Data intake

Payroll and census integration

Payroll exports, census files and recordkeeper feeds mapped, validated and queued for review before anything is posted.

Home / 401(k) software / Data integration

At a glance

What it is
Intake pipelines that turn payroll and census files from many sources into clean, validated 401(k) plan data.
Sources
Payroll provider CSV exports, SFTP drops, REST APIs and webhooks, and sponsor uploads.
Validation
Dates, hours, duplicates, compensation and deferral limits, and plan source rules, checked row by row.
Exceptions
Failed rows go to a queue with the reason; clean rows can continue.
Who it is for
TPAs, recordkeepers and payroll or benefits providers that exchange 401(k) data.
Data handling
Synthetic or masked data in development; production stays in your environment.
Validation rules

Bad rows are caught at the door

Examples of the checks we build. Your plan documents decide the rest.

Missing or invalid dates

Hire, birth, termination and rehire dates that are blank, impossible or out of order.

Hours and pay

Negative hours, pay with no hours, or year-to-date pay going backwards.

Duplicates

The same employee ID or SSN appearing twice in one file or across files.

Annual limits

Compensation over the 401(a)(17) limit and deferrals over 402(g), flagged before posting.

Source rules

Roth or catch-up amounts where the plan or participant does not allow them.

Eligibility

Entry dates and eligibility computed from the plan's rules, with new entrants listed.

Deposit timing

Contributions received later than your plan's deposit policy, flagged for review.

File-level checks

Wrong pay date, missing columns, totals that do not match the control total.

Change history

Every correction to a row is logged with who made it and why.

From file to ledger

  1. Receive. A file arrives by upload, SFTP or API and is stored unchanged.
  2. Map. The provider's columns are mapped to one internal format.
  3. Validate. Every row runs through the rules; exceptions are listed with reasons.
  4. Review. Your team fixes or accepts exceptions; every decision is recorded.
  5. Post. Clean data posts to the ledger by money source, and totals are reconciled to the file.

You can try a small version of this on our home page: a sample payroll file with eight rows and the exceptions our rules find.

Proof

Work you can check

A US TPA: key financial process automated

A six-month build of a complex financial application for The Retirement Advantage, Inc. (TRA), which in the client's words drastically reduced the manual effort in a key financial process.

Read more

Revenue management software for 401(k) firms

Development of Expand Financial's software that automates revenue management for recordkeepers, TPAs and payroll processors.

Read more

KinetiPlan, our own TPA operating system

Plans, census, annual projects, compliance testing, a recordkeeping ledger, payroll intake and billing in one product. Working pilot build with synthetic data.

Read more
Data integration FAQ

Data intake questions

Something else on your mind? Ask us directly.

Each provider's export gets a mapping to one internal format. New providers are added by configuring a mapping, not by writing new code, and every file goes through the same validation rules.

Missing or invalid hire and birth dates, negative hours, duplicate employee IDs or SSNs, compensation over the annual limit, deferrals over the 402(g) limit, and contributions that do not match the plan's sources. Each exception says which field failed and why.

They go to an exception queue with the reason. Clean rows can post while exceptions are fixed and resubmitted, and every fix is recorded.

We build and test with synthetic or masked data, mask SSNs in the interface, restrict who can see full values, and log access. Production runs in your environment under your controls.

Related

More on 401(k) software

TPA software development

Plan administration systems for US third-party administrators: plan years, census, testing, 5500 data and billing.

Read more

Recordkeeping software development

Participant, source and fund ledgers, contribution posting, loans, distributions and reconciliation.

Read more

Compliance testing automation

ADP/ACP, top-heavy, coverage and annual limit checks that trace every result back to census rows.

Read more
Let's build together

Get Free Quote

For Any Information Call Us Whatsapp info@software-home.net
Contact Software Home
401(k) / TPA solutions

See our work in KinetiPlan

A TPA operating system we built for independent US retirement plan administrators: compliance testing, recordkeeping ledger, payroll intake, projects and billing in one place.