Owners must be included in your Guideline roster to ensure they can participate in your 401(k) plan, and so they’re accounted for when completing required compliance testing for the plan.
Please note that only eligible owners and their family members should be added to the roster.
Below are the steps to add owners, depending on how the owners are paid and your payroll provider.
Self-employed income owners
To add an owner who is paid through self-employed income, follow the steps below:
Navigate to the Roster page of your Guideline administrator dashboard.
Select the “+ Add Owner” option in the right-hand corner.
Add the owner’s information, as requested in the flow and check the “Is an owner” box.
The owner will then be invited to participate in the plan via an email from Guideline, if they meet your plan’s eligibility requirements. The email will also direct them to create their profile and update their contribution rates in the Guideline participant dashboard.
W2-paid owners
If an owner is paid through your W2 payroll, and you have a 180 payroll provider or self-service plan, then you will follow steps 1-3 above.
If you are using a 360 payroll sync provider, then only the following will apply:
Navigate to your payroll provider roster and add the eligible owner’s information, including email address, date of birth, hire date, etc. Please reach out to your payroll provider for more specific instructions on adding employees to their roster.
Ensure the owner’s employment status is active within payroll. Please allow 24 hours for the payroll system to sync with Guideline. Once synced, Guideline will automatically create a user profile for the owner on your Guideline roster.
The owner will then be invited to participate in the plan via an email from Guideline if they meet your plan’s eligibility requirements. This email will also direct them to create their profile and update their contribution rates in the Guideline dashboard.
How to update an owner’s wage type
It’s important to ensure both the owner’s wage type (e.g., W2 vs. self-employment income) and the company’s entity type (e.g., sole proprietorship vs. LLC) are accurate in your administrator dashboard. These factors will determine the owner's plan eligibility.
Once an owner has been added to your roster, you can change their wage type any time (for companies who are listed as sole proprietorships) by completing the following steps:
Navigate to the Roster page of your Guideline administrator dashboard.
Select the owner from the list of employees on the roster by clicking their name.
Make sure the “Is an owner” box is checked and the “Wage Type” is set to “Self Employment.” If the “Wage Type” field is grayed out, please contact Guideline at clients@guideline.com for assistance.