When special payrolls for bonuses, commissions or off-cycle pay occur, 401(k) benefits should be applied, just as they would for any regular payroll cycles. To confirm whether the pay you are offering your employees is considered compensation for 401(k) purposes, we recommend consulting with your tax advisor.
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If you have determined a special payroll run should include your 401(k) benefit, you may need to take additional action to ensure the proper collection of any off-cycle payroll runs. Here’s what you should know before processing special payroll allocations.
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If your company offers an employer contribution, such as a match or nonelective contribution, any special payroll runs will also be subject to employer contributions.
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Employees’ existing contribution rates will be applied for any special payroll runs. If participants do not want to defer wages to their 401(k) accounts in these instances, they must adjust their contribution rate in their participant dashboards. You cannot perform this action on their behalf. After the bonus payroll has been run, participants can choose to re-update their contribution rate in their participant dashboards for future payroll runs.
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Participants who would like to adjust their contribution rate for special payroll processing can make changes within their Guideline participant dashboard by navigating to the Portfolio tab, then clicking the “Change Contribution” button.
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The contribution rate change will need to be completed at least 24 hours before the payroll run for 360 integration providers and one week in advance for 180 payroll sync providers. If you have a self-service plan, please ensure the contribution rates your employees have elected within their Guideline participant dashboard reflect the rates submitted to your payroll provider prior to running payroll. You can check participants’ deferral rates in your Guideline administrator dashboard by running a Deferral Rates Report.
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Depending on your payroll provider, you may need to inform Guideline about any off-cycle or special payrolls after they have been processed with your payroll provider to initiate the collections process.

Special payroll runs will automatically be captured in nightly syncs if you use one of our integrated 360 payroll sync providers. Therefore, you do not have to report these payrolls. More information on how our integrations work can be accessed here.

If you are processing a special payroll run through a 180 payroll sync provider, you will need to let us know about the upcoming pay date by emailing payroll@guideline.com prior to the pay date. We will begin the contribution collection process 1-2 business days after the pay date (or after receipt of the payroll journal if notification occurred after the pay date).

If you have a self-service plan, you will report special payroll runs in the “Payroll” tab of your Guideline administrator dashboard. When submitting your payroll report, select “Off-Cycle” to report the special payroll. You can find step-by-step directions for submitting payroll reports for self-service plans here.
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It’s important to submit payroll reports as soon as possible, or you may be required to pay lost earnings to employees and excise taxes to the IRS.