Cushon Employer Portal Instructions

: September 20, 2024
: Cushon

Table of Contents

Cushon Employer Portal
Product Information
Product Usage Instructions
FAQ
Introduction and overview
Communicating with employees
Employee requests
Employees
Contributions
Access Control
Associated Intermediaries
References
Read User Manual Online (PDF format)
Download This Manual (PDF format)

Cushon Employer Portal

Product Information

Specifications

Product Name: Cushon Employer Portal
Functionality: Employee management, contribution handling, access control
Access: Web-based employer portal

Product Usage Instructions

Logging into the Cushon Employer Portal

To access the Cushon Employer Portal, visit the designated website and enter your login credentials provided by the administrator.

Employer Dashboard

Upon logging in, you will be directed to the Employer Dashboard where you can view an overview of your account and key metrics.

Employee Requests

Employees can make contribution change requests or opt-out requests through the portal. Review and manage these requests accordingly.

Contribution Change Requests Made by Employees

Process and approve/deny contribution change requests submitted by employees to update their contribution amounts.

Opt-Out Requests

Handle opt-out requests from employees who wish to discontinue their contributions to the scheme.

FAQ

Q: How do I upload new employees?
- A: To upload new employees, navigate to the Employees section and select the option to upload new employees. Follow the prompts to enter employee details and finalize the upload process.
Q: How can I view previous contribution statements?
- A: In the Contributions section, locate the option to view/download previous statements. Select the desired timeframe to access and download the statement.

Introduction and overview

This guide has been created to help you manage the set up and administration of your workplace pension with Cushon Master Trust using the Cushon Employer Portal. It will help new administrators to set up and manage their workplace pension, understand the management information available to them, upload members and payroll information (such as contributions), and edit member details as required.

Cushon Pension Employer Portal – https://portal.cushon.co.uk/employers
Cushon Employer help – employerhelp@cushon.co.uk
Cushon Employer Helpline – 0345 463 1839 Cushon Member help – help@cushon.co.uk
Cushon Member Helpline – 020 3926 0333
Once you have finalised your payroll, you can produce the file / report you need to load into our system. Please see our Payroll Set Up Guide on how to produce your regular payroll report / upload file.

Communicating with employees

We ask you to provide a unique email address for each employee included on your file upload, whether this is one linked to their employment or preferably a personal email address provided by them.
Provision of a unique email address for each employee enables Cushon to provide employees with important information relating to their pension savings as well as login details for the Cushon App, helping ensure that they do not lose contact with these savings even if they leave your employment. In the rare event that an employee does not have an email address linked to their employment, and they are unable to provide you with a personal email address, they will receive information from Cushon through the post.

Logging into the Cushon Employer Portal

The link to the Cushon Employer Portal is provided below.

https://portal.cushon.co.uk/employers

Attempting to access this site without Cushon assigning you the correct permissions means you will be unable to login to the Cushon Employer Portal.

Employer Dashboard

The Employer Dashboard is the first screen you will see when you login to the Cushon Employer Portal under your specific employer record.

You can click on the menu items on the left-hand side or the tiles in the centre of the screen to navigate through the Cushon Employer Portal

Employee requests

Within the ‘Employee Requests’ section, you can view reports about the employees that have requested contribution changes through the Cushon App as well as details about opt outs.
The Employee Requests section should be checked before you run your payroll to ensure you capture the below changes.

You can use the Status filter to see Employee requests that are:

Outstanding – Employee has requested a change in contribution level that has not been applied.
Cancelled – Employee has previously requested a change in contributions but this has since been cancelled.
Complete – Employee has requested a change in contribution level that has since been applied within a successful contribution upload and has updated their record. In addition, you can use the ‘Reason’ filter to focus on either
contribution changes or opt outs, and the ‘Date range’ picker to specify a date range for the report.

