401(k) (Guideline)

What is Guideline?

At Guideline, we're on a mission to help everyone arrive at a safe, secure retirement, whether they're a small business owner, an employee, or self-employed.

Guideline is the easy, affordable retirement platform trusted by more than 50K+ businesses and self-employed to manage over $15B+ in assets. With a platform that takes complexity and doubt out of retirement planning and replaces it with knowledge and clarity, Guideline empowers people to invest in their financial future with confidence.

Guideline Flow Experience

1. Launch a Guideline Flow

For onboarded companies, Partners can generate a link for employer payroll admins to access Guideline by using Gusto Embedded’s pre-built flows. Partners should use the company_retirement_benefits value within the flow_type body parameter contained in the POST companies/{company_uuid}/flows endpoint.

curl --request POST \
     --url https://api.gusto-demo.com/v1/companies/company_uuid/flows \
     --header 'accept: application/json' \
     --header 'content-type: application/json'
     --data '
{
  "flow_type": "company_retirement_benefits"
}

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No API Support (Flow Only)

There currently is no API support for SimplyInsured and it is available only through the prebuilt UI Flow.

2. Grant Access

After the flow has launched, Guideline needs access to both employer and employee payroll information to offer 401k plans. If an existing Guideline account exists, you should enter the email associated with their account, after which clicking "Connect to Guideline" will redirect you to the login page. If no existing Guideline account exists, then after entering an email address, you will be redirected to a Guideline account setup page.

Note: You can finish their account setup at a later time by using the same generated web flow URL. You will click “Visit the Guideline website” to resume.

3. Enter Company Information

The next screen will begin the account creation process. Enter your account information and click “Create account”

4. Enter Info to Help Search

Complete the “What do you care about most?” section to help guideline find you the right 401(k) plan and click “See my recommendation”.

5. Select plan from available options

Choose the plan from the available options provided by clicking “Choose plan”.

6. Set employer contribution

From the available contributions, select the employer contribution you’d like to provide and click “Save and continue”.

7. Design your plan

Design your 401(k) by editing the options available on this screen and click “Save and continue”.

8. Review business details

Review your business details and after you enter all information and confirm everything is accurate, click “Save and continue”.

9. Review business details

Review core pricing and click “Save and continue”.

Note: Depending on your selections, you may receive the following message at this point:
“A Guideline specialist has been notified and will reach out to you within 1 business day.”

10. Confirm start date

Confirm when you’d like to begin your plan and click “Save and continue”.

11. Confirm trustee

Confirm the trustee and click “Save and continue”.

12. View all documents and Sign your plan

View all required documents and sign your plan. Then click “Sign plan”.

13. Connect a bank account

Connect a bank account for contributions using Plaid or manually entering account information and verifying micro-deposits

Guideline Benefit Creation

Guideline will create new benefits in Gusto Embedded by calling Gusto APIs. No manual creation is necessary by the payroll admin.

For new customers, the company benefits will automatically be created in Gusto Embedded as soon as setup is complete

Employee Onboarding

Employee benefits for new employees are created once an eligible employee has elected contributions.

Any contribution updates made after the initial creation will be reflected in Gusto after a nightly API update is made by Guideline.

No additional manual intervention is required by the payroll admin.

Employee Opt-Out and Termination

Once an employee opts out of Guideline 401(k), their benefits will automatically be updated in Gusto Embedded after Guideline’s nightly update API job has been completed.

If an employee is terminated through the existing Gusto Embedded integration process, Guideline will detect this as part of their nightly job and deactivate benefits accordingly

No additional manual intervention is required by the payroll admin.

Ending Service with Guideline

If a company ends their service with Guideline, their benefits will automatically be updated in Gusto Embedded after Guideline’s nightly update job has been completed.

After a plan has ended services with Guideline and completed their final payroll on the plan Guideline will deactivate benefits as part of their nightly API job.

No additional manual intervention is required by the payroll admin.