[HN Gopher] Guideline has been acquired by Gusto
___________________________________________________________________
Guideline has been acquired by Gusto
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 119 points
Date : 2025-11-03 22:54 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (help.guideline.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (help.guideline.com)
| westurner wrote:
| Notes about 401K backtesting and funds,:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42387927
| isaacdl wrote:
| I almost posted something this morning about this, because I
| received an email that really frustrated me. I have a 401k with
| Guideline from an old employer. The email was from Accrue <no-
| reply@accrue401k.com>, and said, in part:
|
| > _Login: Please visit my.accrue401k.com to log in. You'll find
| that the 401(k) dashboard and user experience remain familiar. If
| you've set up your account, your same login credentials will
| provide you access into the dashboard. (Please note, Accrue does
| not currently offer a mobile app)._
|
| The my.accrue401k.com part was a hyperlink to that site. I've
| independently done some digging (and contacted my old employer to
| verify!) but this is precisely how a targeted phishing attack
| would work. Asking someone to enter their financial account
| credentials into a site they've never used or heard of, based
| entirely on an unsolicited email, is INSANE.
|
| This email was the first time I've heard of Gusto, of Guideline
| being acquired, or of Accrue 401k (which apparently is the
| company created to hold Guideline's 401k accounts that are NOT
| affiliated with Gusto). Nice.
| corbet wrote:
| Something broke down somewhere ... I got emails a while back
| about the acquisition and giving options about whether to go
| along with the move or not.
|
| Since Gusto is our payroll provider, I didn't see a reason not
| to do that... hopefully there will be less finger pointing the
| next time something goes screwy with the 401k transfers.
| isaacdl wrote:
| My guess is your different experience is precisely _because_
| you use Gusto as your payroll provider. My previous employer
| does not, or at least they did not when I was working there.
| This was truly the first and only email I 've gotten about
| it, but I have always gotten regular transactional and
| notification emails from Guideline just fine, including
| yesterday with a confirmation that I'd changed my asset
| allocation!
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| This whole space is littered with bizarre security practices
| that make my hacker senses tingle.
|
| I know my 401k is provided by company ABC, but then they host
| all of their web content and ask you to log in to
| myretirementplan.com. and then they do a redesign and then ask
| you to log into yourretirementplan.com. and there's basically
| no communication from company ABC directly if these sites are
| legitimate or illegitimate
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| This is common for mortages, too. Mine has been sold a
| handful of times (as are most peoples') and more than once
| I've had to triple-verify that the dashboard website the new
| servicer is telling me to go to is legit. They often have
| extremely dodgy URLs like "mymortgagedash.com" that have no
| obvious association with the loan servicer whatsoever.
| xp84 wrote:
| Yes! It's like half the companies we interact with are
| actively working to _teach_ people to do all the no-nos
| that some of us are trying to educate against.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| On a completely unrelated note: I don't understand why people
| keep money in prior companies' 401K plans. I always role mine
| over to my Vanguard account.
| sgarman wrote:
| Well they sold some retirement accounts to Ascensus which you
| have to have your own account and login for so maybe they
| will move your 401k too some day and you will be in the same
| boat as these guys.
| isaacdl wrote:
| I'd love to move the account (especially after this!), but
| unfortunately I can't because of what is basically an
| annoying side-effect. My current employer doesn't offer a
| 401k plan, and the only option I have for contributing to a
| Roth IRA is via backdoor contributions. Such backdoor
| contributions (which are basically an IRS-sanctioned
| loophole) have to start in a Traditional IRA account, and you
| cannot have any other/pre-existing Traditional IRA funds at
| the time of the contribution. So, I have nowhere to move the
| 401k funds besides an IRA account, but I have to leave my
| traditional IRA accounts empty so that I can do a backdoor
| contribution.
|
| I wish the federal government would just get rid of the
| salary cap for direct contributions to a Roth IRA, since they
| basically already allow it via the obnoxious and convoluted
| path.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| What the actual f%%%! I just looked it up. Not that I
| didn't believe you. I just never looked into it.
|
| For reference for others...
|
| https://investor.vanguard.com/investor-resources-
| education/a...
|
| I'm both under the limit to contribute to a Roth since I am
| married and my company offers an "after tax 401K"
| (different than a Roth 401k) _and_ I'm over 50 so I can do
| catch up contributions.
|
| I'm a long way before I need to worry about backdoor
| contributions.
| paxys wrote:
| FYI you can do backdoor Roth contributions even if you
| already have an IRA with funds in it. It's just more
| complicated because you have to follow the pro rata rule.
| koolba wrote:
| The PITA of that is that you have to keep track of the
| post tax additions pretty much for ever afterward or
| you'll end up paying double tax on them.
