New Payroll Integrations Offering for Retirement Plan Sponsors

We’ve recently added Payroll Integrations, Inc. (PI) to our extensive payroll provider network. PI offers 360 payroll integration between our recordkeeping platform and top payroll providers—minimizing administrative tasks, reducing errors through automation, and ensuring timely submission of employee contributions—quickly and securely. 3(16) fiduciaries and third-party administrators (TPAs) can also leverage this partnership.

Our enhanced onboarding process with PI simplifies implementation and significantly reduces the time needed for 360 integration.

Learn more about the benefits of Payroll Integrations.

Simplify Plan Administration With Automated Participant Force Outs

We’ve made managing your plan even easier with our automated participant force out service. Simply review the census report we send you, and we’ll handle the rest, including identifying eligible participants, mailing termination packages, monitoring status, and processing distributions.

To qualify, your plan must adhere to the $1,000 or $7,000 force out limit and elect the Ascensus Trust Automatic Rollover IRA program. The fee is $20 per participant mailing, deducted from the participant’s retirement account.

Learn more or contact your Vanguard Retirement Plan Access™ Client Services team.

Prepare for Year-End Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)

To help you prepare for year end, we'll send you two more RMD email notifications if your plan has RMD participants. 

These communications are more than reminders; they're a comprehensive resource packed with legislative updates, critical deadlines, reference materials, and action steps. When you receive them, review the accompanying report on the plan website to verify the accuracy of all information.

Look for the next RMD email around October 18, followed by another around November 18.

Check Out the Streamlined Compliance Testing Landing Page

All your compliance testing is now on one page. Simply go to your plan website and click Plan > Compliance to access the compliance package, census alert report, and interim testing package.

The compliance package section enables you to review an active test package or view authorized packages. If you're looking ahead to your plan year end, you can run a census alert report to help identify errors in your census data or generate an interim testing package. Run an on-demand interim package to estimate test results from the beginning of the plan year through the business day before the package was generated. Newly available for safe harbor plans, the interim package has also been updated with an easier-to-read format, plus supportive text and a glossary to help you understand your estimated results and recommended next steps. 

SECURE 2.0: Adding Auto-Enrollment Features to Your Plan

Beginning January 1, 2025, most employers with 401(k) and 403(b) plans established on or after December 29, 2022, must include an eligible automatic contribution arrangement (EACA) feature.* A plan is considered established when it initially adopts an elective deferrals plan provision, even if the effective date is after December 29, 2022, and must comply with all the new auto-enrollment requirements below:

• Offer an EACA that allows permissible withdrawals
• Begin with an auto-enrollment rate between 3-10% and increase by 1% each plan year until reaching at least 10%, but not more than 15% (10% for non-safe harbor plans until the 2025 plan year)
• Direct a participant’s contributions into a qualified default investment alternative (QDIA) that protects the principal if they don’t make investment elections
• Participants can choose to defer more or less than the auto-enrollment rate—or elect not to defer at all

Stay tuned. If your plan rules need updating, we’ll contact you in the second quarter of 2024.

*Exceptions apply. If you have any of the following, you are excluded from adding the SECURE 2.0 auto-enrollment features:

• A small business with 10 or fewer employees
• A business that has existed fewer than 3 years
• A church or governmental plan

Coming soon: Easier access to forfeiture and suspense accounts

Payroll management is a top priority, so we’re making it easier to use forfeiture and suspense accounts to fund employer contributions through the plan website. Soon, you’ll be able to:

• Quickly access the Forfeiture and Suspense report on the plan website to determine balances available for use.
• View your options and use these funds at the point of payroll management, simplifying your day-to-day tasks.

When using forfeiture and/or suspense account balances to offset administrative costs or fund employer contributions, be sure to follow regulatory guidelines. Once available, we’ll share more information about ways to take advantage of these opportunities throughout the year. Contact your client service team with any questions about your plan’s options.

Send notices to newly eligibles via eDelivery

It takes time and money to prepare, print, and send hardcopy notices to your participants. But notices for newly eligible plan participants are now available electronically, making it easier for you to deliver important plan-related information. Go paperless from the homepage of your plan website or navigate to Plan > Delivery Services to review your current elections. Contact your client service team with any questions.

More payroll integration options could help make your job easier

To help you reduce the time and risk associated with manually managing retirement plan payroll processing, consider Payroll 360—an easy way to integrate a retirement recordkeeping platform with your payroll system. Payroll 360 helps ensure seamless payroll data transmission to quickly process employee changes—leaving you with more time to focus on other important tasks.
 
We’ve added several new payroll integration partners, including UKG, Ceridian, Workday, and Payroll Integrations LLC, which supports integration with Paychex and QuickBooks (online version only). View a list of more than 150 payroll integration partners and learn more in our Payroll 360 fact sheet.

Third party contact

Vanguard has not authorized third parties other than those previously identified to you to contact you to discuss specific details about your plan, including fees. If a firm contacts you claiming to work for Vanguard, and you are unsure whether the claim is legitimate, please contact your Vanguard Client Service team or financial advisor.

