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ADP’s retirement plans have no minimum employee requirement and are designed to serve companies of every size, from sole proprietors to 100-person organizations. ADP’s many options include traditional 401(k), SEP (self-employed) 401(k), and SIMPLE IRA plans, along with SAVE4RETIREMENT, a pooled employer plan (PEP), and 403(b) plans for non-profits. Their Starter-k plan is also designed especially for small teams who want something simple and straightforward.
ADP’s retirement plans also integrate with its highly-rated payroll services. In fact, this single vendor can handle virtually all of your HR needs, which is a huge advantage for time-crunched small business owners.
Small business owners need an employee retirement benefits provider they can trust, who offers all the options they need to support their employees. That’s where ADP comes in; the company is tried and true, supporting businesses of all sizes for decades. Here are some of the top reasons ADP Retirement Service plans are a good fit for small businesses.
Thanks to its many attractive plan options, ranging from a traditional 401(k) to a SIMPLE IRA, bADP is capable of satisfying all types of businesses. Their Starter-k plan in particular is designed for small organizations that want to offer competitive benefits but don’t have the resources to match contributions. Mid-sized and enterprise organizations that want to streamline benefits administration may want to consider the SAVE4RETIREMENT PEP, which offers shared fiduciary support. With the breadth of plans available, ADP Retirement Services has the resources to support the needs of any business size, at any stage of growth.
ADP’s employee retirement plans integrate with the company’s popular payroll software, automating data entry and flagging any potential mistakes. This saves small business owners and their HR staff countless hours by eliminating the need to manually enter payroll and retirement information. If your organization uses ADP’s payroll products like RUN or WFN, you’ll simply navigate to the piggy bank icon in your menu to access retirement plan information.
When we researched retirement plan providers, we found in our review of Paychex that it was the only other vendor to offer a native integration with its payroll service. Other solutions, if they offer payroll integrations at all, require connecting products from two different companies (e.g., Human Interest’s employee retirement service with Gusto’s payroll service). By keeping everything in one unified system, business owners can streamline and improve their HR operations.
Among the other reasons ADP is the best retirement plan vendor for small businesses is the company’s customer service. Business owners have access to a dedicated account manager who can assist during implementation and beyond. Small business owners will also appreciate the company’s mobile app, which makes accessing plan information particularly easy for both employers and their employees.
Small business owners don’t have hours to spend setting up an employee retirement savings plan. They need it to be quick and easy to implement, and simple for employees to enroll in. The more hurdles there are, the less likely anyone is to participate. ADP’s user-friendly dashboard makes the process straightforward and simple to understand. With this portal, ADP breaks down the process into digestible tasks, so admins can easily set up a plan for their staff.
Once your company is set up with a retirement plan, admins will also get access to helpful reports, including access to a report that grades the “health” of your plan, based on benchmark data from ADP’s total pool of clients. If your score falls short, you’ll have the chance to speak to a retirement counselor or hold webinars for your team to encourage more participation.
These reports run automatically, along with email notifications when they’re complete. You can rest easy that those emails will never contain any of the potentially sensitive data in these reports, though. You’ll simply be prompted to visit ADP’s secure portal when a report is ready.
Although the process is fairly intuitive, ADP offers even more support with how-to videos and links to additional resources embedded in the company’s dashboard. In addition to an easy-to-use dashboard and its built-in resources, ADP gives small business owners access to a dedicated account manager to make sure everything runs smoothly for your organization.
ADP’s retirement plans come with a range of services and features that small businesses will value regardless of how many employees they have.
ADP serves as your fiduciary for both administration and plan management for the company’s 401(k) Essential plan. If you select the regular 401(k) plan, someone at your business will need to be responsible for all the administrative and managerial tasks. The smaller your business, the more that option might make sense, because the fewer employees you have, the less there is to manage.
ADP provides advisory services to reduce the risk small businesses face when selecting investments for their retirement plans. For ADP’s plans that work with an adviser, such as the 401(k) Enhanced plan, third-party company Mesirow offers co-fiduciary or investment management services. Otherwise, ADP Strategic Plan Services provides fiduciary and investment services.
ADP empowers you and your HR leaders with access to useful technology and tools that help you get your business’s retirement plan up and running. The vendor also has a team of dedicated managers to help with implementation.
With ADP’s SMARTSync tool, you can integrate your retirement plan data with ADP’s payroll software, thus eliminating manual entry and reducing potential errors. This is vital for saving time and increasing accuracy. Learn more in our ADP payroll review.
