Pontera has rolled out a bulk rebalancing feature designed to cut down the hours advisors spend managing workplace retirement accounts that share the same plan lineup.
The new capability addresses a problem that has grown alongside advisors' push to bring held-away retirement assets into their broader client strategy. When several clients hold accounts in the same employer-sponsored plan, their investment options are identical, yet advisory teams have historically had to rebalance each account one at a time.
Pontera said the new workflow was among its most-requested features.
"Advisory firms have been clear about the challenge: When many clients share the same workplace plan, repeating similar work account by account is time-consuming and difficult to scale," Dave Goldman, Pontera's chief business officer, said in a statement.
"Bulk Rebalancing streamlines that work, helping advisory teams get upwards of three hours per plan back while maintaining the review and control they need," he continued. "By reducing manual work, firms can spend less time on administrative tasks and more time serving clients."
Under the new system, advisory teams first build a plan-specific portfolio, setting a target allocation from the investments available within a given workplace plan and, where relevant, mapping it to end-client risk profiles. Eligible accounts are then assigned to that portfolio without orders being created automatically.
When it comes time to trade, authorized users select which assigned accounts are ready, review proposed activity account by account, and submit approved orders together in a single pass. Pontera said built-in validations run before any order is created, and a rebalance history tracks submitted, attempted, and unsubmitted orders so teams can follow up where needed.
"Scale only works when teams can remain in control of the workflow," said Michal Bar, Pontera's director of product management. "Bulk Rebalancing lets firms standardize portfolio management at the plan level while keeping account-level review and oversight. Teams can scale their operations without giving up control."
The release follows Pontera's broader push to deepen its footprint in advisors' technology stacks. The company deepened its data-sharing partnership with Orion Advisor Technology this spring, feeding held-away retirement account data directly into Orion's Eclipse trading environment so advisors can build household-level portfolio management workflows without switching platforms.
The launch lands as shifts in the retirement plan landscape over the years have redefined how pre-retirees' nest eggs are invested. According to Vanguard's "How America Saves 2026" report, 76% of plan assets were invested in equities in 2025, an allocation that has risen over the past decade.
Balanced strategies – chiefly target-date funds – accounted for 48% of assets, including 45% in target-date funds specifically. On the contribution side, 80% of plan dollars went into equities in 2025, and 64% of contribution dollars flowed into target-date funds, Vanguard found.
Participant-level allocations varied by age more than by income, the report found. Vanguard reported that participants younger than 45 years old held a median equity allocation near 90%, while participants 65 or older held a median allocation of 50%, reflecting more conservative positioning as retirement nears. The average participant-weighted equity allocation across all participants stood at 79% in 2025.
"The growth of target date funds is dramatically reshaping DC plan investment patterns by increasing age-appropriate equity allocations and reducing extreme allocations," Vanguard said.
Separate research by the Investment Company Institute found that 401(k) participants across all ages are starting to move away from TDFs, with the oldest workers being most likely to exit them entirely rather than slowly dial down their exposures. Among full-TDF investors in their 60s at year-end 2016, 11% had moved to a 0% TDF allocation by year-end 2022 — roughly double the rate seen in every other age group.
The way ICI's researchers see the data, workers approaching retirement are more likely to want greater control over their portfolios, with the ability to tailor their asset allocation to their own income needs and risk tolerance as opposed to riding along a predetermined glide path.
The desire to invest on their own terms may not be the best thing for retirement plan participants. In a previous interview with InvestmentNews, Brenden Gebben, founder and CEO of Absolute Capital, said those workplace savers tend to take on inappropriate levels of investing risk if they're left without an advisor.
“A lot of times you get that first look [at a portfolio] before you’re helping the client," he said. "Greater than 50% of the time, it’s what I call mis-risk aligned."
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