Power Financial Partners Choice Pooled Solutions℠

What is it?

Power Financial Partners Choice Pooled Solutions℠

Power Financial Partners Choice Pooled Solutions℠ revolutionizes retirement planning in the industry, providing a comprehensive array of pooled solutions that gives clients various options. Whatever size business you have, Power Financial Partners Choice Pooled Solutions℠ offers plans tailored to uniquely meet your needs while providing competitive pricing that generally goes hand-in-hand with large-scale setups.

Retirement Plan Exchange®

Retirement Plan Exchange® allows individual sponsors to select from a menu of cost-effective options to build a single employer retirement plan and configure a support team.

Individual plan sponsors choose from a menu of cost-effective options to build a retirement plan
TAG handles plan administration and prepares, signs, and files the 5500 on behalf of the company
Typically, best suited for smaller businesses and organizations
Fiduciary-Plus serves as the 3(38) investment manager (fiduciary) for plan sponsors who elect to join the Exchange

Choice Pooled Employer Plan℠

Choice Pooled Employer Plan℠ treats the plans of multiple unrelated employers as one large plan and allows employers to choose from two cost-effective investment platform options.

Treats multiple plans as one large plan
Sponsored by a pooled plan provider (PPP)
PPP handles administration and oversight
Files one combined Form 5500 for the PEP
Large plans benefit from reduced audit costs
Fiduciary-Plus serves as one of the 3(38) investment managers for participating employers in the PEP

Administrative responsibilities

Power Financial Partners Choice Pooled Solutions℠ removes more than 90% of your administrative tasks compared to a single-employer plan.

Your load is lighter with Power Financial Partners Choice Pooled Solutions℠

As a retirement plan sponsor, your primary responsibilities* are to select and monitor service providers and:

Upload payroll files**
Collect year-end data**

3(38) Investment Manager appointment, monitoring, and removal (if applicable)
402(g) limit on elective deferrals reporting*
404(a)(5) Participant Fee Disclosure provided to sponsor for distribution (or directly to plan participants, as applicable)
404(c) Participant Direction of Investments Disclosure provided to sponsor for distribution (or directly to plan participants, as applicable)
415 limit on annual contributions*
Annual discrimination & coverage testing*
Automatic Enrollment Notice provided to sponsor for distribution (or directly to plan participants, as applicable)*
Beneficiary determinations*
Blackout Notice provided to sponsor for distribution (or directly to plan participants, as applicable)
Census review*
Corrective distributions*
Death benefit approval*
Distribution approval, such as in-service distributions, plan terminations, and termination of service
Distribution processing

DOL and IRS issue resolution assistance*
Eligibility calculations*
Eligibility notifications*
Error correction monitoring
Force out distribution processing
Form 5330 preparation, signing & filing*
Form 5500 preparation, signing, & filing**
Form 8955 preparation, signing & filing*
Fund Change Notice provided to sponsor for distribution (or directly to plan participants, as applicable)
Hardship withdrawal approval
Loan approval & reporting (if applicable)
Loan default monitoring
Loan policy administration
Lost earnings calculations*
Participant termination date tracking & maintenance
Payroll aggregation
Plan design review upon request*
Plan document interpretation
Plan document preparation

Qualified Default Investment Alternative (QDIA) notice provided to sponsor for distribution (or directly to plan participants, as applicable)
Obtaining ERISA Fidelity Bond***
Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO) determinations
Required Minimum Distributions (RMD) monitoring
Safe Harbor Notice provided to sponsor for distribution (or directly to plan participants, as applicable)
Summary Annual Report (SAR) provided to sponsor for distribution (or directly to plan participants, as applicable)*
Summary of Material Modifications (SMM) provided to sponsor for distribution (or directly to plan participants, as applicable)
Summary Plan Description (SPD) provided to sponsor for distribution (or directly to plan participants, as applicable)
Vesting verification & tracking
Year-end data collection & review

Let us make your job easier

Improve accuracy, same time and effort

Simplified payroll and recordkeeping

PayStart provides a service for qualifying clients that allows contribution data to be sent directly from the payroll vendor to Transamerica, eliminating the need for the plan sponsor to create and manipulate a separate file. This can help your organization:

Save time

Transfer of participant compensation, contribution, and other data to Transamerica happens automatically and securely

