Setting up a Penfold Pension in Xero
👉 Tip: You'll need the 'EmployerID,' a unique code assigned by Penfold to each employer. Typically, it starts with PEN followed by your Company Number. You can find it on the dashboard 👇
To set up your Penfold scheme, go to the Payroll Menu, select 'Payroll Settings', go to 'Workplace Pensions' and select 'Add Workplace Pension'.
You will then be taken through a few steps to configure the pension:
1. Start Date
Enter the Auto Enrolment Staging / Duties Date for the company.
Select whether you want to use postponement.
Enter your next re-enrolment date (optional)
2. Pension Provider
Type 'Penfold', then click on 'Set up manually'.
EmployerID is the unique reference assigned to the scheme by Penfold. It is usually PEN followed by the Company Number e.g. PEN12345678, and is sometimes referred to as the EPSR number.
Employer and Employee Contribution - set the default percentage rates for the scheme here.
Qualifying Earnings:
Select yes if you want to use the statutory minimum definition of pensionable earnings (all earnings between £6,240 and £50,270), or
Select no if you want to use an alternative definition of pensionable pay (such as basic or total pay).
Tax Relief:
If you’re using Salary Sacrifice for this scheme you can set this here. This means all contributions are paid as Employer contributions in exchange for the employee taking a lower salary.
Alternatively, select Relief At Source and set the Reduce by Basic Rate Tax option to Yes. This means that Employee contributions will be deducted net of basic rate tax relief from after tax pay (Penfold will add the tax relief to make up the full contribution).
Note: Net pay is not a suitable option to use with a Penfold Pension
Review the settings and click Confirm. All done! ✅
How do I set Xero up to produce the right data?
Great news - this is automatic. When you run payroll, Xero will automatically produce a PAPDIS CSV file which can be easily dragged and dropped into the Penfold Platform to process both enrolments and contributions.
Sending Enrolments and Contributions to Penfold
👉 Tip: Once you have finalised the pay run, you can go to the Payroll menu and select Pension Filings. Go to the relevant pay run, click the 3 dots to the right hand side and select Download CSV.
Save the file to a secure location and that’s it - it’s ready to be dragged and dropped into your Penfold Platform.
There is no separate Enrolment report, but if you want to enrol employees early, e.g. to ensure they get their Opt Out window before payroll is run (albeit you’d have to finalise and then reset), you can upload the PAPDIS CSV to the “Add Employees Only” window in the Penfold Platform. Alternatively, upload the file(s) to the Payroll Pension window and all outstanding enrolments and contributions will be processed in one go.