ADP handles regulatory compliance, including trustee services, ERISA bond, and Form 5500 completion and filing. In our view, this service adds immense value, since most small business owners aren’t well versed in the laws and regulations surrounding employee retirement plans. In addition to their many guardrails during the sign-up process, ADP will also provide a year-end compliance test to see where you stand. If you fail any part of this test, ADP will give you the tools to correct the issues.
The ADP mobile app is available to all customers, whether your business only has the retirement plan or you also utilize ADP’s PEO services. While participating in demos with ADP, we found the mobile app easy to understand for employees who want to enroll in your business’s retirement plan. The interface is almost identical to navigating the employee portal on ADP’s desktop version, so your employees who prefer a mobile-first experience can enroll in a format they’re comfortable with.
After your employee answers a few questions about their annual income, retirement age and location, the app offers a personal savings target and suggested savings amount to achieve that goal. Once enrolled, employees can conveniently take several actions via the mobile app, including the following:
ADP offers additional support to help employees plan for retirement and track their financial goals with the company’s Retirement Readiness calculator. For example, this tool estimates how much money they’ll need for retirement based on their lifestyle goals and how well they are tracking toward those goals. Team members that are falling short of their goals can then take action to improve their progress, such as increasing their monthly retirement contributions.
ADP offers a variety of plans for every size business that may be interested in not just 401(k) plans but also SIMPLE IRAs and SEP IRAs. While the company’s website is very transparent about the features available with each type, what you won’t find are guaranteed prices. While their website notes that some plans start at just $100, you’ll need to contact the company for an exact quote.
This is an added step that some rivals don’t require. When you contact ADP, you’ll also want to inquire about any setup fees. If you’re already using ADP for payroll or other HR services, you may be entitled to special pricing for adding employee retirement plans to your package. Bundling is often a great way to save money.
ADP provides implementation managers to all new clients, so administrators on your end aren’t burdened with extensive setup tasks. The first part of the three-phase setup process involves a welcome call and communicating your new plan to your staff.
Next, you’ll work with your implementation manager to submit all necessary assets required to set up your new company plan. Your ADP implementation manager will ensure all of the data is complete and accurate before the final phase when your plan is live and accessible to your employees.
ADP offers English and Spanish language assistance, which opens up the program to more business owners. With the help of this support staff, your business’s plan can be established the very same day you ink a deal with ADP.
ADP provides business owners with a lot of personalized customer service, which is one reason it’s our best pick for small businesses. When you work with ADP, you have access to a dedicated team that will help you implement and manage your retirement plan. To get support, all you need to do is call the retirement services participant service team at 800-695-7526. Agents are available Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. ET. Notably, those are longer support hours than most competitors offer.
We found a lot of helpful information directly on ADP’s digital dashboard. Additionally, the ADP website has a resource center, including sections specifically for small businesses; answers to frequently asked questions; a blog; and webinars.
ADP has been in business for over 70 years and has a strong reputation in the marketplace. It sports an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), but similar to Paychex, it has a rather low customer review score: 1.05 out of 5 stars. That’s surprising and disconcerting given all the support ADP promises to provide.
ADP is a top employee retirement plan provider for small businesses, but one limitation in particular gave us pause: the company’s lack of transparent, upfront pricing. Busy small business owners want to know how much a plan costs from the beginning, and ADP doesn’t provide that information online. Although the vendor is only a call away, we prefer that plan sponsors list pricing on their websites. The more information a small business owner has from the start, the more informed a decision they can make for their organization.
Another potential downside is the poor customer reviews on the BBB website, which notes that ADP has closed over 960 complaints in the past three years. If you’d rather not have to rely on customer support, you may want to check out our review of ShareBuilder 401k, which we found to be a great option for business owners who are interested in a do-it-yourself employee retirement plan solution. Going it alone could be better than dealing with subpar or inconsistent customer support.
During our investigation of the best employee retirement plan providers, we compared and contrasted the companies based on their plan types, features and services, pricing, usability, setup, integrations, customer support and drawbacks. To determine the ideal plan sponsor for small businesses in general, we looked for those that kept costs and investment fees low, made it easy to implement and manage the plan, and offered mobile tools to boost enrollment and engagement rates. We also participated in exclusive demos with providers like ADP.
We wanted a vendor that leads with technology but is capable of offering dedicated one-on-one service. We vetoed any plans that were hard to understand, would take a lot of time and effort to implement, and would be time-consuming to manage. Small business owners aren’t experts at creating retirement savings plans; many need the help of a reputable plan provider. Furthermore, small businesses need the same access to investment advice and research as larger enterprises. For these reasons, ADP stood out to us as the best solution for small businesses.
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