Welcome to the Employer Help Center

Compliance FAQ

Articles

What are the Allowable Safe Harbor Reasons for Hardship Withdrawals?
Profit Sharing and 401(k) Plans, if elected under the plan's Adoption Agreement, may allow for withdrawals when an immediate and heavy financial needs is evident. While a Plan Administrator may offer hardship requirements other then those to be ...
What are the timing rules for submitting employee deferral contributions into the plan?
Department of Labor (DOL) regulations require an employer to segregate employee contributions, including loan repayments, from its general assets at the earliest date on which the contributions can reasonably be segregated from corporate assets, but...
What is a Controlled Group (Code Section 414(b) & (c))?
A controlled group is a group of related businesses that have common ownership. For purposes of determining qualification of plan(s), all employees of all corporations which are members of a controlled group of corporations, within the meaning of S...
What is an Affiliated Service Groups (Code Section 414(m))?
An Affiliated Service Group (ASG) consists of two or more organizations that have a service relationship and, in some cases, an ownership relationship. ASG members are generally in fields of service organizations (health, law, engineering, architect...
How does Automatic Enrollment work?
If the Plan Document includes an Automatic Enrollment provision, Sentinel will utilize the payroll file to help you manage automatic enrollment. Automatic Contribution Arrangement notices are integrated into Enrollment Kits. Automated notificatio...
How does vesting work?
Sentinel will track vesting for all your participants according to the provisions of your Plan Document. Plan participant hours will be imported into our system each payroll period using the contribution payroll file. Sentinel’s recordkeeping ...
When do our employees become eligible to participate in the retirement plan?
This information is provided in your Plan Documents.  If Sentinel provides these documents for you, you can obtain a copy of your Summary Plan Description (SPD) from the reporting section in your plan sponsor web account.  Access it by cho...