Using Nest Connect

Bernard Rust, operations manager, financial planning at PK group

Bernard advises on complex financial planning, specialising in retirement and after-retirement planning. He takes time to analyse the goals and needs of individuals and business owners alike and prepares advice relating to retirement, protection, investments, pension transfers and drawdown.

Bernard has been eagerly awaiting the auto enrolment rush. He spotted the opportunities that it would present in 2008. He’s proud to know as much about auto enrolment as anyone in the industry.

Why NEST Connect works for me

“My job is to make auto enrolment as easy as possible for my clients. With NEST Connect they can offload the whole process to us and get on with running their business. The best feedback I receive when providing this service is ‘thank you – we didn’t feel a thing’.

The beauty of NEST Connect lies in its simplicity. The online process is slick - it’s much less work than I expected. This adds up to a more streamlined, efficient, cost effective package, which suits both my firm and my clients. It’s perfect for offering a workable solution for auto enrolment.

NEST’s wide range of investment plans also provides my clients with diversity that you would expect from a serious pension fund, including low and high risk, ethical and Sharia options.

Auto enrolment is an exciting business opportunity for our company. Although they face additional costs from contributions, many employers still want to delegate authority for auto enrolment to professionals. The efficiency of NEST Connect means we can find a palatable solution.”

Chris Wallace, managing director at Visionary Accountants

Visionary Accountants provides affordable, quality bookkeeping and accountancy services to small and medium-sized businesses in St Albans. It sees auto enrolment as a huge business opportunity, particularly as smaller employers reach their staging dates. NEST Connect is a simple and flexible way for it to provide the services these employers will be looking for.

Why NEST Connect works for me

“We knew auto enrolment was coming for quite a long time as we partner with IFAs and they’ve been talking to us about it for many years. As accountants, though, we were waiting for the opportunity to drop down to smaller employers which is where we’re involved now.

We started planning our auto enrolment proposition at the beginning of 2014. We started looking at our pension solutions then, which is how we got involved with NEST.

The appeal of NEST Connect was the very simple and flexible automation of the whole system which is what we require when we’re dealing with lots of employers. We’re careful to be reasonably agnostic on pensions, but the fact of the matter is that at the very small and micro level of employer they’re really going to want a solution that looks like NEST.

We’re getting leads now from IFAs because, although they may have taken auto enrolment up to a point, the ongoing solution will be coming out of payroll.

As accountants we’re just really at the beginning of our journey. With so many small and micro employers staging over the next two years we would expect to have at least three hundred clients out of auto enrolment. For a small accountancy firm it’s a massive, massive opportunity.”

Anna Villani, payroll manager at Harper Morris

Harper Morris are payroll and HR experts. They’ve been providing professional and personalised payroll services to corporate clients in the UK since 1984. They process over 100,000 payslips per year and are highly experienced in payroll and compliance.

As statutory requirements like auto enrolment and Real Time Information (RTI) make life more complex, Harper Morris ensure client payrolls comply with the ever-evolving legislative requirements.

Why NEST Connect works for me

“The new functionality of NEST Connect shows that NEST is evolving with people like us in mind. They understand what we need and add value to our business.

NEST Connect is compatible with our in-house software and the right fit for our business model. This helps us stay cost effective. The ability to see all the contributors from a single log-in makes a huge difference in terms of time and effort at peak times of the month. The ‘super user’ function allows us to add, consolidate and collate clients with ease.

For clients who want a full end-to-end service, we often recommend going all in with NEST, because we know it will save them time and money in the long run.

Originally, we saw auto enrolment as a potential threat to our business. Now, it’s a fantastic opportunity to grow our business.”