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Fenner, Melstrom & Dooling PLC
Accountants who think like business owners.
We are your strategists, advisors and confidants.
We treat your business like our own: spending time at your facilities, participating in your planning and assigning senior professionals to guide you.
Our ultimate goal is to help you make more money. Working with us, you will learn to increase earnings and keep more for yourself.
News
FMD Updates
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By Matt Dixon
Due to the increasing complexity of fee structures set by 401(k) providers, small and mid-sized businesses are often paying a wide range of plan fees and related expenses. Effective July 1, 2012 plan service providers must provide disclosure of plan-related fees. In addition, participants are required to receive quarterly notification of fees charged to their accounts.
This is generally good news for both employers and employees as both parties want maximum value and transparency. This comes with added responsibility for employers, as they need to ensure plan costs are reasonable and the mix of investments is adequately diversified. Plan administrators that do not take action to adjust or replace expense-heavy plans will find that employees have more ammunition to request plan changes. Plan administrators have a fiduciary responsibility to plan participants and are expected to act prudently when choosing service providers for their plan.
As members of the AICPA's Employee Benefit Plan Quality Center, Fenner, Melstrom & Dooling performs audits of employee benefit plans for compliance purposes. AICPA requires our professionals to meet certain education requirements and also subject our audits to a specific external review process. As our clients are primarily businesses, rather than non-profit or government entities, employee benefit plan auditing has become a larger practice area in our firm during the summer months when plan audits typically take place.
We also advise employers in choosing a suitable benefit plan. There are many choices from 401(k) and individual 401(k) plans, Profit Sharing Plans, Safe Harbor Plans, SEPs and SIMPLEs. For example, we have clients who may be better suited to a SEP or SIMPLE plan in which the administrative costs are lower and the deferral opportunity for the business owner may be greater. Since we do not receive revenue from managing or administering the accounts or the investments inside of them, we are able to provide objective advice to our clients in an independent manner, free of any actual or perceived conflict of interest.
Please contact us if we can be of further assistance with the new disclosure rules, or an independent review of your employee benefit plan.
