Sharrard, McGee & Co, PA is pleased to be the professional accounting firm that many companies trust to audit their employee benefit plans. Their confidence in our highly specialized ERISA experience and knowledge of the changing rules and regulations of the Department of Labor (DOL), Internal Revenue Service and other state and federal regulators is well-placed. A study by the DOL revealed that nearly 40% of the audits of employee retirement plans are done incorrectly with serious consequences that may jeopardize plan assets and result in civil penalties to the plan administrator. They suggested that plan administrators evaluate the firm conducting these audits based on five quality factors. These include:
Sharrard, McGee & Co., PA completed 33 audits of employee benefit plans for the 2017 calendar year. We audited a wide variety of plans including defined contribution, defined benefit, ESOP and health and welfare plans. We performed both limited scope audits and full scope audits for these clients.
Sharrard, McGee & Co, PA understands that employee benefit plans are unique and have special requirements for auditing. Therefore, we currently have 9 staff members that specialize in ERISA audit work and all team members attain at least 8 hours of certified professional education specifically relating to employee benefit plan audits each year. One of our team members attends the annual American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) conference on employee benefit plans and is the Chair of the NCACPA Employee Benefit Plan Committee.
Sharrard, McGee & Co, PA is licensed in North Carolina and is in good standing with our state board.
Sharrard, McGee & Co., PA is proud to say that we have not been the subject of any DOL findings and have not been referred to a state board of accountancy or the AICPA.
Sharrard, McGee & Co, PA had our last peer review as required – every other year. We received a clean opinion with no findings. In addition to the items indicated by the DOL, we are also a member of the AICPA Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center (EBPAQC). We have been a member since the center formed in 2004. Center members agree to be held to higher standards than other professionals, including:
Director Connie Laster has been designated as this partner at Sharrard, McGee & Co, PA.
That is the minimal amount of training required by our team.
Director Connie Laster and many of our managers participate in the webinars.
We have these policies and procedures in place.
These inspections are performed every year by directors or managers on the employee benefit plan audit team. The inspector must be someone that was not involved in the audit team for the client chosen for inspection.
This information is easily accessible.
We included an employee benefit plan audit in the most recent peer review.
We have complied each year with the EBPAQC documentation requests. Sharrard, McGee & Co, PA is committed to providing quality audits to all of clients, and our proud of our impressive track record in providing employee benefit plan audits to a growing number of business clients. Please call us to discuss your next audit.
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