Contribution change requests made by employees

When employees are members of the workplace pension, they can download the Cushon App. Within the App they can request a change in their contribution rate (increase or decrease) and their requests will show here.

Opt out requests

When an individual has opted out during their opt out period the completed opt outs will show here. You will also be notified of these opt outs separately through email

Employees

Within the ‘Employees’ section of the Cushon Employer Portal, you can Add / Upload and manage employees including new joiners, leavers, move employees between payrolls and make changes to personal details. Either select ‘Employees’ on the left-hand menu or select the ‘Employee’ tile.

Manage / update employee details

Select an employee record by clicking anywhere on the relevant employee record.

This will take you to the below screen within the member record where, by selecting the pencil icon next to ‘User information’, you are then able to amend the member details held with Cushon. Only ‘National Insurance number’, ‘Date of birth’ and ‘Address’ details can be edited.

Leavers

One of the regular administration tasks required within the Cushon Employer Portal is to notify Cushon of leavers from employment and therefore the workplace pension.

There are 2 ways to notify Cushon of leavers:

Individual leaver processing

You can notify us of leavers within the member record (accessed within ‘Employees’ followed by selecting an ‘Employee record’) by selecting the ‘Mark as leaver from payroll’ pink button at the top right of the page. You will then be prompted to input a leaving date before confirming.

Note: Individuals must have had their last contribution fully processed and invested within Cushon Master Trust before processing them as a leaver. If they are processed as a leaver ahead of their final contribution future contributions will error and will not be possible, if this does happen you will need to contact our Employer help email address and helpline confirmed in section 1.
Hint: Many employers process leavers in the pay period 1 month after an individual’s final contribution to ensure the last contribution has been fully processed. Once an employee has been marked as a leaver, no further contributions are able to be made to their account.

Bulk leaver processing

You can also process leavers through the monthly contribution file. Individuals must have had their last contribution processed on the previous pay period report and have 0 contributions to process in the month they are marked as a leaver.

Uploading new employees

There are three ways new employees can be added to Cushon Master Trust:

Add Single Employee – Input the employee details using an online form to create their account.
Upload Employees – Use a data extract to upload multiple employee details to create their accounts.
Within the contribution file – Employee details can also be uploaded within the same file used for regular contribution processing.

Add a single employee

Input the employee details using an online form to create their policy. From the Dashboard, please select ‘Employees’, then ‘Upload’ and then select ‘Add Single Employee’.

Step 1 – Select the payroll, product and pension scheme

Select the correct payroll in the ‘Payroll’ field, choose ‘Pension’ in the ‘Benefit’ drop down and ‘Pension Scheme’ using the drop down list

Step 2 – Complete the individual details

When complete, select ‘Add Employee’ at the bottom of the form

Upload employees

When an employee is assessed as eligible and requires enrolment, or the employee is contractually enrolled, you can load the employees into the Cushon Employer Portal so that they are provided with an account that contributions will be paid in to. From the Dashboard, please select ‘Employees’, then ‘Upload’ and then select ‘Upload employees’ to upload your .csv file template for all employees that need an account. If an employee already has an account then they should not be uploaded again. For details on the required data for uploading an employee into the Cushon Employer Portal, please review the Payroll Set Up Guide.

Step 1 – Select the payroll, product and pension scheme

Select the correct payroll in the ‘Payroll’ field, choose ‘Pension’ in the ‘Benefit’ drop down and ‘Pension Scheme’ using the drop down list

Step 2 – Select your file

Drag and drop or click and select the .csv file that contains the members that need uploading and click ‘Submit’.

Step 3 – Validate your data

After clicking ‘Submit’, this will take you to a screen which is shown while your data is validated – this may take a few minutes

Step 4 – Process your Employee upload

When your data has completed validation, you will be presented with the below screen showing an upload summary.

