Filing your form 5500 by the final October 15 deadline is essential to avoid penalties from federal agencies like the Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), but what can you do if you’re late? Working with an audit firm to file your late form 5500 can help you minimize the negative consequences while working to get you on track for your next 401(k) plan audit. Kim Moore, Director and 401(k) practice leader, and Karen Hill, audit and assurance manager, discuss best practices and actionable tips for plan sponsors and administrators who find themselves on the wrong side of the October 15th deadline.
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Narrator: Welcome to the 401K audit CPA success show, where we're 100% focused on helping companies across the United States prepare for their 401K audits. If you have 100 eligible participants in your 401K plan, then this podcast is for you.
Kim Moore: Well hello everyone. This is Kim Moore, audit director here at Anders CPA's. And we have this month's podcast ready to go. I have Karen Hill with me, audit manager on the team and welcome, Karen.
Karen Hill: Hello.
Kim Moore: We are going to talk today about a topic that is a little bit timely, but we're also going to kind of veer off into subject matter that that can apply really at any point in time as we're recording this, it's approaching the October 15th deadline. For those folks that may not be familiar, 401K plans need to file what's called a form 5500. It's a tax form. It's an informational return. There's no money due with it. But it is due seven months after the end of the plan year. So for calendar year plans, which most of them are, it's first due date is the end of July. And then your plan record keeper can file for you a extension of time to file the report. Very similar to other tax returns. And then that will give you another couple of months and 1/2 after that due date to actually file the 5500. So in this case your calendar year plan original due date is end of July that extended due date is October 15th. So record recording this as about a month, month out from that, so I wanted to start off this month's podcast talking about if I am a planned sponsor, I'm someone who has a 401K plan for my company and I, maybe I'm aware I need to do this 5500 thing, maybe I'm not. But Karen, I'm sitting here a month out. Uh oh, what am I? What can I do? What can I do now if I have not filed my 5500?
Karen Hill: Well, review the form 5500 and depending on the size of your plan, you may not need an audit, which would be a good thing, which means you can go ahead and review the 5500, approve it and file. So, if you do need an audit, however, and at this late date probably not a good chance that it's going to get done by October 15th because most audit firms are pretty full. But not to say they won't take it and we'll get into all that later, but probably won't get it completed by October 15th. But you want to make sure that you still file your 5500. You can file it with a letter that indicating that the audit isn't complete and that will mean that you'll have to make an amended filing later on, but that according to the DOL and the IRS is the best practice to do. It's to go ahead and file it with the letter attached and don't just- basically it's like playing Russian roulette, if you don't file it and hoping that they don't realize that you didn't file your 5500.
Kim Moore: Right. Yeah, which we see people do.
Karen Hill: Yeah, we need lots of people do that.
Kim Moore: We were at a conference sponsored by the AICPA and several of the kind of upper management, if you will, of the IRS and the DOL both spoke and they both recommended, strongly recommended, that you go ahead and file the 5500. Even if you don't have the audit done as Karen said, included a letter or some other notice, which usually you'll have to do if it needs an audit you need to attach something otherwise it won't even take the filing. But go ahead and do that because that will at least show intent that you're working on it and you know, of course, by the time you do that in, in, in a best case scenario, you've got an audit, it's underway. It's just not quite complete yet. If not, we're going to talk a little bit more about what do you do next. But you know, get that filing completed, so at least there's something on record. They know that that is coming. Can't guarantee anything, but a lot of times that will help either mitigate the fine that you might get for being late, or maybe just negate it entirely. Maybe you won't get a fine. It kind of depends, but it does give you at least some options where if you're not filing, as Karen said, you're really kind of playing Russian roulette there to see what happens. A lot of times, that doesn't work out very well as we count.
Karen Hill: No.
Kim Moore: The other thing. I would say is that if you do get a notice from the IRS or the DOL, regardless of whether you filed the 5500 or not, don't just kind of put it to the side and say, well, they'll probably, you know, it'll probably be OK. It won't it. It will definitely not be OK.
