Small Business 401k plan Administration?

[evantwheeler]

Is there anyone that has experience or offers turn key 401k plans for small companies? I think we have 10 plan participants. We are on our 3rd administrator in 5 years and are fed up with the layers of fees and number of hands in the pot with the current plan. Current plan is through Principal, who charges a fee, another layer of oversight who charges a fee, local Edwards Jones office is the "Rep", who charges a fee, and our payroll service (Paycor) charges a fee to interface with it all and they do a pretty poor job. For everyone in line getting paid a fee, they sure don't do shit and require a lot out of our office payroll staff.

My biggest gripe with Principal as a plan participant is the very limited investment options. I think we have two dozen funds we can choose from, two of them are low cost Fidelity funds, no Vanguard funds, and probably a dozen of the funds are just target date funds. I looked over Vanguards website, and it doesn't appear that they offer anything with multiple plan participants. I get redirected to a website for Ascensus, who looks to be a partner that offers Vanguard investments through their retirement plans.

Looking for options/suggestions of what other small business owners use. The previous 401k plan was through our previous payroll service, who fired us as a client because they didn't want to continue doing certified payroll reports even though that is how they originally sold us on their service to begin with - (TAG / E-Bacon).

 

[UltraLucky]

We just do SEP accounts for our non-union employees. Simplifies the process. and they can direct what Brokerage to fund too. Nobody but you and the employee's hands in the pot.

 

[evantwheeler]

We just do SEP accounts for our non-union employees. Simplifies the process. and they can direct what Brokerage to fund too. Nobody but you and the employee's hands in the pot.

Will look into that. Same tax advantages as a traditional 401k plan? Are you an employee owned company, where all non union employees actually own stock? That is not the case for us. 3 401k participants are owners, the remainder are just employees.

 

[UltraLucky]

No, we are a C corp. I am the owner. SEP = Simplified Employee Pension. I decide at the end of the year what percentage of their salary I want to contribute to the SEP plan. You can go from 0% to 25% but they all need to be treated equal. There is a lot more flexibility with contributions levels year to year. contribute more when profitable or less when times are lean. One of the big differences from a 401k is the contributions are funded by the employer the employee does not have the option to add more from payroll deductions. You can set up an HSA if they want to contribute pretax payroll funds.

 

[btaco35]

Check out Employee Fiduciary, Human Interest or 401Go.

 

[bowtiejunkie]

Possibly Ubiquity would be a good fit: https://www.myubiquity.com/

 

[evantwheeler]

Possibly Ubiquity would be a good fit: https://www.myubiquity.com/

They list Paycor as a compatible payroll provider, so thats a good start. Thank you

 

[Orange Juice]

401(k) plans — A popular way to save for retirement | Voya.com

www.voya.com

 

[Gonefishin5555]

The plan you should look into is a SimpleIRA has no plan admin costs, allows employees to contribute a % of their salary and the company has a matching provision. The downside is the max deferral is about 20k a year and the company cant do any additional contributions on top of the match. It doesnt work well if the owners are looking to do large contributions into their own accounts