I can’t imagine that anyone will be sorry to see the back of 2020. But as I quietly see in the New Year this evening - I’ll probably toast the arrival of 2021 with my cocker spaniel, Fergus, as midnight is way past my 2 year old’s bedtime, and way past my wife’s bedtime these days too - I’ll be able to reflect on a number of positive things that have happened this year and also to look forward to 2021 with optimism. 

Achievements in 2020

It’s been a transformative year for PensionSync. In April, we launched our new PensionSync Dashboard platform which is now the jewel in the crown of our service proposition: a simple to use Dashboard on which you can view all your pension submissions across multiple pension providers at-a-glance, with detailed reporting and notifications of any outstanding actions in your payroll-to-pension processing.

In our Autumn product update, we unveiled our Flexible File Upload tool. With this new feature, for the first time, PensionSync can be used with ANY payroll software even if the software doesn’t have a PensionSync integration.

In a year of unprecedented challenges, PensionSync has had a successful year, and I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our users, partners and advocates for their incredible support throughout 2020. 

We’ve also grown our team - starting the year with just 3 full-time PensionSyncers and finishing it with a Magnificent 7.

Plans for 2021

Over a hundred payroll bureaux are using PensionSync to simplify their payroll-to-pension processing and over 20,000 employers’ pension schemes in total are being processed through the system. That’s a fantastic base to build from, and with the PensionSync Dashboard and Flexible File Upload in place we have exciting plans to roll out simplified payroll-to-pension processes and help to solve even more companies’ pension headaches. 

Central to this will be working with payroll bureaux, accountants and advisers who provide services to the SME market. If you work in this space, we’re keen to hear from you and bring you into our ever-expanding network. In 2021, we will be launching our PensionSync Partner Directory to promote your services and your value proposition. We’ll be releasing more details around this soon. 

On the product development front we will be building on the popularity of our existing data pipelines to 6 major pension providers, with automatic fixes for common errors, bulk processing and automatic payment approval - we have 3 main objectives for 2021:

1. Continuing to add flexibility to the file formats that can be uploaded into PensionSync. The ultimate aim is that you should be able to upload any file into PensionSync, as long as it contains enough data to identify the members’ pension contribution amounts. 

2. Enhancing the PensionSync Dashboard with new features including user management options and individual team member log-ins, so that individuals can manage their own workloads with even greater ease.

3. Enabling error resolution that doesn’t require rework in payroll. We know that making corrections in payroll after you’ve already closed the period can be challenging - so we are adding the facility to correct the pension file directly in the PensionSync Dashboard. 

These objectives will further enhance PensionSync’s simple, scalable payroll-to-pension processing solution as we continue on our mission to help the payroll industry climb their pension administration mountain.

I’ll save my parting words for 2020 for the payroll industry in particular - we look forward to working with you all in 2021, which I’m sure will be a much better year for all of us. In the meantime I hope you can all take some time this evening to reflect on your tremendous achievements in difficult circumstances in 2020 - whether that be embracing new Covid-safe ways of working or handling furlough, furlough and yet more furlough - and throughout it all doing what you always do. Keeping the UK paid. 

Thank you from everyone at PensionSync, and best wishes for the New Year.