Guideline

Benefits:

It connects with our payroll program so I do not have to do anything to get an employee started with a 401(k) account. That is handy!

Drawbacks:

Employees cannot borrow from their 401(k) to buy a home. Not legal! Awful experience when we furloughed all staff and rehired later, Guideline was slow to help and it was a mess. As an administrator, I feel I have to jump through hoops to get generic information to answer questions I have. GENERIC, not even information that relates to an actual employee. Very frustrating.

In sum:

Looking forward to moving away from Guideline. The ONLY positive is that our payroll provider is connected to Guideline but otherwise, we've been pretty disappointed.

Benefits:

By far one of the highest quality software I have used. Incredibly user-friendly, easy to navigate--the engineers behind this app are excellent. I'm very obsessed with keeping good track of my savings/investments, and Guideline does an outstanding job of helping me achieve this. Their system for 401Ks is perfect, and actually taught me some things I wasn't aware of. Overall amazing app and if your company offers benefits, they should definitely be using Guideline.

Drawbacks:

Maybe a little more interaction. For some people, it may be nice that Guideline stays quiet unless you log in, but I wouldn't mind if maybe, once a month, they checked in to see if what you previously filled out was what you currently wanted. Maybe something like "Hey, you filled out that you want to deduct ____ much money per paycheck for your 401K, is that still alright with you? etc..."

Benefits:

When we were with Gusto it was fine although with limited choices for 401k plan options such as automatically removing terminated employees (sending a check, rolling into an IRA, etc...) This drove up our participant count and Guideline fees and made us a larger plan requiring an audit much sooner.

Drawbacks:

The service is terrible. We often don't receive responses to our email support inquiries for 7 or 8 days if there is a response. In the past their phone support kicks you off after waiting for an hour; so if they don't pick up within the hour you have to call back to get back in queue. Since outgrowing Gusto, we've had nothing but problems.

In sum:

Since outgrowing Gusto, we've had nothing but problems. When we moved to a payroll system that supports more employees Guideline assured us they would handle, as per their agreement, the changes to employee contributions, new hires, termination, employer contributions, etc... They have been so slow to make changes that we are being charged for the earnings that our employees would have earned if Guideline had made the contributions sooner. As of yesterday, they still hadn't contributed the employer contributions from the first January payroll. They're requiring us to update owner information for compliance testing but their system doesn't allow us to add all the owners (who have been on the employee roster for years) so that's failed. I've emailed them but don't expect a response for at least a week. We're considering legal action to get them to comply. The audit (that we wouldn't have to do if Guideline would allow us to change our plan document to include common, IRS/DOL approved ways for removing participants) is going to be awful due to Guideline's performance.

Benefits:

Our team really wanted to have a 401(k) option, but we were hestitant to incur the cost. Guideline allows us to offer 401(k) to our employees (and ourselves as owners) at an extremely reasonable cost. It was easy to set up and they have great customer service. It also automatically integrates with Gusto, our payroll provider and they do all of the necessary compliance reporting for us.

Drawbacks:

Honestly, nothing. This software was simple to set up and helped us meeting a key benefit request for our employees.

In sum:

I would recommend Guideline to any business that thinks offering a 401(k) to its employees is too hard or too expensive. It's awesome!