Recently, the AICPA Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center (EBPAQC) issued its sixth Plan Advisory, The Importance of Hiring a Quality Auditor to Perform Your Employee Benefit Plan Audit. As described in the publication’s introduction, this advisory describes why a financial statement audit is important; risks to plan sponsors if a quality audit is not performed; evaluating auditor qualification; the proposal process, including the request for proposal, proposal evaluation and auditor selection; and documenting the agreement. For more than 15 years, HBE has provided services to employee benefit plans with over $50 million in assets. Our commitment to providing quality audit services is demonstrated by our membership in the EBPAQC. This voluntary membership gives our team invaluable access to resources which allow us to provide our clients with the highest quality audit services. With our exclusive insight into benefit plan changes and regulations, our clients have peace of mind knowing that their HBE audit team is well trained on the most current guidelines.

Employee benefit plan services offered by our firm include:

• ERISA Audits
• Tax return preparation (Form 5500; Summary Annual Reports)
• Agreed-upon procedures related to fraud
• Internal control policies creation and revision
• Legislative and regulatory changes consultation
• Department of Labor/Internal Revenue Service audit assistance

In addition to the services listed above, we also provide peer review services to several accounting firms who provide employee benefit plan audits in accordance with our membership in the EBPAQC. Our long-term relationships with our employee benefit plan and EBPAQC peer review clients have provided us with a high level of knowledge specifically related to financial record keeping and reporting needs with the employee benefit plan industry.

For more information about the high quality employee benefit plan audit services offered by our firm, please contact our office at (402) 423-4343.