LeeM3
I have left the RAF on retirement during the past couple of months and my payment of gratuity, final pay, and pension (in that order for me) have all been within a month - all as described at the Financial Aspects of Resettlement (FAR) briefing at the RRC.
The simple answer is that your final pay will be at the end of the month in which you retire - it is done through JPA as normal. The gratuity may be before or afterwards depending on just when in the month you retire.
My experience has been as follows:
A letter from SPVA came to my home within 2 weeks of retirement stating what my "Service Pension" and "tax free lump sum" (ie gratuity) would be. Seven days after the date of this letter the gratuity was paid into my bank account by JPA.
My final Service pay was paid by JPA at the end of the month in which I retired - it was just like any other month's pay, including the payslip going to my old place of work.
Two days after the date of the SPVA letter, xafinity paymaster sent me a letter telling me which day of the month they would pay me my pension "in arrears" at "one twelfth of the annual rate". At the FAR we were told that it would be the same day of the month as your last day of service, and that has been the case for me. The first payment duly arrived as promised.
The key thing is to ensure that the AFPS1 is sent off in good time - all things pension and gratuity flow from this application form. I filled it in on JPA and I found that most of my details, including the bank account, were inserted by JPA for me - they only needed checking and were correct. Another advantage of submitting via JPA was that I received a receipt in my workflow and did not have to wonder if it had got there in the post.
Hope things go smoothly for you.
HLV