This product has been used as a pension solution for Small Self Administered Schemes since 1996 incorporating the needs of any SSAS provider.

Main Functions:

1. Fundamental Scheme Administration
2. Bank Transactions
3. "Conventional" Investments
4. SSAS Investments
5. Scheme Membership (including '2006 transition data')
6. Allocation of Fund Value
7. Payroll Administration
8. Claiming Tax Relief On Contributions
9. Reporting
10. Calculations
11. Archiving
12. General Data

Fundamental Scheme Administration

• Data storage, including:
  • Main dates
  • Contacts
  • Companies
  • Trustees
  • Documents - deeds, resolutions
  • Accounts received
• Production of documentation, including:
  • Draft deeds and rules
  • Announcement letters
  • Loan agreements
  • Resolutions
  • Bank mandates
  • Trustee annual reports
• Addresses for all trustees and advisers

Bank Transactions

• Record transactions, with description
• Print statements on paper or send to Excel
• Allow checking from other users, before posting
• Allocating to categories (contributions, rent, pension payments etc.)

"Conventional" Investments

• Record all transactions (buying and selling units)
• Print transaction schedules
• Print current and historic valuations (including SSAS investments and bank balances)
• Can sit alongside existing investment valuation systems

SSAS Investments

• Loans (agreement terms, interest and capital repayments)
• Property (tenants, leases, rental payments)
• Borrowings

Scheme Membership

• Storage of information, including:
  • Member dates
  • Current status (Active, Pensioner etc)
  • History of earnings, as many years as possible, salary, bonuses, BIK
  • Benefits held elsewhere:
    • Money purchase funds
    • Defined benefits
  • DIS policies and annuity policies
  • Transfers to this scheme
  • Transfers out
  • Pensions in payment
    • Planned payments from pension reviews (often annually)
    • Planned adjustments
    • Schedule of payments made (often monthly)
• Pre April 2006 data:
  • Maximum benefits on leaving or retirement
  • Benefits held elsewhere:
    • Other schemes same employer
    • Retained benefit fund values
    • Retained benefit, defined pensions
  • Sub funds for retained benefits transferred in
  • AVC sub funds

Scheme Membership - Further Details

• Contributions
  • Split between members
  • Annual or special
  • Company or AVC
  • LPI or not
• Benefit Crystallisation Events
  • Date and amount of each event
  • Deemed BCE (for pension in payment at April 2006)
  • Stores events both in main scheme and all other schemes
• Fund values
  • Split between members
  • Split between vested and unvested funds (and pre 2006 vested funds)
  • Earmarked investments (e.g. assigned policies) - not advised
• Transition to April 2006 rules
  • Fund protection (enhanced and/or primary)
  • Lump sum in excess of £375,000
  • Lump sum in excess of 25% of fund value
  • Pensions in payment at April 2006 (deemed BCE)
  • Storing workings

Allocating Fund Values

• Calculating each member's share of a common fund:
  • Calculates rate of investment return on the common fund
  • Allows for all contributions and transfers in
  • Allows for all benefit payments
  • Shows all the data used in the calculations
• Calculating the vested and unvested funds for pensioners:
  • Allows for all BCE's in the scheme
  • Allows for lump sum and pension benefits

Payroll Administration

The database holds details of the planned pensions payments and will produce a report of all pensions due in a month (including quarterly and annual pensions). Once checked, the bank transactions for these amounts can be generated automatically. The actual payroll processing currently needs to be carried out on other software (e.g. Sage).

Claiming Tax Relief on Contributions

For SIPPs, reports are prepared of all net contributions received in a tax month so that a claim for the basic rate tax relief can be made. The details are stored in the database and when the tax relief is actually received, the software will create all the necessary bank transactions and allocate the individual amounts of tax to each member's contribution.

This will also apply to any SSASs that elect to receive member contributions net.

Reporting

There are many 'listing' reports which list all schemes (or all members) with certain features. These lists are sent to Excel so that the user can amend, sort or select before printing:

• Global
  • Year ends in Month - a list of all schemes with year end in a specified month
  • Scheme Advisers - external advisers (accountant etc) for all schemes selected
  • List year ends - schemes selected are listed in year end order
  • List schemes with their fund values
• Member
  • All members reaching planned retirement age in a year or so
  • All members receiving a pension (drawdown)
• Bank Accounts
  • Latest bank balances in all accounts with a bank
  • Bank transactions not posted
• Inland Revenue
  • Tax return and Annual Pension Scheme Return checklist
  • VAT quarters
  • Tax due quarterly
• Self investment
  • Loan Interest Due
  • Loan repayments due
  • Property leases ending
  • Properties with no tenants
  • Rent Reviews due
  • Rent not received (i.e. tenants in arrears)
  • Rent received over each year
• Investment
  • All employer loans
  • All third party loans
  • All properties
  • All 'segregated portfolios'
• Data validation or audit
  • All schemes without key data
  • All members without key data
  • etc..
• A list of all addresses for categories of contacts

Benefit Calculations

• Split contributions if regular e.g. 50:50 or 35:65 etc.
• Annuity rate estimates
• Loan calculations
• Benefit illustrations on the statutory basis (SMPI)
• Pension analysis (from fund before age 75):
  • Critical yields
  • Sustainable pension (or increases)
  • Cash flow projections

Archiving

When some types of data are no longer actively needed they can be archived, rather than being deleted.

General Data

• Bank base rates
• Tax rates and allowances (lifetime allowance etc)
• RPI
• Assumptions for calculations