Review the upload summary and correct any rejected records prior to submission within your source data. If there are any errors, you can download an error report by clicking the ‘Download Errors’ button. You will not be able to process a file until all errors have been corrected. If you need help with these errors, please see Appendix 2 – Employer Portal Validation Error Guide within the Payroll Set Up Guide. Once any errors have been corrected and you have re-uploaded a clean file, you will see this, as confirmation of an error free upload

We would recommend checking a few of the records to ensure the data is as expected. Once you are happy with the data, please click ‘Process’ to load the data into the platform. This will take you to another screen which is shown while your data is validated– again, this may take a few minutes, so do not cancel the screen. Once all validations are successful, the next screen will confirm that your file has been successfully processed. Select the ‘Done’ button and this will take you back to your ‘Pension upload’ screen.

Move employees between payrolls

When an employee or multiple employees move between payrolls, In order to continue paying contributions for the employees into Cushon you will need to perform a move between payrolls. To start this process, click on the “MOVE PAYROLL” button at the top right corner. This button will only be available for Employer records with more than 1 payroll

Select the payroll you wish to move the Employees from in the first dropdown menu.

Then select the payroll you want to move the Employee to on the second dropdown menu

Following this, select the Employee you want to move by ticking the box on the left hand side of the employee’s name. You can search for the employee by their payroll number or last name using the search bar. More than 1 employee can be selected. If you are moving all employees in one payroll to another (for example a weekly payroll is being closed and all employees have been converted to Monthly) you can select the “move all employees” option on the right hand side. When you have selected all employees you want to move, click Confirm.

You will then be prompted to confirm the action, you must ensure that no further contributions are required for employees on the moving from payroll as once the employees are moved, contributions on the previous payroll will not be accepted and will error through the system validation. If this is required, you will need to move the employee back to the former payroll to allow contributions upload to be accepted. The move of employees between payrolls has completed when the screen below shows

You will be able to check the employees selected have moved to the new payroll by clicking the return to Employees page and checking what shows under the Payroll column.

Contributions

The contribution upload process can be used to

Confirm contribution amounts that each member should receive and trigger payment for all employees who are entitled to receive contributions.
Upload new employees; this can also be done through the ‘Employee upload’ process.
Confirm leavers from the employer where we will not be expecting future contributions; this can also be done individually within the ‘Employees’ section.

Record no active members

If you have no enrolments, active members or contributions to pay for a pay period, due to a postponement period or all members have opted out of the pension, you will need to confirm there are non active members for the pay period. If you fail to do this, Cushon will treat contributions as late.

Step 1 – Select payroll

To confirm no active members, within the contributions section, ensure a payroll is selected and click on the three buttons to the left of the “upload contributions” button

Upload Contributions

From the dashboard, please select ‘Contributions’, the screen below will show.

Step 1 – Select the pay period for upload

Select Upload contributions in the pay period for which you want to complete the upload. If you have multiple payroll, benefit or workplace pensions recorded in the Cushon Employer Portal, please ensure you select the correct one from the drop down box to show the pay period schedule

Step 3 – Validate your data

After clicking ‘Submit’, this will take you to a screen which is shown while your data is validated – this may take a few minutes.

Step 4 – Process your contributions

When your data has completed validation, you will be presented with the below screen showing an upload summary.

Review the upload summary and correct any rejected records prior to submission within your source data. If there are any errors, you can download an error report by clicking the ‘Download Errors’ button. You will not be able to process a file until all errors have been corrected. If you need help with these errors, please see Appendix 2 – Employer Portal Validation Error Guide within the Payroll Set Up Guide. Once any errors have been corrected and you have a clean file for re-upload, you will see the below as confirmation of an error free upload.