| zackify wrote:
| And if you have hundreds of thousands or millions in the
| traditional. The pro rata rule would make your backdoor
| contribution 90+% taxed so it would be pointless
| floundy wrote:
| No. Pro rata is Latin for "in proportion." It's one
| dollar for one dollar. If you add $7k to your tIRA to do
| the backdoor Roth, you also must convert $7k of existing
| funds which becomes taxable income. So you pay your
| marginal tax rate, on half the amount.
|
| IMO not that big of a deal to contribute $7k, convert
| $7k, and pay $2-3k in taxes to get $14k in the Roth space
| that will grow tax free forever. Most people are too pre-
| tax heavy in their retirement strategies anyway.
| aobdev wrote:
| I'm not familiar with the strategy you're describing, but
| this is not how it works for the majority of backdoor
| Roth contributors.
|
| If you have $100k pre-tax in a trad IRA, contribute 7k
| after tax for the purpose of rolling into a Roth, then
| you will owe income tax on the proportion of 100/107*7k,
| or $6,542.
|
| You're still limited to 7k annual (for 2025) so the 14k
| you describe must be something else.
| silisili wrote:
| The confusion here is that trad IRAs can be pretax or
| posttax dollars.
|
| This rule only matters if you have pretax dollars in an
| IRA that you want to also use posttax dollars to
| backdoor.
|
| To be clear, it wouldn't be taxed at 90% in this example.
| It's that 90% of the conversion amount would be taxed as
| ordinary income.
|
| AFAICT there's no extra paying taxes here or anything.
| Your pretaxed dollars are being taxed, instead of posttax
| dollars not being taxed.
| timr wrote:
| If you roll a 401k into an IRA, those will be pretax
| dollars in the IRA. It doesn't take a very big rollover
| to completely swamp the tax benefits of a 7k annual Roth
| contribution limit.
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| >The pro rata rule would make your backdoor contribution
| 90+% taxed so it would be pointless
|
| _All_ contributions or conversions to Roth IRAs are
| after-tax dollars.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| you can create a solo 401k that contains both a traditional
| and roth account, and roll over from your old employer's
| 401k to the traditional solo 401k, and do a conversion to
| the roth account
|
| there are caveats to this, like always being attached to
| your solo 401k plan makes you ineligible for contributions
| to an IRA all the time, but you will be able to have
| rollovers into the IRAs, you also might decide that the
| solo 401k is a superior product to IRAs in every way
|
| if you are not currently eligible to _create_ a solo 401k,
| it is very easy to become eligible with a single dollar of
| 1099 or schedule C income the year you make it, and then it
| can exist in perpetuity
|
| corroborate that with your licensed professionals. many
| gurus overlook the solo roth 401k mostly due to SEO and
| their audience of professionals that associate "401k" with
| "corporate employer thing", as opposed to something at
| parity with a traditional and roth IRA and expanded in
| capability
| isaacdl wrote:
| This is really interesting. I'd considered a solo 401k at
| one point because a made a small amount of self-
| employment income in one year, but decided against it
| because it wasn't enough to be worth the hassle, and I
| didn't expect to keep having self-employment income. Now
| I wish I had gone through it, just so I'd have a place to
| roll over this old 401k. (Of course, now that I look,
| Vanguard doesn't do solo 401ks anymore and redirects to
| Ascensus, so might just be frying pan to fire anyway.)
| yieldcrv wrote:
| > now that I look, Vanguard doesn't do solo 401ks anymore
|
| Vanguard wouldn't need to know it was a solo 401k, they
| would just see a trust being signed up. There are other
| institutions that you can go into mutual funds or get
| similar exposure from who are more acclimated to solo
| 401k entities though.
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| >if you are not currently eligible to create a solo 401k,
| it is very easy to become eligible with a single dollar
| of 1099 or schedule C income the year you make it, and
| then it can exist in perpetuity
|
| No, your scenario is not "very easy". No custodian is
| going to handle a solo 401k based on one dollar of self
| employed income (and 1099-NECs aren't issued for such
| tiny amounts anyway). You are also overlooking the
| overhead of maintaining a 401k, such as plan updates
| every time related federal tax law changes, or the
| potential IRS reporting requirements, which can generate
| significant penalties if overlooked.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| yeah, in the 10 years I've had one, the compliance is
| just a notice from the "document provider", and a 5500-EZ
| document annually. the bank, brokerage and crypto
| exchange accounts have no monthly/annual fees.
|
| OP can also just use the solo 401k's roth balances as a
| temporary holding place to then pass through directly to
| the roth ira
|
| The expanded investment options are worth it alone. And
| the years where there is self employment income, the
| expanded contribution limit up to doing my own $70,000
| employer match saves literal years of contributions off
| my life.
|
| It's literally 10x what the IRA contribution guys get,
| and most of them are barely able to even reach the IRA
| contribution max.
|
| There are more tax deferral plans out there too, I'm
| willing to do that compliance.
