Small Business Retirement Solutions
The right plan depends on your headcount, your margins, and how much control you want over contributions. Here's how the four most common structures compare for a small business.
A 401(k) gives employees a familiar, tax-advantaged way to save — and gives you a powerful tool for attracting and keeping good people. Employer contributions are tax-deductible, and employees get tax-deferred growth on their own contributions.
A Simplified Employee Pension IRA is one of the easiest plans to set up and run. It lets you make tax-deductible contributions toward your own retirement while extending the same benefit to employees, with minimal ongoing administration.
Contributions are made with after-tax dollars, so qualified withdrawals in retirement are completely tax-free. That's a real advantage for employees who expect to be in a similar or higher bracket later — and the account travels with them if they ever leave.
A properly structured tax-free retirement account can let contributions grow — and be withdrawn in retirement — without adding to taxable income. For owners looking to diversify beyond a traditional 401(k) or IRA, it's an option we regularly walk clients through.
How we decide together
How many employees you have today, and how that might change over the next few years, shapes which plan type makes sense administratively.
Some plans require consistent employer contributions; others let contribution levels flex with a good or slow year.
If retention is the goal, plan design and vesting schedules matter as much as the account type itself.
Beyond the traditional brokerage
A national brokerage firm enrolls your team in a plan and moves on. We stick around — with on-site financial wellness classes that give every employee, not just the owner, a real handle on budgeting, debt, and retirement readiness. It's the same local, sit-down relationship a small business owner gets from us, extended to the people who work for them.
Sessions are written for the people actually enrolling in the plan — not just the owner signing the paperwork.
Taught by our Monroe-based team in plain language, with time for real questions — not a generic webinar from a call center.
The habits we cover — budgeting, saving, protecting income — extend well beyond the workplace and into each employee's own household finances.
Bring your questions — we'll walk through your business and employees, and lay out the options side by side, including how each pairs with the asset protection strategies below.