What should I do if I’m using Direct Debit and setting up NEST late?

If you’re setting up your account after your staging date has passed and Direct Debit is your main payment method then you’ll need to allow time for it to be set up.

If you set the Direct Debit up online, it’ll be active in six working days.

If you need to send a paper mandate form to us, it’ll take five working days for us to process the paper work. We’ll process the Direct Debit with your bank or building society, who will then check the mandate. It’ll then take six working days for the mandate to become active.

Payments also take up to a further three to five working days to clear. This means your contribution schedules might be due to be paid before your Direct Debit is set up. For more information on how to create Direct Debit payment sources, please see How do I set up a Direct Debit payment source?

If this happens you might like to think about setting up a debit card payment source as you’ll be able to make payments in this way straight away. Please see How do I set up a debit card payment source? for more information about setting up payment sources.

You can still set your Direct Debit payment source up but could also have another payment source just to pay contributions until its set up if you’d like to.

If you’d like to set up a different payment source to use straight away then you’ll need to set it up before you enrol your workers.

If you’re still setting up your account you can create another payment source in task 4. Click on ‘Tell us how you’ll pay’.

If you’ve already set up your account up, to add another payment source you need to log in and click ‘Manage payment sources’ from your NEST home page.

Then click ‘Add another source’.

You’ll need to follow the onscreen instructions to add a new payment source and provide us with the required information. Please see How do I add a new payment source once I’ve set up with NEST? for more information.