When an employee leaves your company voluntarily or due to termination, your Guideline roster must be updated to reflect their dismissal. How the Guideline roster is updated varies based on your payroll provider.
For 360˚ and 180˚ payroll sync
If you use one of our 360˚ or 180˚payroll sync providers, enter the termination status and date for the recently terminated employee directly in your payroll provider platform.
Be sure to wait until you have processed the employee’s final payroll before entering a termination date in payroll. Contributions will stop processing for that employee once they are marked as dismissed in Guideline.
Once added, information will automatically transfer over to Guideline according to the following timelines:
If you’re using a 360˚ payroll provider, the sync will take place overnight. Once you enter a termination date in payroll, no further action is needed.
If you’re using a 180˚ payroll provider, the Guideline roster sync occurs on a biweekly schedule. For urgent requests, you can also mark them as dismissed directly into the employee’s profile in your Guideline Roster to manually update that employee’s status. To do so, simply, click on their name in the list, and enter a termination date.
Note: The Guideline roster filters out dismissed employees by default. To see those employees, you’ll need to update the applied filter by clicking on the “Status” filter button, then unchecking "Active" in the Roster section.
For self-service payroll
For self-service plans using payroll providers that do not sync with Guideline, you must log into your Guideline administrator dashboard and add a termination date directly to the employee’s profile on your Guideline Roster.
What happens when an employee is listed as dismissed
In about one week from when the employee is listed as dismissed in Guideline, our system will automatically send an email notification and dashboard task sharing what they can do with their 401(k) after leaving your company, such as request a distribution, rollover to an IRA or other retirement plan, or keep their account at Guideline (if applicable).
Starting with the first full month after termination, your plan will no longer be billed the monthly participant fee for the dismissed employee. For example, if an employee was listed as dismissed in Guideline on January 15, they will be included on your January invoice and billed in February. However, they will not be included on your February invoice, billed in March and moving forward. You can learn more about our invoicing and billing practices here.
Please note that although terminated employees are removed from your monthly billing, they will remain on your Guideline roster with a "Dismissed" status for record-keeping purposes. As mentioned above, to see those employees, you’ll need to update the applied filter by clicking on the “Status” filter button, then unchecking "Active" in the Roster section.