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| >the only option I have for contributing to a Roth IRA is
| via backdoor contributions
|
| Here's a simple idea: roll over your 401k, and then take
| the $7K (or whatever) you were going to put into the Roth
| and instead use it to pay the tax on a conversion of $20K.
| Much bigger bang for the buck.
| mtillman wrote:
| I tend to agree. However, Guideline (an excellent service
| imo) has admiral class vanguard funds which aren't always
| available in rollover IRA accounts. I hope Guideline doesn't
| go away or become exclusively Gusto (irrespective of what
| they said in the announcement).
| jvolkman wrote:
| The process is somewhat archaic (often involving mailing
| around paper checks) and I imagine many people just don't
| want to deal. Rolling over pulls your money out of the market
| which means you could miss a good day (or a bad day).
|
| I left a trail of 3-4 accounts until just recently, when I
| rolled them all over to my current Vanguard 401k. They were
| all invested in the same Vanguard fund so there's not much
| change other than simplicity.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| With Vanguard at least, while you still have to get a paper
| check from your employer. But you can electronically
| deposit it into your IRA account by taking a picture of
| your check.
| paxys wrote:
| If you work for a large company it is possible that they have
| negotiated better pricing for their 401k plan than what
| Vanguard or some other brokerage offers off the shelf. For
| example Vanguard charges 0.08% for its target date retirement
| funds, but the one I get on my old employer's plan (BlackRock
| LifePath) is just 0.037%. And the retail price for that
| LifePath fund is a whopping 0.17%.
| alright2565 wrote:
| With how low fees have gotten, I think the more likely and
| more damaging situation is that where people's employers
| have negotiated much worse pricing for their captive
| audience. I wouldn't give 0.08% vs 0.037% a second thought
| any day. That's only difference of $400/yr on $1M!
| paxys wrote:
| Compound it over 30+ years and even those few bps add up
| to a significant amount.
| dangus wrote:
| Not really. If you _start_ with a million dollars it's
| adding $400 a year and compounding beyond that. But the
| median person doesn't have that much in their
| portfolio...well, ever.
|
| For most people micromanaging below 0.01% is like gaining
| a cup of coffee every year.
| paxys wrote:
| The question was - I don't understand why people keep
| money in their old 401k accounts.
|
| The answer is - there are situations where it is
| favorable to do so. It may or may not be favorable _for
| you_ , and it may or may not be favorable for the median
| person. But these situations exist. And everyone can
| check for themselves and make the best decision insted of
| arguing over a blanket "X is better" or "Y doesn't make
| sense".
| dangus wrote:
| Sure, I agree with that general sentiment, but I think
| there's probably a ~90% chance that you should rollover
| somewhere else.
| specialp wrote:
| The real mover for lower retirement plan fees was
| lawsuits. There have been loads of 401k excessive fee
| class action lawsuits and this got almost every employer
| negotiating to avoid this. Of course there's some
| plausible deniability in some cases but there is
| something on the other side against that
| https://hallbenefitslaw.com/401k-excessive-fee-class-
| action-...
| dangus wrote:
| Usually when you leave the company they start charging a
| quarterly service fee. Be careful out there.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| Not all of them due, which is why I was so surprised to
| get dinged by this!
| ryukoposting wrote:
| In some cases it's a goddamn nightmare to get the money out.
| I've been trying for a year to get my money out of a Capital
| Group Roth. Every single support agent is utterly powerless,
| they're effectively holding my money hostage.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Generally, you want to ask your new financial institution
| to initiate the transfer for you. Fidelity especially is
| good about this. They figure out how to get it transferred
| to them, generally by sending an actual letter if all else
| fails.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Yeah, when I say "I," I actually mean me, my CFP, and his
| office assistant. Capital Group might be the United
| Healthcare of retirement funds.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Yep, ask your brokerage company to do this, not those
| individuals. Fidelity and Vanguard are very good at
| solving this for you.
| itake wrote:
| I've always followed this advice as well, but rolling a
| 401(k) to an IRA limits your ability to do a backdoor Roth.
|
| Unless your Vanguard has a 401(k) account and it already then
| your golden, I'd advise rolling your previous balance into
| your current employers account first
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| A backdoor Roth isn't the be all end all people think it
| is. It only matters if you think your tax rates will be
| higher in retirement than they are now for most people that
| won't be the case.
|
| The other case is when you are trying to manage IRMAA in
| retirement and it helps that you can withdraw from Roth
| accounts. But you can also just contribute to a Roth 401K
| or a Roth. Yes I know Roth limits for married and single.
