Employer portals and MC3
Welcome to the home of our employer portals. Here you can find information, T&Cs, guides and support to help you get the best out of our online services.
The employer portal
Use the employer portal to search for your members, complete web forms and download your exception reports. You'll also find your annual statement worktrays here.
To sign up for the employer portal you need to be added to either the main contact registration form, authorised employer user list or authorised payroll user list. The form then needs to be signed by someone who is a current registered authorised signatory.
Guide to using the work trays within the employer portal to answer queries relating to information needed for annual pension statements for members.
Monthly contributions portal (MC 3)
Use MC3 to upload your monthly contribution data and complete the matching process. Don't forget, you must complete your monthly process every month by the 19 of the following month.
When you pay across your members’ contributions to us every month, you send us a remittance advice and the monthly return spreadsheet to help us identify the payment and split the contributions between members and employers.
This makes the process of contributions management easier and ensures any problems with contributions are resolved as soon as possible. We post data received and reconcile payments made by employers to member records each month.
The monthly return also gives us core information that allows us to improve member records on our systems. The monthly return also means that you don’t need to inform us separately of new starters. (You need to inform us of leavers via the employer portal.)
To use the monthly contribution portal you need to be added to either the main contact registration form, authorised employer user list or authorised payroll user list. The form then needs to be signed by someone who is a current registered authorised signatory.
The MC 3 template spreadsheet and specification
Exception Reports for Monthly Contributions
Exception reports are the spreadsheets we send to employers if we have queries after processing the monthly return. They relate to new starters, leavers or hour changes. We will email your finance contact to let them know they are available on the employer portal, but anyone with a login to the portal can also view the reports.
To access the reports log into the employer portal and on the left hand menu click ‘View Location Details’ then 'Paylocation' and chose the employer you want to pick up the reports for. Four tabs will appear under the employer name. Click on ‘View Documents’, you will then see the exception reports and other documents listed in date order. You can open the exception report by double clicking the relevant document type or clicking on view document. The report will then open in Excel.
The exception reports available for the monthly returns are:
PT Hour Mismatch
When we have processed your monthly return we compare the information provided to the information we hold on our system. If the hours you have provided don’t match the ones on our system a PT Hours Mismatch will be created.
You must look at each of these errors and provide WYPF with the correct information.
For straight forward hours changes you can just add the date of the change to the spreadsheet and return to us for processing.
For more complicated changes please complete a record maintenance web form on the member’s record in the portal.
If you use the PT Hours Mismatch spreadsheet, you must NOT add notes or change any of the columns. The only thing that should be put on the spreadsheet is the date of change. If you need to add notes please complete a record maintenance web form. You should ensure that all members on the spreadsheet have been completed with a date of change.
Hours are represented as decimals. WYPF will record 15 hours and 45 minutes as 15.75.
You can find more information about submitting forms via the employer portal in the guide in the section above.
Common problems
Make sure the correct indicator for full time or part time hours is shown on your monthly return. These columns are often transposed and will result in an error.
The PT Hour Mismatch exception reports relate to particular months, so it may be that since submitting that particular monthly return you have done an hour change on the portal. In which case the hours will now be correct.
Use the most recent PT Hour Mismatch report as your starting point.
New starter report
If we don’t have a match for a member on your monthly return with the members on our system we will create a new record and set them up as a new starter.
You don’t need to send us any further information for these members, you only need to check that everyone on the list is a genuine new starter and not been set up in error. If you are happy with all of the members on your new starter report you do not need to do anything.
If you have members who have been set up in error please contact us so that we can arrange for them to be deleted.
Common problems
We have noticed a few instances that can cause a new starter to be created when they should be a continuation of jobs:
Promotions/change of job within the same organisation – if the employment is consecutive and the pay has increased just amend the payroll number and job title if necessary and provide the information for the month of change on one single line for both posts
If the member has a change of payroll number or job title part way through the month, return them on the same line as it is one continuous employment.
Leaver Notifications Required
If you have told us that a member has left the pension scheme or a member no longer appears on your monthly return but we still hold an active record for them, we will notify you that we need a leaver notification completing on the portal. You can find out how to do this here.
If the member has not left the scheme, please provide WYPF with an explanation as to why they do not appear on the monthly return.
