Auto enrolment - are you in?

In October 2012 the government introduced new plans meaning that all companies must start to include the majority of their employees into a workplace pension.

Each company will have its own start date (known as a staging date), which is largely dependent on the number of eligible employees. We anticipate this new legislation will have a significant impact on their corporate financial plans in the years ahead.

Larger companies have already received their packs from the Pensions Regulator confirming their staging dates and the time is fast approaching for smaller companies to start planning for their staging dates.

Jason Street, director of Taylor Patterson said: “We deal with many owner managed businesses with numbers of employees between 50 and 150. Based on the implementation timetable, many of these companies will now be receiving their packs from the Pensions Regulator confirming their staging dates, which leaves little time to prepare.

"Business owners will need careful advice and planning to ensure they are ready and can plan for the cost impact within their business. "Some clients may think they will already have everything in place because they have an existing group pension scheme in place for their workforce. Whilst this is certainly a step in the right direction there is still a lot of planning to be completed and there is a need to understand the impact of the reporting requirements that will affect areas within the business, such as payroll services."