| itake wrote:
| > for most people that won't be the case.
|
| I've had the same belief, but I've started questioning
| it. In retirement, your income (mostly) matches what you
| spend. Someone in their 20s or 30s may have both lower
| income and lifestyle costs (roommates, cheaper cars, no
| kids, etc) than they will at age 65.
|
| At age 65, you're probably maintaining 1 or more homes,
| supporting a partner (and kids), maybe drive a more
| expensive car and have much higher healthcare costs.
|
| If your lifestyle costs are more comfortable than your
| ramen noodle 20s and higher lifestyle costs put you in
| higher tax brackets, wouldn't most people actually have
| higher taxes in retirement?
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| How many people retire with minor kids or even kids in
| college?
|
| And if you are retiring with high fixed expenses and
| worrying about buying new expensive cars - you're doing
| it wrong.
|
| Anecdotally, at even 51, we (wife 49) have been focusing
| on _reducing_ our expenses since 2022. Our youngest son
| (my stepson) graduated in 2020. I slightly pivoted to a
| career that is mostly remote first (strategy cloud
| consulting + app dev). We sold our house in the burbs in
| 2024 that we had built in 2016 for twice the price we
| paid for it, downsized to one car that is below the
| median price of a new car in the US, downsized to a condo
| 1 /3 the size of our old house (and less maintenance),
| moved to state tax free Florida, paid off some lingering
| debt.
|
| I "retired my wife" in 2020 because of a combination of
| not wanting her to be in the school system at the height
| of Covid, so she could explore her passion projects, so
| we could travel after Covid lifted and I started making
| significantly more working at BigTech remotely (no longer
| there).
|
| Our fixed expenses - money we have to spend to live - is
| around $8K a month all in and that's going to go down
| some in 2028.
|
| We don't live "miserly" at all. Our flexible expenses
| include lots of travel between short getaways and longer
| month long stays away from home, concerts etc.
|
| My entire idea is to do most of our expensive traveling
| while I'm working and healthy instead of waiting until I
| retire. I see retirement as us staying in another country
| for extended periods of time - we are starting that next
| year while I'm working.
|
| It's also the last thing we want to do is have more than
| one home. Why would we do that and give up the
| optionality of just renting an AirBnb for long stays in
| different places both domestically and internationally?
| itake wrote:
| > How many people retire with minor kids or even kids in
| college?
|
| I think a lot:
|
| avg age of first pregnancy (29.6) + marital age-gap (2.2
| years) + 4 years (last kid) + 18 years + 5 years college
| (gap / delayed graduation) = 58.8 years old when the last
| kid finishes college. And then parents (probably) will
| need to help their kid's with their first home purchase.
|
| > Our fixed expenses - money we have to spend to live -
| is around $8K a month all in and that's going to go down
| some in 2028.
|
| My fixed expenses when I was 25 was $2k/mo (living in ATL
| in 2012), I spend about $6k/mo (ignoring tax payments).
|
| You obviously don't have to continue growing your
| expenses, but for many people they want the option to
| stay in their child-raising home (especially if there is
| rising interest rates and housing prices).
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Funny enough, I moved from metro Atlanta to where I lived
| from the time I graduated from college in 1996 until
| 2022.
|
| I happen to have an old paystub in an email folder I sent
| to a real estate agent back then actually mid 2011. I was
| only bringing home around $5K a month back then and
| spending every penny of it just surviving.
|
| While I told my step sons from the day I was serious
| about my now wife (they were 9 and 14) and treating them
| as my kids that I would pay for college - they both
| decided not to go. I feel no obligation to help them pay
| for their first home. My parents didn't help me get my
| first one when I was 28.
|
| On the other hand, I don't believe you should buy a home
| too early because it limits mobility. If you can't afford
| your home without help, you probably shouldn't buy one
| and you don't have the financial stability needed for it.
|
| Even if you do want to stay in your child raising home
| (my parents still live in the house they had built in
| 1978 and added in to it in 2004), it should be paid off
| or such a low expense by the time you retire it shouldn't
| factor in.
| itake wrote:
| I've heard that in Wisconsin, it's common for retirees to
| sell the family home and buy a cabin on a lake. The dad
| spends his remaining years fishing and enjoying the
| quiet.
|
| But downsizing to a lower-cost, rural area often means
| less access to healthcare. Eventually, Dad passes away,
| and the widow is left snowed in each winter: unable to
| afford moving back, now that home prices and interest
| rates have climbed far beyond what they sold for.
|
| > If you can't afford your home without help, you
| probably shouldn't buy one and you don't have the
| financial stability needed for it.
