Financial advisors
Do more for your clients and your firm
Modernize your retirement offerings with our plans, tools and support—join Guideline for Advisors for free today.
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Retirement plans your clients will love
Easy setup and management
You and your clients can set up a 401(k) plan in 20 minutes. From there, it’s pretty hands off. We’ll take care of recordkeeping, investments, government filings, and more.
Seamless payroll integration
Clients using select payroll providers can get a largely automated 401(k). We can securely sync employee data, track 401(k) eligibility, and process deductions. Learn more.
Affordable prices
With plans that have low monthly costs and no transaction fees, you can set your clients on the right track right away. Monthly plans start at $49 plus $8 per participating employee.
Billing and fees
A retirement platform with built-in billing
When you set up a Guideline plan for your clients, you can add your advisory fee to their plans. Guideline will process your fee from participant accounts on a quarterly basis in arrears and send it to your firm.
Your client's monthly plan fees from Guideline will be paid by your client directly to us.
Manage everything in one place
With our intuitive dashboard, you can strengthen the retirement consulting arm of your firm.
Visibility of all clients’ Guideline 401(k) plans
Plan management capabilities
Invite clients directly from your dashboard
Dedicated relationship manager
We can help you help your clients
Your clients turn to you for professional advice. With Guideline for Advisors, you can rely on your dedicated relationship manager to help with outstanding tasks and answer your questions.
Let’s grow your financial advisor business
1
Open an account in minutes
There are no fees to join Guideline for Advisors. Reach out via phone or email to set up your account.
2
Add your clients
Invite clients directly from your dashboard.
3
Design their plans
Help clients set up retirement plans that work for them.
Stay ahead of state retirement mandates
States across the country have enacted retirement plan mandates to help individuals save for retirement.. While the rules of each state vary greatly, they currently all give employers the option to choose between the state-sponsored plan or a private plan, like a Guideline 401(k).
Guideline at a glance
44,000+
business clients
2,500+
advisor and accountant partners
$10B+
assets under management
Fintech 50
Invest in your business and your people.
See our Privacy Policy to learn how we use and protect your information.
Frequently asked questions
What is Guideline for Advisors?
Guideline for Advisors is a free program for financial advisors. With Guideline, advisors can provide their clients with a seamless 401(k), plus get the tools to design, monitor and manage their clients’ plans while incorporating their own advisory fee.
How does Guideline process my advisory fee?
Pursuant to separate agreement(s) between you and your clients, Guideline can process and pay advisory fees owed by your clients to you.. Guideline will pay the advisory fee out of the Plan participants’ accounts based on assets under management. The advisory fee will be prorated daily based on each active participant’s account balance and deducted directly from each active participant’s account quarterly and paid to the advisor in arrears. If you are interested in having Guideline process your advisory fee, you will have to provide the RIA W9 and ACH Bank Account for the RIA when you set up your Guideline Dashboard.
How do clients pay their plan fee?
The monthly fee is paid by your client directly to Guideline.
Will I have a dedicated point of contact at Guideline?
Yes, you will be introduced to your dedicated Relationship Manager after you join Guideline for Advisors and connect to your free advisors dashboard.
Can I design a plan on behalf of my clients?
Yes, you can. With your advisor dashboard, you can see all of your clients plans—completed and in progress. For new plans, you can help design the plan, track progress, and streamline the approval process to get it up quickly.
What are Guideline’s key services?
Once a plan is set up, we take care of nearly everything including recordkeeping, investment management, government filings, and more. We integrate with 18 different payroll providers and charge low monthly fees with no transaction fees.
What plan design features are available?
All Guideline plans include the fundamental services and features needed for a great benefit. In addition, clients can add profit sharing, vesting schedules, matching options, and more. Every Guideline plan features automatic enrollment, and we do not currently support an hours-of-service (i.e. part-time employee) eligibility restriction.
Why auto enrollment?
Auto enrollment is a required feature for all Guideline 401(k) plans. Auto enrollment can help improve IRS nondiscrimination testing results, increase employees’ retirement readiness, and much more. Learn more about auto enrollment
What are the investment options?
With Guideline, participants can create a custom portfolio from our fund menu or choose one of 6 different managed investment portfolios. Each portfolio is diversified with low-cost funds giving them an average expense ratio under 0.07%. When combined with an account fee at 0.08%, the estimated total cost of an active participant investing in one of Guideline’s managed portfolios can be under 0.15%—that’s up to 10x less than the industry average.
Do you offer target date funds?
We do not at this time. Target date funds tend to have higher expense ratios for participants. We lower these fees by building the portfolios ourselves, and still give participants the flexibility to choose investments that serve a shorter or longer term investment strategy. Read more here