Employee Benefit Plans

Plan Design & Consultation

When designing employee benefits plans, there is no substitute for working with an expert – someone who can ensure you create the plan you want.  Our employee benefits consulting department guides in developing employee benefit plans that meet the needs of your business and your employees.

The team can guide you in selecting features and making decisions.

• Who will be included? Part-time?  Seasonal?
• Will or how will company contributions be made? Match?  Profit-sharing?
• What compensation will be included in calculating company contributions, if made?
• When will employees be eligible to participate?
• Will employees have access to their account dollars? Financial hardship?  Loans?

Working through these and a variety of other questions when designing the plan will ensure the success of the plan’s objective, ongoing operations, and overall compliance and avoid costly mistakes in the future.

Employee Benefit Plan Audits

Federal law requires that employee benefit plans – such as 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, profit-sharing plans, defined benefit plans, etc. – with 100 or more eligible participants must be audited each year.  As an employer, it is your responsibility to select a public accounting firm to perform these audits.  And, with the increasing complexity of accounting and reporting requirements, it’s important to select a firm that is experienced and trustworthy to handle your audit. At West & Company, our team has decades of experience in providing quality audits.

We believe these audits are more than an obligatory requirement.  Incomplete or mishandled audits can not only result in serious compliance issues but can leave you with inefficient and ineffective benefit plans.  West & Company strives to provide you with a consistent audit team, year-after-year, to provide tools and expertise on how to not only remain compliant but also to provide the best benefit plan for you and your employees

The United States Department of Labor continues to intensify its review and scrutiny of plans and their respective audits, and advises the following:

“One of the most common reasons for deficient accountants’ reports is the failure of the auditor to perform tests in areas unique to employee benefit plan audits. The more training and experience that an auditor has with employee benefit plan audits, the more familiar the auditor will be with benefit plan practices and operations, as well as the special auditing standards and rules that apply to such plans.”

We want to provide our employee benefit clients with the peace of mind that their plan complies with the myriad of rules and regulations, all necessary audit requirements have been met, and their benefit plans are the most efficient and effective for them and their employees.

The AICPA Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center has prepared a document to assist plan sponsors and other stakeholders in the proposal and evaluation process to obtain quality audit services for employee benefit plans.  Click here for more information.