So if you're getting any kind of notice, usually those notices come as like a certified letter and it'll have a date stamped at the top. That's the kind of the official date that that notice kind of went on record. But they have been starting to use. Now which we've talked about before on this podcast, we don't really understand why they're doing that, but you may get an e-mail too, saying, “hey, we noticed that you filed a 5500 before, but we didn't see one for this year.” And of course, the IRS and the DOL both are expecting that your plan will continue. So if you had a plan and you filed a 5500 last year, they're expecting you're gonna have one this year. If for some reason, like the plan terminated, all the assets were paid out. There's ways you mark the form. That way that they will know not to continue expecting the form in in future years. So if you don't, you know, if that doesn't apply, the plan is continuing on or you don't mark it that way. They are going to expect a form for the next year and they will be sending correspondence. So regardless of all that, get the correspondents, don't ignore it. Pay attention to what it says, call them, respond, do something.
Karen Hill: Oftentimes the correspondence, the letters that we've seen, they'll often come with, we expect you to file the four 5500 with the audit report attached within a certain amount of time. Usually I believe the 1st letter is usually like 45 days from the date of this letter. I don't think the emails have said that, but if you've received an e-mail that means you're on the radar and you need to to get the, you need to get the audit done and get that filed as soon as possible.
Kim Moore: Once you get that communication, you lost the Russian roulette because they know about you and they're following up and they will not forget, they will keep checking and ultimately, you know it, it will get resolved in some way, which could mean a fine. We've seen fines coming for these late filings, $50,000 to $60,000 fine. I mean there they can be pretty hefty fines. Not always certainly but we have seen some that are pretty hefty fine. So definitely is I mean it doesn't matter what the what the communication reason is, but don't ignore the letter. Make sure you read it or the e-mail. Read it, and if you have not taken the action, I and I would say regardless I would give them a call and just let them know that, you know, whatever state you're in that that you're, you know, you're taking it seriously and that's really all they want. They want ultimately, the plan to do the right thing and they'll work with you if they know that you're trying to do the right thing, if you ignore them, then that's where those fines start kicking in. And they can be pretty hefty fine. So. So. So that's what you should do kind of in the in the short run here, in the near term to get that 5500 filed. Now Karen, let's assume that I just found out maybe or I just realizing that we have not filed 5500, we got about a month and, Ohh my word, I need an audit and I don't have an auditor. I haven't even started looking for one. Besides panicking, what are some of the things I should think about as I'm going out to? To try to look for an auditor?
Karen Hill: Well, you want to see if they have the capacity to do the audit. Obviously at this late date, they probably will not get it completed by October 15th. But you know if they have the capacity to do the audit. They might, they could potentially get it done not long after October 15th. Mainly the reason right now is just that there's not enough time to do all of the steps to complete the audit. Like even if you had a person that started on it today. There's so many different things that the back and forth that usually takes about, you know, it could take six weeks, if everything goes really well, to complete the audit. And that's just not enough time. But if they have the capacity to do the audit, you know that it might be possible that you get it done in October or early in November. So you want to ask if they have the staffing that they can actually do the audit, ask about other audits. Is this good like that they say, Oh yeah, we can do the audit, but it's going to go at the end of the end of the line, and so maybe they have the capacity that they could potentially do the audit, but they're not going to be able to get to it until November, December. That might not work with your timeline. If you want to get everything done quickly. And then just ask them how long will it take to complete the audit and of course, as we'll go on to talk about later, some of that is going to be dependent upon you and how responsive you are, but just ask them for a general idea of the timeline for the audit.
Kim Moore: Right. I think you know in dealing with the folks that call us to see if we can take on an audit at the late stage, a lot of the conversation is around how quickly you know, could you get it started. I think most people understand that it's kind of late in the day. You've probably got a lot going on, but you know how quickly can you get started? And I think one of the things to consider, we're a little bit different here at Anders on the on the team that Karen and I both work on, we focus on 401K plans all year long. That's not real common, it's not…We're not the only ones that that work like that, but it isn't common and so most CPA firms, although they may do 401K plan audits, benefit plan audits and they may have the people that are trained, we're going to talk a little bit more about raining and expertise here in a minute, but they may have all of that. But when they roll out of the E BP season because you're past that October 15th deadline, they have other audits that they have to get started on and that's very important because for most firms that period from mid January through about May is extremely busy. That's the busiest time of the year for them, and so they can do some work in November, December to alleviate that crush that they have in the first few months of the year. So that work is extremely important. So you know you want to be careful as you're talking to the auditor because they may tell you. Oh, sure we do these audits all the time, you know, happy to help you and, yeah, we'll we'll get started on it. But really, they're not going to really be able to get started on it until May or June of next year, which is about the time you should start next year’s audit. So now you're going to be two years behind. So, might want to be a little bit careful and have a little bit more extended conversation in those areas.
