Auditing the Auditor: Questions to Ask Before Selecting an Employee Benefit Plan Auditor

If your employee benefit plan is required to have an audit, one of the most important duties of the plan administrator is to hire an independent qualified public accountant as the benefit plan auditor. Why is your role so important? Substandard audit work can:

• Be costly to plan administrators and sponsors
• Jeopardize plan assets
• Result in significant penalties

If you are in the process of selecting an audit firm or trying to determine if there may be red flags on your last 401(k) audit experience, there are questions you should be asking your auditor to ensure you are receiving a quality audit.

To assist you in performing your search, we wanted to share questions to ask when determining the quality of an existing or prospective 401(k) audit firm.

We encourage all organizations to perform this level of due diligence to ensure the auditors they engage are qualified, candid, and objective; and their reports will be accurate and comprehensive delivering the value and quality you deserve.

If you would like to discuss these questions with our Employee Benefit Plan Audit team – please contact us.