- Plan your approach and priorities
- Make decisions early but keep reviewing them
- Group queries to HMRC for a quicker response
- Keep an immaculate audit trail
Planning ahead for GMP reconciliation
“Timescales are tight but GMP reconciliations don’t have to be
painful and labour intensive”.
Any GMP reconciliation can be made easier by following a planned and structured approach.
The first step is to do an initial comparison of the admin and HMRC data to find Planning ahead GMPout the membership differences and get a high level picture of GMP amount discrepancies.
The next step is to look at priorities. Realistically it may not be possible to match all the members’ data with HMRC before 2018 so choices have to be made. It may make sense to concentrate on pensioners, larger differences or members who are soon to be bought out with annuities. Every scheme or fund has their own deadlines and membership profile.
Other decisions to be made at the outset are those around how under and overpayments of pensions will be handled. This is a complex area but if advice is taken and protocols decided upon early, in principle, the project will flow more smoothly. Similarly decisions should be made around tolerances.
Finally, when analysing GMP amount issues, a grouped approach always pays dividends. If members are analysed in bulk by type, the interaction with HMRC is accelerated and the amendment of member data is easier.
Maurice Titley
Director
t / 07738 640 038
e / mauricetitley@itm.co.uk