|
| My prediction is more and more families will provide down
| payment support. $2m homes are affordable if you put 100%
| down and just need to worry about taxes, repairs, and
| insurance.
|
| Assuming everything else even (career/income, etc), the
| person with the family assistance will get to own the
| home pushing the goal post further away from the people
| that don't have family assistance.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Looking at statistics of how much most people have in
| income in retirement and how much most depend on social
| security, people aren't retiring rich.
|
| While I understand helping your kids to "launch", letting
| them move back in for a couple of years after they
| graduate, subsidizing some of their expenses because they
| aren't making enough to live where the opportunities are
| early on, etc, I never understood why parents pressure
| themselves helping grown kids buy houses, pay for
| expensive weddings etc.
|
| I told my parents plenty of times they should "die dead
| broke" - in other words spend their last dollar on their
| last breath and not worry about leaving me anything (only
| child).
| itake wrote:
| I can't explain the parents pressuring themselves.
|
| if you look at any tier one city's job centers unless you
| have a great career, living in a comfortable home near
| your house just isn't affordable on a regular person
| salary.
|
| Which means your kids spend more time in their car and
| less time parenting their kids.
|
| Many families, especially ones that were careful with
| their spending, will choose to support their kids and
| enable them to live in neighborhoods. They couldn't
| normally afford on their lower income.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| That's just it, why should parents feel a moral
| obligation to be careful with their spending above
| helping their kids through college, helping them early on
| and then after that, it's time for parents to "enjoy
| their best lives".
|
| But let's be realistic. The median income of a retired
| couple is only around $85K a year.
|
| https://www.gobankingrates.com/retirement/planning/what-
| aver...
|
| The median net worth is around a quarter million.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/select/average-net-worth-of-
| americans-a...
|
| Parents should set expectations early on - don't have any
| _expectations_ that our job is to make your life easier
| once you are launched Once you decide to get married and
| have kids, your life is your responsibility. If my wife
| and I have any excess after taking care of all of our
| needs and _wants_. We will help our adult children. Even
| now at 51 and 49. Our older son (28) knows that we will
| help him a little but not much and our younger son 23
| knows that the subsidies are cut once he turns 26.
|
| I save "enough" for retirement for my wife and I to be
| comfortable. But we aren't over savers. We travel a lot,
| and enjoy ourselves.
|
| We asked our younger son was he absolutely sure he didn't
| want to go college. We told him once he made that choice,
| we were moving to Florida, left him in Atlanta at our
| house and he and two of his friends paid us (heavily
| subsidized) rent for a year and a half and we helped them
| move out on their own when we sold our home.
|
| We have a two bedroom and one is an office. There is no
| room for our kids to move back in Even when we leave for
| months at a time we rent it out as a short term rental
| (prime location six miles from Disney).
| xp84 wrote:
| But wait. If I take pretax $1000 this year and put it in
| a Trad IRA and buy some stock, and in 20 years I retire
| and it's worth $3000, then I should owe income tax on the
| $1000 and 15% capital gains on the $2000 gain. If I did
| the same to a Roth though, I'd pay tax on the $1000 now,
| so, it's now $600, but in 20 years it's $1800, and all of
| it tax free. (Forgive me if I've screwed that up) if I'm
| right then it kinda seems to depend not only on future
| tax rates (def a huge question mark) but also on how much
| the stock may appreciate, as if the stock has more than
| that modest appreciation the capital gains tax avoided
| could be huge.
|
| I'm not claiming expert status so I'm happy to be set
| straight.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| You wouldn't pay tax on the $1000 you put in a
| traditional IRA. It would be pretax.
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| Traditional IRA pretax deduction phases out with higher
| incomes. Backdoor roth does not
| aobdev wrote:
| Sorry but you don't get to claim capital gains on
| retirement distributions, they are entirely taxed as
| ordinary income. If your tax rate later will be 40%, you
| get the exact same result: 3000-1200=1800.
|
| If your tax rate will be lower in retirement, favor pre-
| tax contributions. If higher, favor after-tax. The trick
| is knowing what tax rates will be years (decades?) from
| now.
| georgeburdell wrote:
| My old company's 401k has a (now closed to new investors)
| fund that has returned 3-4% above the index average for over
| a decade.
| analyte123 wrote:
| Something no one else mentioned so far is that, depending on
| your state, some IRA funds can be subject to judgments or
| non-exempt from bankruptcy, whereas 401k accounts are
| untouchable for anything except federal tax liens and
| divorce.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| I forgot to mention that, when my wife started teaching
| fitness classes as a "working hobby", I made sure she had
| an umbrella policy.
| rcleveng wrote:
| I think if your old company plan is with Vanguard and your
| new company plan is not as good as Vanguard, you leave it in
| the old company plan as a 401k.
