How do I align my pay periods to the tax month?

In task 5 of the set up process, you can either choose the recommended settings provided by us or you can customise the set up and make all the selections yourself.

If you want to use the recommended settings to align your pay periods to the tax month select ‘Tax Monthly’ from the drop down menu.

Your pay period will be aligned to tax monthly automatically. You can change the settings by clicking on ‘Edit group’. If you’re happy with the automatic settings click ‘Save group’.

To choose your own settings click ‘Customise set-up’ and then click ‘Add a pay period’.

We’ll ask you how often you pay your workers, this is a pay period. Select ‘Tax Monthly’ from the drop down list next to How often do you pay your workers?

The last step is to choose a payment due date. Your payment due date is the date by which payments must have cleared in our bank account. You can select ‘A number of days after the end of the current earnings period’ or ‘A particular day’.

It’s important to choose a payment due date that works for your business and payroll processes to help you avoid making late payments. You’ll deduct pension contributions from your workers’ wages when you pay them. You’ll then need to pay contributions over to Nest. You might have administration to complete between deducting contributions and paying them to Nest so you should make sure you leave yourself enough time to do this. However, you shouldn’t hold on to contributions longer than you need to.

Remember, UK pension regulations state that the latest you can set your payment due date is the 22nd of the month following pay day. You must pay any contributions by your payment due date, unless you’re holding on to contributions during the employee’s opt-out period.

Once you’ve chosen your payment due date click ‘Confirm pay period details’.