How will I know if a refund is due?

We’ll send a message to your secure NEST mailbox when your refund is on its way to you. The message will let you know why you are receiving a refund, the amount due and may have details of the members.

You’ll find a breakdown of the total refund information in a file attached to your message.

Each file we send will relate to one type of refund. If you have a large workforce and a complex payroll you may receive several refund files in a pay period.

Please note that you won’t receive a file for any overpayments. You’ll just receive a message from us letting you know how much is being refunded.

You can see the types of refund files we’ll send in the table below:

A refund may include members from different groups and for different reasons. You’ll be able to use the files we send to help with your reconciliation.

You may receive a refund for the following reasons:

Opt out refund for multiple payments:

There may be times when you’ll need to take account of multiple payments when making refunds. For example you submit a contribution schedule including a £10 payment for a member and we allocate this to the member’s pot.

You then submit another contribution schedule and the payment is in progress, including another £10 payment for the member and the member then opts out of NEST. You’ve already made another deduction of £10 from the member’s wages but not included this on the next schedule. In this situation, we’d return £20 to you and you’d need to add the extra £10 you’ve already deducted for the next schedule to the member’s refund.

Of the £20 we’d refund to you, £10 would appear in the ‘OO’ file at the time of processing the opt-out and £10 would appear in the ‘IROO’ file. Please note that this would only apply if you are using Direct Debit or debit card.

Contribution correction for overpayment:

If you’ve corrected a member’s payment on a contribution schedule and the amount you need to pay is lower than the original amount paid, we’ll refund you the difference. When we’ve processed the correction, you’ll see the corrected amount and the refund due in the ‘Payment history’ area of the contribution schedule.

The refund you receive may be less than the amount you’ve paid in. This is because your refund may be subject to market adjustment. However, you’ll need to refund the member their portion of this payment in full.

Cancelling member’s enrolment:

The refund you receive may be less than the amount you’ve paid in. This is because your refund may be subject to market adjustment. However, you must refund the member the full value of any contributions deducted from their wages.

No longer eligible to contribute to NEST:

If for example a member has chosen to take their retirement with NEST earlier than the date we’ve recommended, and you’ve paid over contributions after this date, you’ll receive a refund for those.

You can also receive a refund if you’ve paid contributions for a member who was showing as payment expected on your contribution schedule, but who then passes away and their death has been certified.

The file name for this refund begins with ‘IE’. You’ll need to refund the member’s contribution back to them.