| rsanheim wrote:
| because its a huge hassle that many financial services
| companies have no incentive to facilitate or make easy or
| discoverable. And for many folks a job change is a stressful
| event even in the _best_ of circumstances.
|
| I know when I was laid off a week after covid lockdowns, the
| last thing I was thinking about was how to roll over my 401k
| as the market collapsed and I began interviewing and trying
| not to freak out.
|
| having retirement and health benefits coupled to employment
| is antiquated and stupid, but changing tax code and finance
| system around 401ks is probably the least of our problems in
| the US.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| I have had 10 jobs now and had to rollover my 401K 6 times.
| I call the financial institution, they send me a check made
| out to "Vanguard FBO (for the benefit of) $MyName" and mail
| it to Vanguard with a form.
|
| Now you can do it electronically by taking a picture of the
| check. When I'm done with the company I'm done. I sold all
| of my RSUs when I worked for BigTech as soon as they vested
| and diversified too.
| refurb wrote:
| If you put it in a rollover 401k you can't do a backdoor Roth
| IRA contribution without exposing it being taxed.
| pants2 wrote:
| I got an unsolicited call from Fidelity once and they asked for
| a bunch of financial info. I told them I'd call back on their
| official number and they said that's not possible, I had to
| answer right away. So I told them to pound sand. Afterward
| found out it was legit when they sent the same form by mail.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| I wonder if this acquisition update today is caused by the
| recent lawsuit alleging Guideline was performing corporate
| espionage. Seems like weirdly coincidental timing?
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/27/new-corporate-espionage-cl...
| tyre wrote:
| Interesting this is being posted now when the acquisition was two
| months ago.[0] Has anything changed?
|
| My copium as a shareholder is that they're beefing up their
| services to boost a valuation for IPO.
|
| One can dream!
|
| [0]: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joshuareeves_better-
| together-...
| altairprime wrote:
| Based on the above complaint, it sounds like they generated an
| email to account holders without mentioning the acquisition or
| linking to the FAQ. Perhaps they were flooded with questions
| and realized they have to discuss the terms of sale Or Else
| their corporate account admins start worrying (and evaluating
| alternatives).
| isaacdl wrote:
| (Author of the comment you are talking about) To be clear,
| they DID link to the same FAQ, but hosted and branded on the
| new domain and name. I had to go digging to find the same
| info on the Guideline site I was already familiar with.
| altairprime wrote:
| Ah! Good to know, thanks.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Also, I can't find any mention of Accrue on any previous
| Gusto or Guideline communications or any of their online FAQs
| about the acquisition. "Accrue 401k" seems to barely exist
| outside of its own website and a few third-party posts _from
| today_ about the confusing email.
| tyre wrote:
| Huh, yeah that's not good. Trust is so important around
| financials like this. I'm surprised that no one thought
| through the branding and communications. Missing something
| like "hey, they've never heard of this company or domain"
| feels like a pretty easy catch.
| elphinstone wrote:
| If I my retirement was tied up with some startup trying to IPO,
| I'd be furious. It's the exact opposite of responsible
| stewardship.
| rco8786 wrote:
| They just said shareholder
| exa_byte wrote:
| I was made aware from my company's HR as an email was sent out.
| 0xWTF wrote:
| My wife tried using Gusto and hated it. She then happily went a
| different direction, picked up Guideline for her 401K provider,
| and now she's super unhappy she's getting pulled back into Gusto.
| /sigh
| joomla199 wrote:
| They're both awful companies at heart. Birds of a feather flock
| together and all that.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Guideline has an FSA/HSA product which is a walking CMMS and IRS
| violation.
|
| I never bothered escalating my disputes, but simply said, their
| customer service agents have multiple times admitted in writing
| to their systems being designed to break federal and state law.
|
| I never thought it was worth pursuing. But Gusto has deep
| pockets...
| fragmede wrote:
| (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services)
| huerne wrote:
| What specifically is violating policies?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _What specifically is violating policies?_
|
| Guideline materially and repeatedly breached their fiduciary
| duties under ERISA.
|
| Their definition of when an expense is "incurred" varies
| materially from case to case and diverged substantially in
| almost all of them from IRS guidance. Multiple times, a
| customer service agent said--in writing--the last person I
| interacted with misrepresented something material that I had
| subsequently acted on.
|
| _Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I am describing my personal
| experiences. Don't cite this comment if you decide to pursue
| these fuckwits._
| ihattendorf wrote:
| Do you have a concrete example of when their definition was
| different from IRS guidance?
| deadbabe wrote:
| Could you elaborate
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Not using Fidelity for HSA and Vanguard/Fidelity for 401k is a
| sign of bad leadership. I have to assume management is getting
| paid off some way to subject themselves to an inferior and more
| expensive custodian.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _have to assume management is getting paid off some way to
| subject themselves to an inferior and more expensive
| custodian_
|
| I've done a startup that tried to run ADP for payroll. It was
| a mess.
