Plan Design – Vestwell Help Center

Digital Onboarding: Plan Design Step

Note: This second step of Digital Onboarding will not be visible to “unbundled” plan types such as “Recordkeeping Only” or “Flex” plans.

The “Plan Design” step of Digital Onboarding allows you to select various plan features available to your selected plan that define how your plan will work once it’s live.

Based on your plan, you will be presented with one of the following experiences:

1. A digital form that allows you to fill out your plan design selections (with the help of your advisor, if applicable, or your sales representative):

2. A calendar link to schedule your plan design consultation where you will meet with one of our plan design consultants to walk through your design options:

1. The Plan Design Form

Note: The plan design questions and dropdown options available to you will differ based on the retirement plan you have selected, such as a “Workplace” plan versus a “Plus” plan.

The plan design form includes 5 subsections to fill out. The sections are as follows:

1. Eligibility Options
2. Auto-Enrollment Options
3. Employer Contribution Options
4. Profit Sharing Options
5. Hardships & Loans

Below, we'll give an overview of each subsection. Depending on your specific plan, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• The overall questions and outline of the form will resemble those in this article, but certain questions or selection options may vary depending on your plan.

• Certain questions may be grayed out with a lock icon indicating that you cannot make changes to this given plan design feature. Here is an example:

• For more information and a description of certain plan design features, click on the “i” icon .

Note: As you fill out the information on this form, it will auto-save, so you can always leave and come back to it if necessary. You will see a green pop-up at the bottom of the screen that says, “Your data has been saved.”

Eligibility Options

For the “Eligibility Options” section of the form, you will be prompted to enter general employee eligibility information as it relates to your plan. This information includes:

• What age employees become eligible for the plan.
• How long an employee must work for the company before becoming eligible for the plan.
• When newly eligible employees can enter the plan.
• If existing employees should be allowed to bypass the plan’s eligibility rules - Select Yes or No.

Auto-Enrollment Options

For the “Auto-Enrollment” section of the form, you will select the contribution percentage and/or auto-escalation percentage at which you’d like to automatically enroll employees into your plan.

This means your employees will automatically be added to the plan once they are eligible and contributions will be taken from their paycheck. They can always opt out of contributing further if they choose not to participate. You will fill out the following information:

• Auto-enrollment default setting
• Auto-escalation settings

Employer Contribution Options

For the “Employer Contribution” section of the form, you will be prompted to enter information about the types of employer contributions you will make to the plan. This information includes:

• Safe harbor matching contributions
• Frequency of safe harbor contributions
• Discretionary matches to employee accounts

Profit Sharing Options

For the “Profit Sharing Options” section of the form, you will select if you would like to add any profit sharing contribution features to your plan.

• If you would like to add a profit share to your employees - Select Yes or No.
• If “Yes,” specify your profit sharing method and vesting schedule.

Hardships & Loans

The last section of the form is the “Hardships & Loans” section.

• Select whether you would like for your plan to allow hardship withdrawals and loans.

Once you have finished filling out all the required fields in the form and are okay with the selections being finalized, you can click Save & Continue.

Once you have selected Save & Continue, the selections are finalized. If you have made a mistake or need to change any of your selections, please get in touch with your sales representative as quickly as possible to make any necessary changes.

2. Schedule Your Plan Design Consultation Call

If you are prompted to schedule a plan design consultation call with one of our plan design consultants, a calendar link will be sent to you. Please select the date and time on the calendar that works best. Available times will be indicated in blue.

Once you have clicked Schedule Event, you will receive a confirmation message with the call details.

You will also receive a confirmation email with the same details, and the option to cancel or reschedule the call.