Guideline Reviews 

outstanding customer service from all staff spoken to regarding my questions.

Fees are way too high for single person company. They raised them from when my wife’s company was using them a lot. Monthly email from them says I’m putting $ into 401K and Roth IRA. Shows deposits headed to Roth IRA. Still zero balance in that account. Tried to resolve on multiple occasions and was unsuccessful. Thinking of dropping Gusto as my payroll company also (which only offers Guideline) due to these issues.

I like the way Guideline keeps me up to date on 401K news. The dashboard is extremely user friendly, and allows me to review monthly contributions. I applied for a loan, and the process was simple, and the approval and receipt of funds was fast.

Excess charges. Painful to use. Caused loads of ability to contribute last year can’t wait Vic to get my million out

Transparency and comprehensive investment information could be better. The reporting is lacking. For instance, getting a report breaking down mutual fund assets in Roth and Traditional IRA is not available. They need a few more comprehensive reports and better tracking. A ledger type report would also be welcome.

The fund choices are very good and managing investment allocation is good, but Paychex was better.

Guideline offers incredibly affordable 401(k) plans for small businesses. When a question arises customer support is always prompt and consistent in responding.

I was formerly the 401k Trustee for my company and have interacted regular with guideline. The team are very responsive to any requests and questions.

My employer signed us up with this company. And already they are showing issues. Money has been pending 6 days. Instead of it working for me it’s somewhere in there account collecting interest. EMPLOYERS it starts with you. If you don’t use companies like this, they go out of business. If your employees are not happy that should tell you something. Your employees keep your doors open. Put them first. This place can be shut down doors closed very easily. By not doing business with them.

I am not surprised to read questionable reviews about this company, my own experience has been no better. Firstly, my 401K was transferred to Guideline without my knowledge. I have since initiated a rollover to a different service but a month later my money still has not been released by Guideline. They allege that 3 checks have been sent by mail. Why in this day and age a more secure and trackable method isn't used, I don't know. Their Customer Service Center has given conflicting reasons why checks are not arriving. Their 'high tech' client dashboard isn't linked to customer service, so there is no continuity record to monitor whether calls to the center are actually actioned. My 401K is currently languishing 'somewhere' in the ether and Guideline is not demonstrating any creditable reasoning as to why or when the matter will be resolved. I just want out and anyone with similar doubts or concerns would be advised to do some homework and find an alternative, better options are out there.

Steer FAR FAR AWAY. This company lies to you! For example, they change the percentage for the amount of deductions from 5% to 50% then tell you they cannot help you! They lie and deny they go in and change the amount of deductions. Then you are just out of luck. "Sorry" they say. Really "sorry"? But are you?

Good company to trust for your retirement plan.

ITS ASKING ABOUT EMPOLYEES FOR 401 K AND THEY DONT WORK HERE ANYMORE

Guideline has a broken product and abysmal customer support.

In closing and transferring our accounts we received conflicting communications from support. Even have triple confirming with their support staff, Guideline still cost our company thousands and thousands of dollars.

Even worse than this, it took months for them to figure out what went wrong and where, delivering constant headaches for the administrator.

They actually transferred our money without any consent to another provider. Avoid Guideline at all costs!

Employer signed us all up for this 401K plan without our knowledge or permission. We were automatically enrolled without our knowledge or permission. Automatic payroll deduction was set up without our knowledge or permission. Not until after the first deduction was made did we discover this was happening. Our employer has "washed his hands" of the matter and tell us we have to contact Guideline to unenroll. If we didn't open up and read an unsolicited email telling us we were enrolled and would have auto deduction, then we didn't know it was coming. We are forced to go to their website and set up an online portal so we can decline coverage and MAYBE we will get our money back that was deducted from our pay. I'm considering legal action.....

Tried to opt-out because my work started using it. Would be automatically enrolled if I did nothing! Was eventually able to opt-out, but long, confusing process. Still had to create an account?? And then wanted to know why I didn't want a 401k rn. Not user friendly because it felt like I was signing up for a 401k when I didn't want one. What is going on??

I'm sure it works great for people who want it, but it was very confusing to opt out.

I tried rolling over my money to another account and they never did it. Then I had to follow up and just a huge mess. I'm going to have to contact them for a third time. It's been two months of waiting for my money and it's going to be at least another month.

Company has no idea what they're doing, support is slow and gives incorrect answers. I would recommend putting your money under a mattress before using this company

Easy to put money into your 401K, almost impossible to get it out. Supposedly checks were sent, but never received three times (seriously!). Only an escalation to the brain-dead CEO got the ball moving. Then they withheld 20% because "it's the law" and it actually isn't, not even close. AVOID at all costs. I made the decision as COO to go with Guideline and it was the worst decision I ever made. I missed out on a 5% increase in my investments waiting for these amateurs.

Vanessa took the time to answer my questions and give me the help I needed.

Don't go with this business.

Here is the email they sent me when asked why my plan I cancelled 4 months ago is still charging me.

"Thank you for reaching out. I've provided details below with regard to the billing and you can find Guideline's Billing practice here.

It looks like you terminated the plan effective 6/16/23 when you completed the request in your dashboard on 8/2/23. We’re still servicing the plan for a few more months in the form of winding the plan down even though it terminated effective 6/16/23. This means that monthly invoicing continues for a period of time following the date (3 months after the month in which the termination of the plan was initiated, or the termination date - whichever is later). Items that we’ll be working on justifying our charge include:
1. Holding, managing, investing plan assets while waiting for participants to provide instruction on distributing their balances
2. Contacting and working with plan participants to distribute their balances
3. Completing short year non-discrimination testing
4. Filing required government filings related to plan closure
5. Trust account closure
I just reviewed your account with our policy outlined above in mind. Here’s a breakdown of what I found - it looks like everything is set up correctly:
1. Request made on 8/2/23
2. Invoices for the 3 months following (September, October, November)
3. Last invoice to be charged in the first week of December for service provided in November
With that being said - we can’t deviate from our policy here. You should expect your last invoice for Guideline service in the first week of December. Lastly, I do want to let you know that I’ve gone over the feedback that you provided in this thread. We take any feedback very seriously, and will be considering the points you brought up as we strive to improve. Thank you again for the feedback."

Not good enough