One Retirement Plan. Administrative Headaches
A Pooled Employer Plan (PEP) lets multiple organizations share a single, ERISA-qualified 401(k) and 403(b). You keep your team focused on mission—we shoulder every compliance, regulatory, and audit task.
What Is a Pooled Employer Plan?
A Pooled Employer Plan (PEP) is one ERISA-qualified retirement plan that many unrelated employers share. We will offer both a 401(k) PEP and 403(b) PEP, along with a range of other plans like 457 and IRAs.
- One named fiduciary (that's us). We accept full legal responsibility for compliance testing, audits, investment review, and annual Form 5500 filing.
- Economies of scale. By combining assets across employers, the plan secures institutional-class fund fees and recordkeeping costs that even large single-employer plans struggle to match.
- Turn-key onboarding. You adopt the plan with a brief agreement; employees keep all the familiar features of a traditional 401(k)—plus room for innovative options like our future “Guaranteed Monthly Paycheck for Life.”
Bottom line: you gain a best-in-class retirement benefit while your HR and finance teams regain the hours once spent running a stand-alone plan.
How to Join Our Pooled Employer Plan
Once we launch in 2026, joining our PEP will be straightforward. Get on our email list to be alerted when it is time to sign up. Here’s what will happen:
- Join the Pool: Sign a simple adoption agreement; no need to create your own plan.
- Send Payroll Files: Each pay cycle, upload a contribution file or integrate via API.
- Map Over Assets: We'll work with your existing retirement plan provider to migrate assets into our pools.
- We Do the Rest: Our team handles investments, testing, Form 5500, audits, notices, and vendor oversight.
Your Responsibilities
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Transmit payroll contributions on schedule.
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Periodically confirm—via an annual sign-off—that we are continuing to act in your employees’ best interest. We will provide regular reports on our activities and have a committee of employer adopters with access to board meetings to maintain a high degree of transparency.
No Form 5500. No annual plan audit.
No quarterly investment committee meetings.
Why Employers Choose Our PEP
Lower Fees
Pooled assets = institutional pricing on recordkeeping & investments. This means more money in the retirement accounts of your employees and better returns.
Less Risk
We are the named fiduciary; liability for compliance errors shifts away from you.
Time Back
HR, Finance, and Leadership teams can reclaim hours otherwise spent on plan audits and investment reviews.
Innovation Ready
The PEP scale allows advanced design options—like our future guaranteed monthly retirement income plan—tailored to the charter school workforce.
Email Us
Join our email list to be updated when our PEP is available for your school to join, or send us a question if you'd like to know more now: ncsrs@equable.org