Category Archives: Retirement Plans

Washington has a remarkable talent for creating programs designed to help small businesses while making them just complicated enough that the smallest businesses never actually use them. The revival of legislation aimed at expanding startup retirement plan tax credits for … Continue reading →

Auto-enrollment is one of those retirement plan features that sounds wonderfully simple in a sales presentation. “We’ll automatically enroll employees, boost participation, and help people save.” Great. Everyone nods. Then reality arrives wearing steel-toed boots. Because auto-enrollment only works when … Continue reading →

Once upon a time, 401(k) eligibility was easy. Age 21. One year of service. Quarterly entry dates. Everyone understood the assignment. Then we collectively lost our minds. Today, eligibility is where simple concepts go to die. Immediate eligibility for deferrals? … Continue reading →

Few words in retirement plan administration should trigger more anxiety than: “We changed payroll providers.” Because payroll changes are never just payroll changes. To HR, it’s a software conversion. To finance, it’s an operational upgrade. To your retirement plan team? … Continue reading →

Providers love talking about technology. Modern platforms. Digital enrollment. AI tools. Participant dashboards. Mobile apps. That’s all nice. But when participants have an actual problem, they don’t care about your shiny interface. They call. And the person who answers that … Continue reading →

Every retirement plan problem seems to follow the same script. A contribution is wrong. A loan payment disappears. Eligibility is miscalculated. Payroll deductions don’t match elections. A participant calls angry. Then the finger-pointing begins. Payroll says the file went out … Continue reading →

When I worked for TPAs as an attorney, there were days I felt less like legal counsel and more like a firefighter. Not the glamorous kind. Not the heroic calendar photo kind. More the exhausted guy showing up because someone … Continue reading →

There’s a certain kind of victory that doesn’t come with applause. No trophy. No recognition. Just quiet proof that you made it through something that was designed—whether intentionally or not—to break you. I’m still here. If you’ve read anything I’ve … Continue reading →

Plan sponsors love the idea of simplicity. One provider, one platform, one point of contact. The recordkeeper says they can “handle the TPA work,” and suddenly it feels like you’ve eliminated a layer. Cleaner, cheaper, easier. Until it isn’t. The … Continue reading →

I had a plan provider sponsoring many of my events. It was a great relationship, the kind that works because both sides understand the value. Then in one city, the local salesperson dropped out. Not once, but twice. His reason … Continue reading →