When it comes to managing plan expenses, you’ve got options

Depending on plan provisions, you can cut costs and mitigate fiduciary risk through expense management. For example:

• Paying plan expenses with forfeitures. Preserve corporate assets without shifting fee payments to your employees. Plan permitting, you can use forfeiture funds to pay certain administrative costs, make required contributions, or allocate to participant accounts.
• Acting on former employee accounts. Are you maintaining accounts for former employees or beneficiaries who have not cashed out? You may be able to reduce expenses by rolling over small balances into IRAs or making cash payouts where possible.

To discuss available options and review plan provisions, contact your client service team. 

Contribution processing made simpler

If you’ve logged into your plan website recently, you’ve likely noticed a more intuitive look and feel to the payroll contributions process. This is just one of many enhancements to come as we invest in technology to continuously improve the contribution experience.

Take Advantage of Payroll 360’s Many Benefits

If your plan includes auto-enrollment and auto-escalate features, implementing Payroll 360 can be beneficial. Payroll 360 integrates your payroll system and retirement recordkeeping platforms to automate key tasks, keep census and payroll data up to date, increase accuracy, and support compliance efforts—all while reducing the time you spend on payroll-related tasks.

We’ve added a significant number of new payroll integration partners over the past few months, including UKG, Ceridian, Workday, and Rippling, and plan to add more in the coming months.

Learn how payroll integration can benefit your plan by reviewing the Payroll 360 fact sheet or contacting your client service team.

Helping You Boost Employee Enrollment

Offering your employees a retirement plan demonstrates your commitment to the security of their financial future. It can also be a great tool for attracting and retaining employees—and improving their satisfaction with their benefits package. We’re committed to helping you drive plan enrollment.

For plans that receive enrollment guides, either via hardcopy or electronically, we have increased the frequency with which we deliver guides from monthly to weekly—enabling more employees to join the plan sooner.

We’ll begin distributing emails to employees on a more regular basis to help drive plan participation. An initial email will be sent quarterly to eligible employees not enrolled in the plan, followed about four weeks later by a reminder to those who have not enrolled after receiving the initial email.

There’s No Better Time to Go Paperless

Reduce the time it takes to prepare and print hardcopy notices, while saving on postage and mailing costs. If you haven’t already, enroll in eDelivery from the homepage of the plan website or by navigating to Plan > Delivery Services, where you can also review your current elections. Participants can also opt in to eDelivery on their own from the employee website or via quarterly emails that allow eDelivery election with one click. What are you waiting for? Enroll today. Contact your client service team with any questions.

New One-Step eDelivery Election for Participants

We’re making it easier for your participants to go paperless. Participants with employee site multi-factor authentication (MFA) and web-registered email addresses on file who have not already elected electronic delivery (eDelivery) can soon go paperless with one click.

Beginning in 2023 and continuing quarterly, participants will receive an email and acknowledge a positive eDelivery election, and we’ll update their preference to go paperless in one simple step. They can receive statements, transaction confirmations (as applicable), and other plan-related documents faster and more securely—taking the work and worry off of you. You can rest assured participants are getting the information they need when they need it, and they can change their eDelivery elections at any time on the employee website.

Is Now the Time for Managed Accounts?

After more than a decade of steady growth, the economic shifts and challenges of the past two years and the uncertainty of the future are reminders that investing over the span of a participant’s career can be more complex than “set it and forget it” retirement planning. Find out why managed accounts could be a good choice for long-term retirement saving.

Preventing Fraud in Participant Accounts

Cyber fraud is a constant concern at every level of account maintenance—from individual participants and plan sponsors to financial advisors and trustees—and it’s on the rise. We constantly review our processes and protocols to detect fraud and stay ahead of cybercriminals, but we all have a role to play in preventing fraud and cyberattacks. Check out these best practices and security habits you can implement today.

The Benefits of eDelivery Are Growing

As we prepare to offer electronic delivery of your annual notices, it’s not too early to begin planning for a successful year end. Reduce the burden and cost associated with mailing annual disclosures by delivering them electronically. To take advantage of electronic delivery for certain annual notices, plans with a 12/31 year end must be enrolled in eDelivery no later than September 15, 2022. If you’re not already taking advantage of our notice delivery service, we offer this service for plans enrolled in eDelivery. If you haven’t already, enroll in eDelivery from the homepage of the plan website or by navigating to Plan > Delivery Services, where you can also review your current elections.

The Value of Professionally Managed Allocations

Professionally managed allocations continue to shape investment behavior in defined contribution (DC) plans in positive ways. Their growing use by plan sponsors and participants are improving portfolio construction and leading to more disciplined participant investment behavior, according to Vanguard research, Professionally Managed Allocation Adoption in 2021.

Registration Is Open for the August Certified Plan Sponsor Professional (CPSP™) Credential Virtual Classroom

Expand your retirement plan knowledge and confidence as a plan sponsor by earning your CPSP credential. This nine-week, instructor-led program begins August 11 and features weekly live webinars and exclusive portal access to plan administration resources. The course is also approved for 16 hours of continuing education (CE) credits through HRCI^® and SHRM^®. One credential earner commented, "It was a great course! I feel much better prepared to assist in the administration of our company's 401(k) plan." The registration deadline is August 4, 2022. Learn more and register.