How do I align my pay periods to the tax week?

In task 5 of the set up process, you’ll need to select ‘Tax Weekly’ to align your pay periods to the tax week.

Your pay period will be aligned to tax weekly automatically. You can change the settings by clicking ‘Edit group’. If you’re happy with the automatic settings click ‘Save group’.

You can customise your set-up by clicking ‘Customise set-up’ and then clicking ‘Add a pay period’.

We’ll ask you how often you pay your workers, this is a pay period. Select ‘Tax Weekly’ from the drop down list next to How often do you pay your workers?

The last step is to choose a payment due date. Your payment due date is the date by which the payments must have cleared in our bank account. You can select ‘A number of days after the end of the current earnings period’ or ‘A particular day’.

The payment due date will automatically default to ‘16 days after’ the pay period ends but you can change this to suit your business. You can select up to a maximum of 22 days after the pay period ends.

It’s important to choose a payment due date that works for your business and payroll processes to help you avoid making late payments. When you pay your workers you deduct pension contributions from their wages. You’ll then need to pay contributions over to Nest. You might have administration to do between deducting contributions and paying them to Nest so it’s important you leave yourself enough time. However, you shouldn’t hold on to these contributions longer than you need to.

Remember, UK pension regulations state that the latest you can set your payment due date is the 22nd of the month following pay day. You must pay any contributions by your payment due date, unless you’re holding on to contributions during the employee’s opt-out period.

Once you’ve chosen your payment due date click ‘Confirm pay period details’.

For weekly tax periods you’ll have to provide data for a nominal of 52 weeks contribution schedule. The first week starts from 6 April and ends on 12 April. There will be a contribution schedule generated for one day, 5 April 2025.