What is a group?

When you enrol your workers into NEST you’ll assign them to a group. Each group is made up of workers who share:

• a pay period, also known as an earnings period
• a contribution rate and earnings basis.

When setting up a group, you’ll also tell us how often you’ll pay contributions and the date you’ll pay us by, known as the payment due date.

This information appears on a legal document called a payment schedule. You agree to the payment schedule when you create a group. Please see What is a pay period? for more information.

We’ll use the details within your groups along with your payment sources to generate contribution schedules. For more information about your payment sources please see What are the different types of payment method I can use?

When you set up a group, please check that you’ve chosen the correct payment due date and payment frequency to align with your payroll as you won’t be able to change this information later. If the information is incorrect you’ll need to move your workers to a new group with the right details. Once you’ve moved your workers to the new group you’ll be able to delete the old group. Please see How do I delete a worker group once I’ve set up with NEST? for more information.

If your payroll process is aligned to tax periods rather than earnings periods then you should use tax period dates when you’re filling out your information. You may need to do this if you’re using payroll software such as Sage that’s set up in this way. Please see How do I align my worker group to a tax period? for more information.

You’ll tell us whether or not you’d like to set an upper limit on the contributions you pay, also known as setting a maximum contribution rate, when creating or adding a new group. We’ll only ever expect the minimum contribution rates for your group but setting a maximum contribution rate gives you flexibility to make higher payments through your contribution schedules to a limit of your choice. This means that if a worker wishes to pay a higher percentage of their pensionable earnings from their wages to NEST, you’ve got the option to do so without having to put them into a different group. You can amend the maximum contribution rates at any time.

Please see How do I add a new group once I’ve set up with NEST? for more information on adding a new group. If you need to change the contribution rates, earnings basis or maximum contribution rate you can edit these within a group. Please see How do I edit an existing worker’s group? for more information.