Change of Address report
This is a list of all the member address updates completed from the data on the Monthly Return.
You don’t need to send us any further information for these members, you only need to check that every update on the list is a genuine change of address and not been completed in error. If you are happy with all of the updates on your change of address report you do not need to do anything.
If you have members who have a change of address completed in error please contact us so that we can arrange for them to be amended. These need to be corrected as soon as possible to ensure data quality.
Action required
Sent for information purposes only, but please let us know if a change of address has been completed in error. If this has occurred failure to notify us may result in a potential data breach.
Retirement Reconciliation mismatch
The Retirement Reconciliation mismatch will show a list of retired members where the Cumulative Pensionable Pay (CPP) received on the monthly file differs from the information you have provided to us on the retirement notification.
The report should act as a check list for you to work through and provide us with any necessary additional pay forms to instruct us to re calculate the members retirement benefits using the correct Cumulative Pensionable Pay (CPP).
If there is already a recalculation on the record, we won't include these members on the mismatch report.
The report will only show mismatches that have been identified in that month, they will not reappear over to the next months report, therefore it is important that you review the retirement reconciliation report every month to ensure that you are sending us the necessary additional pay forms.
Limitations to the Retirement Reconciliation Report
- Cases where we process the retirement late, for example the retirement notification is received months after retirement or if member sends claim form late and all postings are received, if there is a discrepancy between monthly postings and retirement notification
- Pay received in the next financial year, for example back dated pay awards
For these types of cases, where a recalculation applies you will need to send us an additional pay form however they won’t appear on the mismatch report.
Action required
We need you to give us an instruction to recalculate the retirement benefits based on the correct CPP by completing an additional pay form via the employer portal. You should review the report each month, provide us with an additional pay form confirming the correct CPP to use for the retirement recalculation. You must ensure that the CPP matches what you have provided on the monthly return.
MC 3 videos
The new process
MC 3 upload
Full demo of MC3
Bank details and payment information
Contributions you deduct in one month must be paid by the 19th of the following month or you could be reported to the Pensions Regulator.
If the 19th is a weekend you’ll need to be a day or two earlier.
West Yorkshire Pension Fund payment information
You can pay by BACS direct to our bank account:
HSBC
Park Street Branch
PO Box 125
2nd Floor, 62-76 Park Street
London
SE1 9DZ
Account number: 91383728
Sort code: 40-02-50
Account name: West Yorkshire Pension Fund
If you can’t pay by BACs transfer please contact our finance department on 01274 434563 to discuss other ways to pay.
Barnet Pension Fund payment information
Hounslow Pension Fund payment information
You can pay direct to the Hounslow Pension Fund bank account:
NatWest Bank
275 - 277 High Street
Hounslow
TW3 1ZA
Account number: 20364733
Sort code: 60-11-18
Account name: London Borough of Hounslow Pension Fund
Lincolnshire Pension Fund payment information
You can pay direct to Lincolnshire County Councils bank account:
Barclays Bank PLC
316-318 High Street
Lincoln
LN5 7DP
Account number: 93781607
Sort code: 20-50-39
Account name: Lincolnshire County Council Pension Fund
IBAN: GB97BARC20503993781607
SWIFT CODE: BARCGB22
If you can’t pay direct into Lincolnshire County Councils bank account please send your cheques to:
Lincolnshire County Council
Pension Fund
County Offices
Newland
Lincoln
LN1 1YL
If your organisation regularly pays contributions late we will report this to the Pensions Regulator. We will charge interest on late payments in line with the regulations and we may charge your organisation for the cost of chasing the late payment.
Paying over extra contributions
When members volunteer to pay extra contributions to improve their benefits we set up the arrangements for members to pay extra. You must not deduct additional contributions for a member unless we, or one of our AVC providers, ask you to.
When you get instructions to set up a new deduction it will be clear where the additional contributions should be paid. You should include the following extra contributions that are due to WYPF in the monthly payments, and show them on the monthly return:
- Buying extra pension through Additional Regular Contributions
- Buying extra partner’s survivor pension for a nominated cohabiting partner
- Buying extra scheme membership
Extra contributions for Additional Voluntary Contributions must be paid to the appropriate AVC provider.