|
| Lots of startups avoid that problem by using Gusto. And until
| recently, Gusto integrated better with Guideline than other
| providers. So that's what one got. No kickback needed.
|
| (Like, constellation of shitty products users are locked into
| helped make Larry Ellison the world's richest man.)
| xp84 wrote:
| ADP seems to have a half dozen or more discrete variations
| on their payroll product, each with their own weird quirks.
| I've experienced some that were perfectly adequate. Some of
| them being trash also seems plausible.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _some of them being trash also seems plausible_
|
| I wouldn't call them trash. They're just absurdly
| powerful tools for moving boatloads of money in
| infintessimal increments. It's incredibly low-level
| financial tooling that simply outclasses any organisation
| without full-time finance and payroll departments.
| peterbonney wrote:
| Having selected a 401k provider for a small (<15 person)
| company and also for a larger (>100 person) one, I can say
| that the big names make it prohibitively expensive for small
| companies to use them. And that expense ultimately comes out
| of peoples' retirement funds in the form of fees. They
| frankly don't want the business - too much compliance
| overhead for a small asset pool.
|
| Believe me, I would prefer to have my own 401k at Fidelity
| too.
|
| I have no dog in this fight, I just know from experience that
| setting up a 401k for your company is vastly different from
| setting up a brokerage account, and the reason a lot of small
| companies end up with off-the-run vendors is because those
| are the ones that will take the business.
| neilv wrote:
| I was very happy when Fidelity added HSA. Much better than
| the 2 previous places I had HSA. Fidelity HSA just works, and
| is directly investable, including in the very competitive
| iShares index ETFs.
|
| I wish more startups would find a way to use Fidelity or
| Vanguard (with access to the very-low-ER index funds).
|
| I never did figure out how to track Guideline 401k in GnuCash
| satisfactorily. It was complex, when all I wanted was a
| balance of IVV/ITOT and AGG (or Vanguard equivalents).
|
| And a different startup used Transamerica 401k, which looked
| like it had been forgotten on one person's desk in the
| basement of their skyscraper a decade earlier, and I didn't
| like their funds. As soon as I could rollover to an old
| Fidelity account, I did so.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Note that unless your start-up is matching, you can set up
| your own HSA anywhere you like. Very different from an FSA.
| koolba wrote:
| The slight advantage for employer contributions to HSA
| are that they avoid payroll tax. You'll get the employEE
| part of it back when you file your taxes, so the savings
| is the 7.5% employER side.
| sgerenser wrote:
| If you're an senior+ software dev in the US there's a
| good chance you're already over the social security
| payroll tax cap, and if so you're really only saving the
| Medicare tax of 1.45% on up to $8000 for a family plan.
| It's not nothing but not worth dealing with a crappy
| provider to get.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| I love the bubble that much of HN is in. In most of the
| US, most senior+ software developers are not making over
| $176K. They are working at boring old enterprise
| companies. (Yes I've done a stint at BigTech and I know
| what comp is like there and have friends that work at
| Amazon, Netflix, Nvidia and Google).
|
| I'm no longer strictly a software engineer nor do I live
| in Atlanta any more. But that's where I spent most of my
| career. If you look at the well known companies
| headquartered there like Delta, Coke, Home Depot, GE
| (large headquarters there), etc.
|
| Very few of their developers are making over $176K. You
| see the same in most other tier 2 cities where most
| software developers work in the US.
|
| Hell most of the job postings by YC companies here on HN
| aren't offering their developers over $176K.
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| > Note that unless your start-up is matching, you can set
| up your own HSA anywhere you like.
|
| Even if your employer provides an HSA, you can still open
| a separate HSA anywhere you like (or multiple, if you
| really wanted to). You just have to make certain that all
| contributions (from you, your employer(s), and your
| payroll) sum up under your annual limit at the end of the
| year (keeping in mind that changing jobs or benefits mid-
| year can impact your limit for that year).
| gusto_customer wrote:
| Hey, fresh startup here. We use Gusto and selected Guideline
| out of the two options presented, mostly because we have a
| ton of things we're focused on. Always had a feeling it was a
| scam, but didn't have time to really dig into it (we're also
| pretty small at the moment)
|
| What's the best way to transition to Fidelity / Vanguard? I
| assume Fidelity would be better for having a single entity to
| deal with rather than Fidelity for HSA and Vanguard for 401K?
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Call Fidelity and ask them - they'll happily walk you
| through it!
