Yes. We’re going to be making some small changes to the validation rules for your pension files in the coming weeks to make sure data flows smoothly, which will lead to a better ongoing experience for your employees.
The changes we’re making are shown below. To ensure you don’t experience any issues, we recommend you check your current file format to ensure that future file uploads will meet these new validation rules.
Soon, if you upload data in the wrong format to the pension administration portal, it will register as a validation error and your data won’t be processed. (If this happens, you’ll see it in your error report).
Validation changes
| New validation requirement | Example |
|
National Insurance numbers must be in the standard format, using capital letters and no spaces. If the employee does not have an NI number, please use the temporary number format shown (M/F for gender) |
AB123456C or TN123456F |
|
Forenames must begin with a capital letter and be written in full – initials are not permitted. |
Abigail |
|
Surnames must begin with a capital letter. |
Jones |
|
Where pensionable earnings are greater than £0, either employer or member % contribution must also be greater than 0%. |
Employee Contribution 5% Employer Contribution 3% Employee Contribution 0% Employer Contribution 8% |
To avoid having to make these changes each time you upload data, we recommend you update your source data, whether this is in your payroll system, an Excel sheet you run manually or organised by a third-party. Thank you in advance for making the updates.
These new requirements come as part of Cushon’s acquisition of the Salvus Master Trust. We’re bringing all our clients’ systems in line with each other and with best practices in data processing. Sorry for the extra admin but we promise it’s worthwhile!