Overview¶
Welcome to the payroll integration and API specification web page for Your Island Pension (YIP). This web page and the information contained within is designed for payroll software providers who provide services to Bailiwick of Guernsey employers.
YIP is a States of Guernsey facilitated Secondary Pension Scheme, open to all Bailiwick of Guernsey employers. Sovereign Pension Services (CI) Limited (Sovereign), appointed by the States of Guernsey, has established and will operate YIP on an ongoing basis. YIP aims to provide an easy, accessible and affordable pension solution for all Bailiwick of Guernsey employers, and their employees.
YIP will be available for employers to join from 1st January 2024, however the legal requirement for employers to enrol their employees into a Secondary Pension scheme commences from 1st July 2024 – this is on a phased basis and so larger employers go first and smaller employers are required to have enrolled their employees on a phased basis thereafter. YIP has been designed to offer a convenient solution for employers to fulfil this requirement.
In order to make the administrative process as simple and seamless as possible for employers, this integration and API specification has been created by Sovereign to enable integration between YIP and payroll software providers for the purposes of data submission, and ultimately a complete end to end process for employers.
This web page serves to provide all of the relevant information required by payroll software providers to enable integration with YIP via API.
IMPORTANT NOTE
It should be noted that this integration information is for integration with YIP only and any information on integration specification and requirements provided separately by the Guernsey Revenue Service will be required in addition, in order for the necessary data to be submitted to the Guernsey Revenue Service, and to YIP.
FAQ¶
What is included on this web page?¶
Sovereign has created and is making available REST API endpoints that will be available to payroll software providers in advance of 1st January 2024.
This will enable payroll software providers to capture the relevant data required on employees for setup purposes and to capture all relevant details of pension contributions being paid into YIP on an ongoing basis.
The first endpoint is the Employee Onboarding API. This API facilitates seamless enrolment and setup by capturing and enabling the submission of all required employee details for setup and registration purposes for YIP. This prevents the need for employers to complete a separate spreadsheet capturing this information and as such, enabling a streamlined and simple end to end process for employers.
The second endpoint is the Contributions Upload API. This API facilitates the data transmission for quarterly, monthly or weekly contribution amounts payable into YIP by employers on behalf of their employees.
What do payroll software providers need to do?¶
To comply with the new Secondary Pensions law, employers are required to provide the States of Guernsey Revenue Service with details of the pension contributions made by and on behalf of their employees. Additionally, this data will also need to be provided to YIP (or any alternative pension scheme used by an employer). Typically this information is provided to pension providers via Excel spreadsheet or similar, however this process creates additional administrative work for employers and is not the ideal end to end process that is possible via payroll integration.
For third-party payroll software providers that wish to extend their software’s capabilities to include the submission of relevant data for Secondary Pensions purposes to both the Guernsey Revenue Service and YIP, the documentation included on this web page provides all of the essential technical details and specification needed for successful implementation and to submit relevant data and returns to YIP via the APIs developed.
- Registration to obtain API access key
- Enrol employees onto YIP scheme
- Upload secondary pension contributions data
Sovereign has designed the YIP transmission mechanism to closely follow the Guernsey Revenue Service contributions upload specification, that was issued recently to payroll software providers. However, there is an additional requirement to pre-register and obtain a uniquely generated API access key. Information is contained on this web page on how to obtain this.
Furthermore, Sovereign has developed a separate API designed for employee onboarding to allow submission of all employee data to facilitate registration and setup on our systems.
The development of the APIs ensures a streamlined and efficient process for enrolment of employees and provision of their relevant data, and for the provision of relevant data for ongoing pension contributions - both of which will ensure a simpler and more efficient end to end process for employers.
Created: July 19, 2023