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Yeah, Fidelity customer service regularly beats my
| private client groups'. They want your money and then for
| you to be so happy about them that you forget you saved
| it :P.
| fraserharris wrote:
| I recently had to select a 401(k) plan for our small startup.
| For a startup, the _employee_ fees was significantly better
| on Guideline (0.15 - 0.3%) than Fidelity (0.5% + $100
| bookkeeping fee). The _employer_ fees were slightly more
| expensive with Guideline ($1,778 on Enterprise plan for
| Guideline vs $1,200 for Fidelity) but offered more features.
|
| Important for founders in the US to know: you can put up to
| $70k annually into your 401k using profit sharing, which only
| some 401k plans offer. Your startup does not need to be
| making a profit to do 401k profit sharing. Employees may also
| be able to negotiate this!
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Gusto has their own, so I can't imagine they'd keep
| Guideline's?
| cj wrote:
| Gusto bought Guideline, migrated Guideline customers who also
| use Gusto directly to Gusto, and everyone leftover from the
| acquisition is now being served by Guideline under the name
| Accrue401k. The Accrue401k (formerly Guideline) dashboard is
| exactly the same, just a different name. And former Guideline
| customers who use Gusto for payroll now use Gusto 401k.
|
| That's my understanding at least.
|
| Gusto basically acquired their mutual customers, seemingly.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| Slorp is now Bonto!
| dangus wrote:
| Ok we're transitioning to Salarya, but payroll is still in
| Bullfrog--did you see my Noosecock post? Submit your timecard
| on Fireplayce then jizz me on Smackdog. Do NOT upload to
| Crackerz without Yammer approval
|
| (Source: https://x.com/gossipbabies/status/1487161069143576576?
| lang=e...)
| dudeWithAMood wrote:
| Every job I've had with Gusto has managed to screw up payroll at
| some point. The support from Gusto is very poor, even a
| supervisor that's offshore when you call em won't be able to
| understand your basic questions.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| My brother had an issue with Gusto, but I've not yet, after
| having used them for... probably at least 10 years now. Maybe
| longer. I was a refuge from quickbooks payroll which managed to
| screw up state filings such that I had 2 years of bad filings
| with the state where they were charging me late fees for things
| QP screwed up. Huge hassle, cost me days of time and a drive to
| the state capital to turn in paperwork in person. I swore off
| quickbooks payroll and have been happy with gusto ever since.
| But... I'm a single person who occasionally does payments to
| subcontractors, not dealing with payroll for dozens/hundreds.
| dqv wrote:
| lol they use LLMs to respond to support requests now and they
| don't seem to read what they're sending. I got an email from
| them where the LLM assumed _I_ was the Gusto support
| representative:
|
| > This was concerning to us, as we rely on Gusto to handle
| these automated compliance filings.
|
| This was concerning to Gusto, as Gusto relies on Gusto to
| handle these automated compliance filings.
| FL410 wrote:
| Their support is a literal train wreck
| mjcl wrote:
| Fun Guideline story: I worked for a company that went bankrupt
| and used guideline for 401k. The first day the website allowed me
| I withdrew the balance for rollover. Apparently this should not
| have been possible before the bankruptcy was finalized. I found
| from court filings that the bankruptcy trustee kept telling
| Guideline they need to freeze withdrawals until the bankruptcy
| was finalized, and Guideline kept dragging their feet and acting
| like they didn't understand. The trustee ended up having to go to
| court and get a temporary restraining order to prevent more
| employees from withdrawing their balances before the bankruptcy
| was finalized.
|
| Un-fun bankruptcy fact: All employee names & mailing addresses
| are part of the public record and accessible on PACER because
| they're potential creditors in the bankruptcy.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Wait, how are 401ks part of a bankruptcy? I guess the matching
| portion?
|
| Edit: from my quick research, it appears 401ks are completely
| protected in a bankruptcy. The only thing would be if the
| company had not yet sent your contribution to the servicer,
| then that payment would be considered another creditor. But if
| the money is in your 401k account at your servicer, the money
| is protected from any bankruptcy.
| thehours wrote:
| I worked for a company that went bankrupt. They ended up
| taking several thousand dollars out of my account to cover
| IIRC unpaid fees to the provider.
| boarderboy03 wrote:
| I had my account with Guideline also. No way was I going to allow
| them to role it into a holding account. I rolled everything into
| my Human Interest 401(k) plan. Very similar to Guideline, but a
| few added features that I like now.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Interesting to hear the negative experiences with Gusto here. Our
| small company has used them for several years (12 I think) with
| no incident.
| ZebusJesus wrote:
| The company I work for uses both and so far it has been ok, the
| gusto app has been able to show you your guideline 401k balance
| and some people seem to like how easy it is for them. I don't get
| to choose I just take the match and have my own accounts
| elsewhere.
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