Retirement

Retirement Glossary

Feel like the small print on your retirement plan or advice from your financial advisor is a foreign language? Our glossary makes it easy to decipher what some of the most common terms you may come across mean for you and your business.

Defined contribution plan

A type of retirement plan based on tax-deferred annual contributions to an investment account. Unlike with a defined benefit plan, the employee or contributor bears investment risk. A defined contribution plan can be employer-sponsored (also known as qualified or group trust plans) like a 401(k), or individual like an IRA.

Why franchising is a good idea even if you are happily employed

You might be perfectly content at work. Maybe you like your co-workers, your boss is a great person, the company seems to be doing really well and you are totally satisfied with your current salary.

If this describes you, than we just have one thing to say: You should join a franchise.

This may seem counterintuitive. After all, why would you leave a job you’re perfectly happy with to take a risk on business ownership? There are actually several reasons why you should do this:

1. No job is safe.

Selecting a Retirement Plan

By gaining a solid understanding of basic plan design principles and parameters, you will be better positioned to offer up ideas on ways to effectively manage plan costs. For example, you can adjust the matching contribution formula under a 401(k) plan to increase plan participation without incurring greater out-of-pocket costs. Here are some other ways in which you can maximize your and your employers’ retirement savings while limiting your expense:

Individual 401(K) Retirement Plan

The individual 401(k) plan is a type of 401(k) plan, as the name denotes, designed specifically for owner-only coverage. While you’ll find these plans marketed under a number of different names (Individual(k), Uni-K, Solo-K, Owner-Only 401(k)), the common characteristic is that these names are used to denote a 401(k) product that is designed specifically for the “owner-only” market.  

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Employer Eligibility

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401(K) Retirement Plans

As you’re probably well aware, the 401(k) is an extremely popular type of defined contribution plan.

Employers who adopt a 401(k) plan are generally required to file an annual return (Form 5500) with the federal government. While third-party administrators will often assist in the preparation of this return, it is a good example of the additional administrative burden/cost that typically comes along with a Qualified Plan such as a 401(k) (as compared with IRA-Based Plans which do not require the filing of an annual return such as the 5500).

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