Choosing A 401(k) TPA: A Guide To Complete Payroll Solutions’ Options

If you’re ready to offer a 401(k) plan to help recruit, reward, and retain talented employees and have narrowed your choices down to just a few 401(k) TPA providers, including Complete Payroll Solutions, you may be wondering just what we can offer you and your employees. Here, we’ll dig into the options we provide.

In this article, we’ll describe our two different retirement plan services and how they compare in terms of cost, features, and services. After reading this, you’ll be prepared to decide which Complete Payroll Solutions’ 401(k) TPA offering is right for you so you can pick the best solution for your company.

What 401(k) TPA solutions does Complete Payroll Solutions offer?

Depending on the level of support you need for your 401(k), Complete Payroll Solutions offers two different options.

Third-party Administration Only

Complete Payroll Solutions’ 401(k) offerings include retirement plan administration by acting as a third-party administrator (TPA). If you’re planning to offer a 401(k) plan and want to outsource the day-to-day tasks involved with maintaining it, a TPA like Complete Payroll Solutions can take some of the responsibility off your plate.

Because of the complexities involved in managing a 401(k), relying on a TPA can be particularly valuable to small and mid-sized companies who lack the time and expertise in-house to take on these responsibilities needed to stay in compliance with the Employee Retirement income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).

Comprehensive 401(k) Services with CompleteK

While you may be considering only our TPA services to help you manage your plan, another option you have with Complete Payroll Solutions is to take advantage of our full-service retirement plan services. We refer to this fully-bundled offering as CompleteK.

What’s included with CPS’ service offerings?

The services we provide depend on which of our two offerings you choose.

Third-party Administration Only

The 401(k) administrative tasks that we handle include:

• preparing and providing informational materials and statements to participants
• approving plan withdrawals and 401(k) loans
• compliance activities like annual nondiscrimination testing and Form 5500 filing

In addition, our 401(k) plan administrator offering features:

• Custom plan design: As you design your plan, we’ll help you select employee eligibility, vesting and contribution parameters as well as any employer matching or profit-sharing contributions you may decide to offer.
• 3(16) fiduciary: In addition to serving as your 401(k) TPA, we can also act as a 3(16) fiduciary for your 401(k), assuming full discretionary control and taking on the liability.
• Easy setup: We’ll draft the required IRS-approved plan documents and communicate with your employees to ensure they understand your 401(k).
• Dedicated staff: You’ll have an experienced and knowledgeable retirement professional as a dedicated point of contact who will work with you one-on-one to make sure you have access to the support you need every step of the way.
• Payroll integration: We provide a seamless solution by linking directly with the recordkeeper on your plan for automatic and easy contribution processing to reduce potential regulatory penalties.
• Year-end data collection: Complete Payroll Solutions will handle gathering your employee census data for plan contribution and testing purposes.

If you choose to partner with Complete Payroll Solutions for 401(k) administration, it’s important to note that you’ll also need to work with a recordkeeper. We can team with any recordkeeper and even help you find one that’s best for your business.

Comprehensive 401(k) Services with CompleteK

With this approach, we’ll handle 4 primary tasks associated with managing your 401(k).

• 401(k) Plan Administration: With CompleteK, we’ll act as the 401(k) third-party administrator for your plan and take care of all of the administrative services we just described. The main difference with CompleteK is that instead of having to select a separate recordkeeper, we bundle these services together.
  
• Recordkeeping: One of the advantages of Complete K is that it provides integrated recordkeeping services. A recordkeeper is like a bookkeeper for your plan that uses a platform to value your employees’ 401(k) accounts on a daily basis. Employees will log into this platform to access information about their plan. Recordkeeping is also integrated with a trading platform so the recordkeeping fee paid by employees covers trading as well. 
  
  At Complete Payroll Solutions, our recordkeeping services include:
  
  
  • daily valuation accounting
  • unlimited intra-account transfers
  • integrated contribution processing
  • quarterly account statements 
• Fiduciary Oversight: As a plan sponsor, you are responsible for making sure you’re acting in the best interests of the participants. That includes offering a diverse mix of investment options and ensuring reasonable plan fees for your employees. If you lack the time and knowledge to handle this aspect of managing your 401(k), Complete Payroll Solutions can offer a 3(21) or 3(38) fiduciary service. A 3(21) fiduciary advisor can recommend investments but doesn’t have control or discretion over them while a 3(38) fiduciary advisor can help you minimize your fiduciary liability by having full authority to make decisions about your funds.
• Trading: When it comes to investment options with CompleteK, we provide a diverse array of over 2,000 no-load fund choices from dozens of the most respected names in the mutual fund industry such as American Funds, Fidelity, and Vanguard. That means employees can choose from a variety of investment categories and styles to build a diversified retirement portfolio. To make it easier for participants to make investment decisions, we offer online fund data, financial planning software, and other interactive tools.

What do Complete Payroll Solutions’ TPA services cost?

The costs of our 401(k) third-party administration services vary based on how you choose to partner with us.

Third-party Administration Only

Fees for 401(k) administration usually range from $750 to $3,000 a year plus a per-participant fee that may run between $15 and $60 a year for each person enrolled. At Complete Payroll Solutions, we charge a one-time $500 set-up fee and a quarterly plan administration fee of $400 plus $8 per participant.

In addition, there may be other costs involved depending on your plan activity. Our additional 401(k) TPA fees include $150 per amendment of the plan document, payable at the time the amendment is completed. We also charge a $75 one-time fee for distribution processing and a $150 one-time fee for loan processing, both payable from the participant’s account proceeds.

Comprehensive 401(k) Services with CompleteK

Since there are various service components to CompleteK, we’ll break down the cost by each category.

• Administration: As we described earlier, we charge a one-time set-up fee of $500 when you decide to offer a plan with Complete K. We also charge a quarterly plan administration fee of $400 plus $8 per participant. Keep in mind that age-weighted and new comparability plans incur an additional $200 annual fee. Other additional fees include $150 per amendment of the plan document, payable at the time the amendment is completed, a $75 one-time fee for distribution processing, and a $150 one-time fee for loan processing, both payable from the participant’s account proceeds.
• Recordkeeping and Trading: To serve as the recordkeeper for your plan, we charge an annual fee of 0.10%-0.50% of the plan assets. This fee is paid for by the plan participants but you still have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure what they’re charged is reasonable and validated.
• Investment Management: Any mutual fund your employees invest in will have fund management fees from the mutual fund company that are taken out of the returns of the mutual funds. The type of fund(s) your employees select will dictate the fee. For example, an index fund may be less costly for employees than an actively managed international fund because there’s less trading.
• Fiduciary Oversight: If you choose to utilize our 3(21) or 3(38) fiduciary oversight service on your plan-level investment choices, there is an annual charge of 0.05% of plan assets.

Choosing the Right 401(k) Solution for Your Business

With two different 401(k) approaches to choose from, one standalone and one bundled, we know it can be challenging to know what Complete Payroll Solutions 401(k) offering is best for your business. 

Our 401(k) TPA-only services are a good choice if you:

• already work with a recordkeeper
• want an administrator who specializes in meeting your legal obligations
• provides seamless uploads of 401(k) contributions to your product provider

Complete Payroll Solutions’ CompleteK may be right for you if you want:

• to work with one company for your 401(k) plan
• an affordable plan for your company
• flexible plan design and cutting edge technology

Does one of these solutions sound like a good fit for you? The next step is to view our detailed pricing page.