Automated Direct Debit

Once your Direct Debit account is active and you have uploaded your first contributions, we will automatically bill you for these amounts in order to invest them in the workplace pension scheme. 

Contributions must be created on or before the 5th of each month to be included in the direct debit on the 7th of the month. Employees who are still in their one month opt out period on this date will not have contributions paid on this trigger.

Making changes before you are billed

We will email you three working days before the 7th to let you know how much you will be billed for. This allows you to check and amend the amounts before we take payment should there have been any errors or changes to the data uploaded. Please note, you have until the 5th to make adjustments before contributions are locked.

Payments for new companies

If you have just set up your pension scheme with us and have begun assessing your employees on the account, your first payment will be on the 7th, one calendar month after your employees became active members (after the one month opt out period has ended).

For example, if your staging date was 1 July and you assessed your staff and uploaded their contributions on 28 July, their opt out window would end on 27 August and we would take payment on 7 September.

Payments for new employees

If you have an existing account with us but have recently hired a new member of staff, the delay in taking payment will only be applied to new members.

We will collect contributions as per normal for all your existing members on the 7th or when pay now is selected but the contributions for the new member will be taken on the next available payment date after the opt out period has ended (7th or via the pay now feature once the opt out window has ended).

The pay now feature

You can make payment at any time using the pay now feature.

You can find and use the feature by following these three steps.

1. Sign in to your Smart Pension account
2. Visit the contributions page
3. Select pay now - this will  lock your contributions from any further adjustments.
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   If you do not use pay now, we’ll try to collect the contributions on the 7th of the next month. Please remember, we need to receive the payment of your contributions by the 22nd of the following month after you made deductions from your employees’ salaries. If your payments are late, we may have to report you to The Pensions Regulator. This could result in The Pensions Regulator taking regulatory action against you.

Employees within their opt-out period

We will not take payment for contributions associated with employees who are still within their opt-out window. Instead we will delay this and if they are still in the scheme after their one month opt out period has ended, we will take payment on the next suitable direct debit trigger. This is to reduce the need for you to request a refund from us.

Note: The transaction may take 3-5 days to appear within the employer account

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