The following are situations to consider and some helpful items your team can pull together prior to the plan audit: 

•  Were there any changes to the Plan or the Company during the year that should be communicated to your independent auditor, such as a payroll conversion or custodian transfer? 
•  Were there any issues your team ran into during the year, such as a new compensation code in payroll that was not properly setup as 401(k) or 403(b) eligible? Communicating these items to your independent auditor at the start of the audit will help with planning the audit. 
•  Review your permanent file to ensure you have copies of all of the executed and appropriate plan documents on file. 
• Prepare the year end census file that includes all employees, their demographic information, and compensation and contributions for the year. Typically, this file is also used for compliance testing purposes. The correction for certain testing failures may be to refund excess contributions by March 15, so it’s important to prepare the census file in a timely manner. 
•   Internally discuss the timing of the audit. If there are times during the year that are better for your team than others, communicate this to your independent auditor to help establish the timeline for the audit. 

If you are a current or potential client and you would like to discuss the audit process further with our team, we would be happy to have a phone call with you! Please feel free to contact our office at (603) 658-8000 to be connected to a team member.