Retirement plans for small businesses

Fingercheck Marketing in partnership with Human Interest

The retirement landscape in the U.S. is changing. American workers used to rely on pensions and Social Security as the base for their retirement income. Today, workers are half as likely as current retirees to expect Social Security to be a major source of income once they hit retirement. 

To mitigate this and to encourage more workers to get on the path to saving, local, state and  federal governments have stepped in with legislation designed to help set up workers with retirement plans or designed to incentivize employers to offer competitive retirement plans to employees.

What does this mean for small businesses?

Today, 46 states have at least begun to consider retirement legislation for their workers. Of those states, nine currently have active laws: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Virginia and Washington. New York and New Jersey have passed legislation, but implementation timelines are still to come. 

For many of these bills, enrollment is mandatory, and noncompliance may mean that a business faces fines or penalties. 

In New Jersey, for example, the Secure Choice Savings Program will require employers to provide their workers with a compliant retirement plan or enroll them into the state-run option. Once the deadlines have been decided, an employer will face fines if they don’t comply.

For most of the plans being born from the active, passed or explored legislation, the burden of administrative work falls to employers. Small business owners will have to enroll eligible employees in individual retirement accounts (IRAs), allocate their funds into these IRAs and keep compliance records for a minimum of three years.

This can translate to a heaping amount of new clerical work for many small businesses, which already have a lot on their plates. Manually reconciling payroll with a 401(k) or any retirement plan is a painstaking, slow process where the slightest error can create a ripple effect that leaves businesses susceptible to audits and fines.

Syncing payroll with 401(k)

One solution to this is to automatically integrate payroll with retirement plans. Fingercheck has partnered with Human Interest, an affordable, modern 401(k) provider, which allows for payroll and 401(k) synchronization with a “No-Touch” integration.

When you process payroll through Fingercheck, the data is synced to Human Interest’s 401(k) solution, whose platform automatically processes contributions. This “No-Touch” integration helps make managing a company’s 401(k) simple, efficient and straightforward.

As more states pass deadlines requiring small and medium-sized businesses to offer a retirement plan, Fingercheck’s integration with Human Interest’s 401(k) solution can help you stay ahead of the curve and avoid costly noncompliance fines and penalties.

Plus, some businesses also may qualify for up to $16,500 in SECURE Act 2.0 tax credits when they start a new 401(k) plan. Human Interest can help you navigate those savings.

Read more about Fingercheck’s integration with Human Interest here, and learn how to ensure proper and practical implementation of a 401(k) for your business.

DISCLAIMERS: 

Human Interest Inc. is an affordable, full-service 401(k) and 403(b) provider that seeks to make it easy for small and medium-sized businesses to assist their employees with investing for retirement. For more information, please visit humaninterest.com.

Human Interest Inc. does not provide tax, legal or accounting advice. Plan Sponsors should take independent steps to validate the tax, legal or accounting considerations of hiring any service provider for the Plan and obtaining guidance on any Plan document (or amendment thereto) and for any issues pertaining to design, implementation or operation of a Plan.

Fingercheck has a partnership with Human Interest Inc. and may be compensated if you hire Human Interest Inc. Fingercheck and its representatives are not affiliated with or employed by Human Interest Inc. For the full disclosures, refer to humaninterest.com/disclosures.