any of your clients decides to postpone, QXAS can help you prepare letters informing their employees before the required date
• QXAS cannot advise which pension provider to use as we are not a financial advisor. Your clients will need to identify a suitable pension provider.

Stage 2: Registration

• We will help you to register each of your clients to their chosen pension scheme provider
• We will send you a checklist form for each Employer of their Employees for review before creating the database to send to the pension company.
• We will send you letters to communicate with your client’s staff about the auto enrolment scheme
• Once we have your confirmation, we will set up each company with their chosen pension provider along with employee details
• We will set up these pensions in our payroll software

Stage 3: Compliance

• QXAS will help you to define the eligibility of each client’s employees for pension auto enrolment and will send you a report and the required letters for confirmation to inform their employees and to advise of the employee contribution
• We will run the payroll which incorporates the auto enrolment pension and provide you with the necessary pension report on weekly/monthly basis for you to issue to your client
• We will submit pension data to the pension provider as per set frequency

All communication will be provided to you so that it appears you are providing the service to your client. Just like payroll outsourcing, our auto-enrolment service is much more cost-effective then employing a payroll administrator to manage all the tax, NI and other payroll related duties.

Benefits of outsourcing auto-enrolment

• Removes the administrative burden of having to process all of the extra pension communications that need to be sent out, by law, to the right employees at the right times in their auto enrolment journey
• Allows the practice to service clients that were previously unattractive because of issues of the nuisance payroll brings
• Offers an opportunity to gain new clients
• Greatly reduces the risks for the practice and the clients
• Provides a stable passive revenue stream with little or no additional investment
• Frees staff and resources for more lucrative work
• Provides increased peace of mind
• Full compliance with all statutory and regulatory requirements guaranteed

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[Related: How accountants can make money from auto-enrolment]

Need help on Auto Enrolment?  Don’t panic.  We’ve got it covered.

Call 0870 803 1033, email us or click here to get a quote.