NextStep

401(k) Record Keeping

By clicking the above link, Participants of 401(k) plans we provide Investment Advice for can Check Their Balance, Manage Their Account, get Investment Education, use Retirement Calculators and much, much more.

Heaton Adams Financial Service serves as a "Fiduciary Adviser" to 401(k) and other qualified retirement plans.  A Fiduciary Adviser is a relatively new term created by the Pension Protection Act of 2006 and allows Plan Trustees to reduce their significant personal liability by appointing an Independent and knowledable Investment Advisor to serve the needs of the Plan and its Participants.

As the Investment Advisor to the plan we are independent of the other Providors/Vendors to the plan.  While we work with Great Companies such as Fidelity Investments as Custodian, Dimensional Fund Advisors as Fund Manager and NextStep as Recordkeeper, we are completely independent of these firms with no "hidden expense reimbursement" schemes or other exchange of compensation.

Each of these Companies, and ourselves, are separately compensated with all fees completely disclosed.  There are no commissions charged or paid.  Our clients and participants know that their interests are placed first by each of these Companies.

Elsewhere on our website we discuss why we use these Great Companies and now let's turn to NextStep.

We have teamed up with NextStep (formerly known as BenefitStreet) to provide our plans with State of the Art access to 401(k) information as well as providing Participants with Daily Valuation of their accounts.

No more waiting for Quarterly or Annual calculations.  The accounts are updated over night after each market trading day.  Participants can print statements any time they want.  This is very helpful to be able to do especially if buying or refinancing a home.

NextStep not only provides this service, but they also manage all of the record keeping for the Plan.  They also make the actual mutual fund trades every time money comes into the plan (every pay day, for instance) or out of the plan (a participant distribution on termination, for instance.)

This task is a lot more difficult than it may seem.  Imagine a small employer with 15 participating employees who get paid weekly.  Each week a portion of their pay is sent to the plan and needs to be invested according to the individual choices of those 15 employees.  Each of those employees can choose from one of five Standard Portfolios or they can create their own Custom Portfolio using any combination of fifteen Mutual Funds.

It's a daunting task, but NextStep does this with precision and accuracy in a very cost effective manner.