In short
401(k) administration software runs the plan year: plan and participant records, census and eligibility, contribution processing, compliance testing, deadlines, corrections, Form 5500 data and billing. Software Home builds custom administration software for US TPAs and administration firms, extends existing platforms, and offers its own platform, KinetiPlan, for independent TPAs.
What 401(k) administration software does
401(k) administration software runs the plan year for a TPA or administration firm. It keeps the records a plan needs, applies the plan’s rules to census and payroll data, tracks the work that has to happen before each deadline, and produces the outputs sponsors, participants and regulators receive.
Most firms already have some of this, spread across a testing package, spreadsheets, a document system, a billing tool and email. The cost is the time spent moving data between them and checking that it still agrees.
Core capabilities of a modern platform
| Capability | What it should do |
|---|---|
| Plan and sponsor records | Plan type, plan year, effective dates, provisions, contacts, service agreements and change history in one record |
| Census and eligibility | Import, validate and keep each year’s census; apply age, service and entry-date rules; track rehires and terminations |
| Contribution processing | Validate payroll files against the census and plan rules; map deferrals and employer contributions to money sources |
| Compliance testing | ADP/ACP, 410(b) coverage, top-heavy, 402(g) and 415(c), with results traced to the census rows behind them |
| Annual projects and deadlines | A project per plan per year with tasks, owners and due dates; a calendar of regulatory deadlines |
| Corrections | Corrective distributions, QNECs and late deposit calculations recorded with the reason and approver |
| Filings and reports | Form 5500 data, sponsor reports, participant statements and fee disclosures from the same data |
| Billing and proposals | Fee schedules by plan, invoices, collections and proposals for new business |
| Portals | Role-based access for plan sponsors, participants and advisors |
| APIs and audit trail | Documented APIs, exports, and a record of who changed what and why |
Build, buy or extend
A firm with standard plans and a small team may be well served by a commercial package. Firms that differentiate on service, run unusual plan designs, or spend hundreds of hours a year re-keying data usually gain from custom software or from extending a core system. We discuss the trade-offs in Build vs buy: software for 401(k) TPAs.
Software Home supports all three routes: custom administration software, integrations and automation around your existing platform, and KinetiPlan, our own platform for independent TPAs.
Design principles we apply
- One plan record. Testing, filings and billing read the same plan and census data instead of copies.
- Rules as data. Annual limits, entry dates and plan provisions are configuration with effective dates, not constants in code.
- Exceptions go to people. Validation failures land in a queue with the reason, and staff record the resolution.
- Explainable results. Every test result can be opened to show inputs, formula and outcome.
- Deadline awareness. Corrective distribution, Form 5500 and notice deadlines are dated per plan, so nothing depends on memory.
How KinetiPlan fits
KinetiPlan is Software Home’s product for independent US TPAs. Its pilot build already runs sponsors and plans, participant census, annual administration projects, ADP/ACP, 410(b), top-heavy, 402(g) and 415(c) testing, the compliance calendar, a pooled trust ledger, payroll intake and billing with proposals, using synthetic demo data. It is customer-hosted, in the TPA’s own AWS account in a US region or on-premise. Tour the pilot build.