Reduce costs

Payroll uploads and deferral changes are no longer time-consuming tasks, allowing for more efficiency

Improve accuracy

Automated integration reduces opportunities for compliance issues and can save your staff time from dealing with errors

Enhance productivity

With automation, staff can recover their time and focus on other important matters

The Bedrock Reporting System™

TAG Resources proprietary software

With data gathered from contribution files from the plan sponsor and recordkeeper, TAG can match employees with specifics provided in the plan document to determine eligibility and verify participant information. In addition, the system captures rate changes, new loans, and hardship withdrawals and monitors contributions and distributions to ensure compliance with plan documents and 401(k)/403(b) limits. Every step in the process is time-stamped, so the complete data cycle is monitored. The system allows TAG to monitor operational health and catch minor errors before exposing the plan to compliance violations.

Compliant

Employers don’t want fines or penalties. The plan uses processes developed to administer plans according to DOL and IRS guidance to help avoid compliance issues.

Making it simple

Employers don’t want to be 401(k)/403(b) experts. TAG supports plan setup, implementation, monitoring, enrollment, and other duties.

Fiducary protection

Employers don’t want to be at risk. By shifting administrative and certain named fiduciary duties to TAG (and the pooled plan provider, if participating in the Choice PEP), employers can significantly reduce their defined legal obligations and responsibilities.

Well-known providers

Employers want to work with industry leaders. Power Financial Partners combines industry-leading professional service providers for “end-to-end” retirement plan oversight, including robust tools and resources for employees.

Cost-effective

Employers don’t want to overpay. Power Financial Partners is built on a pooled pricing model and may cost less than other programs offering fewer comprehensive services.

Financial advisor

Roger Machlin

Roger graduated with a bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Tampa and a Master of Science in financial services from the American College. Roger has been helping individuals and institutions for over 20 years. He has grown up in the financial services industry. Roger specializes in creating comprehensive financial plans for institutions and individuals using world-class insurance services and internationally recognized investment products. Roger has been recognized in the Financial Times multiple times for being one of the “Top 401(k) Retirement Advisers.” He has been nominated as one of the “Most Influential DC Advisors” from 401kWire.

PFP website

Recordkeeper

Transamerica

Transamerica is an industry-leading recordkeeper with nearly 25 years of experience with pooled arrangements. Our time-tested recordkeeping technology offers a proven infrastructure allowing for pooled arrangements, ensuring a plan will be administered successfully and accurately for the plan participant’s transition to retirement.

Transamerica website

Plan administrator

TAG Resources

TAG Resources is a named fiduciary as a plan administrator and a non-investment 3(21) fiduciary under ERISA sections 402(a), 3(16), and 3(21). It is our job to perform all functions necessary to keep your plan compliant.

As such, TAG is responsible for the day-to-day operations of your plan. The functions we perform on your behalf include services such as: the signing and filing of the Form 5500, QDRO determinations, plan operations, participant claims and appeals, distributions, and beneficiary determinations.

TAG website

Investment manager

Fiduciary-Plus

Fiduciary-Plus is a named fiduciary to the plan, responsible for the investment selection, monitoring and ongoing due diligence of the funds in the investment menu in accordance with the Investment Policy Statement (IPS) for the plan. RPA Financial helps business owners and plan committees manage fiduciary liability by accepting responsibility for investment decisions as an ERISA-defined 3(38) discretionary investment manager and also offers clients cost analysis with annual fee benchmarking, plan governance educational webinars, and a fiduciary vault to support storage of vital documentation. RPA Financial, as the 3(38) investment manager, has over $24 billion in assets under advisement as of December 31, 2023.

Fiduciary-Plus website

Participant experience

Driving participant success

The Transamerica participant experience is designed to help people understand if their savings and investment strategy is in line with their retirement goals. It starts with enrollment and continues with personalized communications and financial education showing participants how they can improve their retirement readiness.

An easy-to-understand forecast is generated by the underlying methodology provided by Morningstar. Using simple weather icons, it shows participants if their current investment strategy is likely to produce the income they’re seeking in retirement and offers steps to improve their chances of achieving their goals. Your Retirement Outlook® is featured prominently on the participant website, mobile app, and quarterly statements.