Ganshert Nursery and Landscapes, a Madison-area-based company specializing in the renovation, design, and construction of residential properties, was starting fresh on a new 401k plan. But it wasn’t long before frustration set in.
“We chose our payroll provider at the time to set up the new 401k plan, but the person we were working with knew nothing about payroll or retirement plans,” recalls Sandee Saunders, office manager at Ganshert. “This resulted in our documents and account being set up incorrectly. I spent months trying to resolve these issues.”
Sandee says no one was specifically assigned to the Ganshert account with this payroll provider, so every time she called, it was directed to a different person in the client services department. She waited months to get a conference call scheduled with a department manager. And once she did, despite reaching out, those phone calls and emails were never returned or answered.
That changed because of Ganshert Accountant, Mike Smieja, of Smieja Tax and Accounting. He knew John Feaman at IPS and asked if their firm could resolve the problems with the Ganshert 401k plan.
“When we came in, Ganshert was experiencing issues with customer service and maintaining two systems – one for payroll and one for time,” says John Feaman, IPS president. “We smoothly transitioned them from a big box store provider to our services that included an all-in-one solution for payroll and time.”
In addition, IPS improved the functionality and services of Employee Self Service & Electronic Time-Off Requests, allowing Ganshert to maintain its PTO balances/requests electronically.
The result, says Sandee, is one system for everything backed up by excellent customer service. Any questions or concerns, she adds, are always answered right away.
“The transition was handled seamlessly and my involvement was minimal,” Sandee says. “This conversion occurred just as Ganshert was heading into the busiest time of the year. The information IPS needed from me was requested in one email. We did not and have not experienced any problems whatsoever with IPS.”
Sandee says she has complete confidence in IPS. In fact, Ganshert will begin transitioning their retirement plan to a provider IPS recommended and is looking forward to working with IPS again during the process.
“I am convinced that my experience will be handled with the same expertise and knowledge I was provided when our time and payroll system was implemented. I cannot say enough about the outstanding customer service at IPS.”