I mentioned background and expertise. I mean this is an area that you want to be really careful in. So if you're talking to couple of potential audit firms and they say “yeah, we've got capacity, we've got staff,” how many audits do they do of this particular type, not just audits in general. EBP audits are very compliance oriented. They're very regulated and they're a lot different. They cover a lot of different areas than a standard financial statement audit will cover. They're going to have those standard financial statement audit pieces to them, but there's the bigger components of them and where the auditor is going to spend the majority of their time has to do with the compliance elements, making sure that your plan is adhering to all those compliance requirements. So there are some very specific requirements that the audit firm needs to adhere to, and not every firm is comfortable with those and really knows what they're doing when it comes to these plans. So you want to spend a little bit of time with whoever you're talking to from your perspective auditor to find out how many audits of this specific type do they do a year? How many staff do they have? What are the qualifications of the staff and the folks that are managing those audits, because they're going to be the ones reviewing it and making sure everything got done. What kinds of training do they get every year? We do some pretty extensive training here on at Anders and specifically on this team in particular, we get more than, and this is staff levels, get more than 40 hours of training a year. That's a whole week of training dedicated specifically to this type of work, and that's pretty unusual. You're not going to see that in most firms. So you wanna- that's an area that you really want to kind of probe a little bit more on background experience.
Karen Hill: Yeah, because the requirements really are not that it's. I think it's 8 hours every two years for partners. So, you know, getting- that's bare bones. So if you want to see if they get more training than that, hopefully.
Kim Moore: Yeah. And I think that may factor into your decision because probably going to talk to more than one audit firm, even though you're kind of down to crunch time here. And that you know that may influence your decision. You know that may help you decide that firm has a little bit better experience level than maybe somebody else. One other thing that I always like to bring up is something it's a big mouthful. It's called the AICPA, which the AICPA is the governing body over accountants and auditors. Anyone dealing in the kind of the accounting space, that's the professional body that that group kind of belongs to and they provide a lot of oversight and also training and things like that. The AICPA has a group that they call the Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center, so it's EBPAQC. Like I said, it's a mouthful, and that group provides training to the folks that belong to it. There are certain requirements that you have to uphold to be able to belong to it. It's voluntary, not everybody is going to be a member of that group. And there, like I said, there are requirements and you have to pay to belong. But they do provide a lot of additional training, a lot of extra materials that you can use to make sure you're doing the right kinds of things in the audit. And one of the things they do is provide a conference every year. It's in May. Last year, it was in Las Vegas. So it's usually in the nice place. But it's three days of extensive training specifically on benefit plans, benefit plan, you know requirements reporting you know accounting for benefits, the whole thing that gets incorporated into EBP audits. It's a very specific conference and our team here, our whole team, attends every year. That is extremely unusual to have staff people going every year usually a firm the size of Anders will send maybe one person maybe every year. Maybe only every other year or something, and to have the whole team going is very unusual. In fact, our head of audit has been going the last couple of years since we've been a part of the group. So those are that we just give that as an example, not trying to toot our own horn. We are a little bit, but it's really just to give you an example of how complex this area is and the depth of understanding that you need to really do these audits and do them well. And also the ever changing nature of it. Because it is regulated by the federal government, Congress is passing laws all the time that impact benefit plans, and the purpose of the law and they have nothing to do with benefit plans at all. It could be something around veterans benefits or something, but included in it may be a little piece that's going to impact 401K plan. And we as auditors need to make sure we understand all of those different components, when they become effective and then we're going to be auditing against that. That's a very important part of what we do. And so you do need to keep up on all of those changes and they're happening all the time. So another reason that it's important to understand the expertise about of the auditors. Another thing, Karen, I think folks should ask about is audit process. So what kind of things do we looking at there?