We would recommend checking a few of the records to ensure the data is accurate. Once you are happy with the data, please click ‘Process’ to load the data into the platform. This will take you to another screen which is shown while your data is validated – again, this may take a few minutes, so do not cancel the screen. Once all validations are successful, the next screen will confirm that your file has been successfully processed. Select the ‘Done’ button and this will take you back to your ‘Pension upload’ screen

Contributions should be submitted to Cushon by the 5th day of the month following deduction from pay to ensure they reach members’ accounts by the 22nd of the month, as required by the Pensions Regulator.
Contributions are paid by Direct Debit, and Cushon typically debit the account 3-4 working days after a successful upload of the contribution file. After Cushon collect the contributions from the source bank account they will typically reach member accounts after a further 3-4 working days. Therefore, upon upload of the contribution file, contributions will typically take 8 working days to show within individual member accounts.

View / download previous statement

Within the contributions section you can also view and download statements that have been uploaded for previous pay periods. Ensure the drop downs are selected if required and click on ‘View Statement’ of the pay period you are interested in.

This will bring up details of the statements previously submitted

Access Control

The Access Control section of the portal is used to view and manage administration privileges for your organization. There are 2 user access levels, Admin User and Senior Admin User.

Admin User

Uploading contributions and confirming payment for Direct Debit collection.
Creating new member records through upload of new Employees.
Able to notify Cushon of leavers – where we should not expect further contributions.
View the access control section to see who is provided with Employer admin user access.
Will be added to the statement distribution list and will receive email notifications from the Cushon platform including:
Confirmation of Direct Debit instruction.
Contribution upload reminders if not done by the fifth of the following month.
Advance notice of the collection via Direct Debit for contributions due (following upload of contribution data).
If ever a new Direct Debit mandate is cancelled and Cushon can no longer deduct contributions.
An employee has opted out of the Cushon Pension Scheme.
Contribution refund confirmation – to confirm when refunds as a result of opt outs are paid from Cushon to the Company bank account.

Senior Admin User

All the rights of an Admin user.
Ability to add/remove/change other Employer admin user access.
Receive notifications via email when any changes to user access are performed.

View the access control section

The access control section of the platform will provide a list of all users that have access to the selected Employer scheme. The table below shows the information that is presented.

Role – either Admin or Senior Admin (privileges listed in section 8 above).
Access changed – shows the latest time a change was made to the Users access credentials.
Access changed by – shows the email address linked to the account of the User who made that change.

How to Create New Admin User

Only Senior Admin Users have the ability to create new Users. If you require your user access to be upgraded to Senior Admin please speak to your Senior Admin User, if you do not have a User in the role of Senior Admin please contact employerhelp@cushon.co.uk
To create a new Admin user who currently does not have a Cushon Admin account, once in the Access Control section of the portal click on the option at the top right of the screen “Create New Admin User”

You will be presented with an online form of information that must be inputted to create a new Admin User account. You must also ensure that the correct type of access is selected by clicking on the correct level of access.

You can view the privileges within each level of access by clicking on the information buttons to the right-hand side of each access type. When you have completed the form click Invite New Admin User. An email is now sent to the new user including instructions on how to activate their account. An email is also generated to all Senior Admin users as confirmation of the change.

How to make changes to an existing User account

Only Senior Admin Users have the ability to create new Users. If you require your user access to be upgraded to Senior Admin please speak to your Senior Admin User, if you do not have a User in the role of Senior Admin please contact employerhelp@cushon.co.uk Senior Admin Users have the ability to make changes to existing Users, changes can be made to a user’s account by clicking on the 3 dots to the right-hand side of the users row on the access control table.

Changes that can be made to an existing Admin User;

Revoke Access
Upgrade to Senior Admin

Changes that can be made to an existing Senior Admin User;

Revoke Access
Downgrade to Admin

An email is also generated to all Senior Admin users as confirmation of the change. Senior Admin users cannot make changes to their own access.

There must be at least one Senior Admin user with access to an Employer at any one time.

Associated Intermediaries

The Associated Intermediaries section of the portal shows as intermediaries or 3rd parties who are associated with your Pension Arrangement. This may include 3rd party payroll providers or accountants who have the responsibility to administer your pension arrangement on your behalf.