Where workers have decided to opt out, and you have received an official Opt out notice, you will need to update the Worker Pension Maintenance screen with the following data:
Date Left Scheme: This would normally be the period end date of the next available period to apply.
Opt Out Notified Date: If this is prior to the Opt Out Window Expiry date, the system will automatically generate the transactions for refunding the pension contributions. If it is after the Opt Out Window Expiry date, it will warn you that it is outside of the required time frame and the deductions will not be refunded automatically.
Opt Out Reason: This is an optional field to record the reason why the worker decided to opt out.
Valid Opt Out: You need to indicate if the opt out notification was valid. If it was not valid, this will increase the Opt Out Window Expiry date to up to 6 weeks so as to allow further time to rectify the notification and allow refunds.
Invalid Opt Out Notice: If the notification was invalid, you will need to provide a reason for its invalidity.
📌 Note: With certain pension providers the refund is determined via an import file which is uploaded through Access Pay & Bill from their system. This import will overwrite data in the fields and generate the refund via the import not through tempest manually. We would always recommend checking the data that is transferred through Access Pay & Bill from external sources to ensure correct dates and data is being imported.
Once this information has been entered the system will provide you with a prompt to identify that an opt out has been received within the Opt Out Window Expiry, in order to trigger the refund you will need to answer yes to the prompt.
⚠️ Important: Ensure that on the default pension deduction codes for EE and ER, that the Transaction Input Basis field is set to Value otherwise Access Pay & Bill will not refund the contributions.