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Using NEST Connect
NEST Connect is our online hub for professionals who are offering auto enrolment services to employers. It’s an ideal solution for financial advisers, accountants and payroll providers. And it’s completely free for you to use.
Sign up for NEST Connect
- Provide a complete cost-effective service to any employer, from set-up to ongoing management.
- Easily view and manage all your client accounts in one place so you don’t need to log in every time.
- Add as many people as you need from your organisation to help you manage client accounts.
- Save time and effort with our smart online functionality, tools and templates.
How NEST Connect works for professionals
Why NEST Connect works for advisers
- You can approach employers with a ready-made business model, saving time and effort across the auto enrolment lifecycle.
- It lets you control what services you offer to your clients, from ongoing maintenance to a full end-to-end solution.
Case study: Bernard Rust, operations manager, financial planning, PK group
Why NEST Connect works for accountants
- According to our research, around 20,000 employers will turn to their accountant for auto enrolment advice in 2015.
- Signing up with NEST Connect means you can offer all your clients the help they need from one central log in.
Case study: Chris Wallace, managing director Visionary Accountants
Targeting your services
Different levels of delegated access mean that you can focus your NEST Connect services where your clients need it most. You can take on as much of the administration of NEST as you and your clients agree.
As a ‘full access delegate’ you can manage the whole process for your client from set-up and enrolments to managing statutory communications, contributions and payments. It’s the type of service you can offer on its own or as part of an integrated employee benefits or payroll package to your clients.
Many employers will want to set up NEST themselves and then hand over the day-to-day running of their account to someone else. As a ‘general delegate’ you can put together contributions schedules and payments and administer new enrolments and opt outs. It allows you to offer a suite of selected services that your clients can use in a way that meets their needs.
Your clients might want to manage the scheme themselves but ask you to make sure it’s running smoothly for them. This could be particularly useful for employers using certification when they’re required to review the earnings basis and contributions and deal with record keeping. If you’re a ‘read-only delegate’ it allows you to keep giving the detailed high-level advice your clients need without spending time on administrative tasks they can manage themselves.
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.”
More in section
Who’s using NEST?
Professionals like you are already using NEST to help clients with their new workplace pension duties. This includes payroll providers, accountants and financial advisers.
Build your business
Auto enrolment is a great opportunity to expand the services you offer existing clients. And it means that thousands of employers will be looking for help for the first time.