Karen Hill: Yes. Well, you would want to ask are they going to come on site or will they be able to do the audit remotely? Our team is mostly remote. I say mostly because there are, I think, one or two audits where we do some on site work, but most of it’s done remotely, so you would want to know which they're gonna do. And there's different requirements that are different things that you will need to do and to provide depending on if they're going to be on site or if they're going to do it remote. If they're on site, you have to consider the timing of when they're going to be there. Make sure that the person who is going to be the contact person, who's going to get all the information they need to be able to answer the questions, they need to be present as well while they're out on site. It really will not help if the auditors are there and the person who's primarily in charge of doing most of the processing of the 401K plan for all of the transactions isn't around. And also there may be travel time involved depending on how far away the firm is from you, I mean they're probably going to charge you for travel time regardless of how close they are, but if they're, if they're far away, some of that travel time might- they might cut into the time that they actually spend on the audit. So you need to be aware of that. Consider the type of audit that you need. Is it a pretty basic plan or is it more complex? So obviously the more complex the plan is you want to make sure that the firm that you hire is going to be able to understand your plan and to be able to do the appropriate testing that they need to do for that. Consider the documentation you have. Is it mostly paper or is it mostly electronic, where your participants will go into the website and make all of their elections online? So everything that you're going to get from your record keeper is basically just going to be an electronic form. There's going to be PDF's and Excel spreadsheets. So then everything will be just, you'll just be able to download it from the website, but some people still use paper enrollment forms, so you need to take that in consideration because it's an on site audit, you have to have those available and if it's a remote audit, you're going to have to be able to send those to your auditor.
Kim Moore: Yeah, scan them and send them.
Karen Hill: Yes, right, right. And then consider your staffing. Do you have somebody who is a real go getter? That's OK. It's time to do the audit and they're going to be OK. “I'm going to make sure I get all of this done,” and they understand what's going to be needed or is the person going to need a little bit more hand holding? And the auditor is going to have to try to explain. We've seen the gamut.
Kim Moore: We certainly have, yeah. And you know, we bring up all of these points, not that any one is good, bad or either. I mean an on site audit is fine, the remote audit is fine, they both get the job done. One may be more appropriate though in certain circumstances. You know, if you've got a whole lot of paper and you don't have a real ability to scan, that's going to be a real problem for you. Then maybe you want to go the route of having somebody come on site just because it's just easier because the stuff's all paper. If it's, you know, if that's not an issue for you or a lot of your documentation is already electronic, then loading it for your remote auditors is going to be probably easier, to be honest. And you know, we're doing this podcast, assuming you're in a hurry because you're already behind the 8 ball getting started on the audit. So you don't want to have to wait for the auditor have time to come to your office, you know, scheduled time. Maybe they're going to get interrupted. Then they'll have to come back again another week. You don't want to be spending all that time if a remote auditor can just get in, get it done. Remote auditors can work different schedules usually than an on site auditor can. We're not tied to when is your office physically open? You know, when do you have a conference room available? You know, we can work around things. And if the person that we really need to work with, maybe it, you know, can be contactable and they're physically not going to be in the office, then you know, and maybe they, they don't work in the office, maybe they work in a different state or something. You know, we can work around that a little better than a lot of times the auditors that are going to go to the office and that physically sit there. We kind of bring up all of that. Like I said, not that anyone is good or bad. They both can work, but it's just things for you to think about as you're, you know, trying to make the decision because that that will help in your choosing your auditor, and then ultimately help you to get the audit done and get it filed quickly, which is you're- kind of what you're trying to do here. I also think it's a good idea to ask the auditor, you know, explain the situation when you're having the conversation with the auditor about to about what's happened. You know, I'm. I don't know how many times I start the conversation and it's, you know, I just found out I need an audit. And it's October 10th and I just found out it's due October 15th. You know, I I know how many times I have heard that and you know, I feel for the people, obviously, but I- that helps me to understand the situation you're in and then I can maybe give you a little bit of guidance on what to do first. And then as we get started with the audit, you know how to handle it. It also is helpful to know what are your plans. I mean sometimes folks call and they’re- “It's October 10th. I just found out this is due the 15th and I don't have time to to be dealing with this right now. I just need to get an auditor and then let's set up a date to get started on the audit in January or something.” Other people are panicked. “It's October. 10th, this is due the 15th. I need to go right now. Can you start right now?” I, you know, again, I've seen the gamut of how people respond in those situations. So be honest with your auditor that will help them to be honest with you and give you some suggestions on you know what best to do? What things not to do? They there may be things that the auditor can do to help expedite getting the audit started. Like getting access to a website. You know your plan maybe with one of the bigger record keepers like a fidelity. Or an ADP, or a Charles Schwab or something, and you can give them direct access and that will help move the auditor. You may be able to get direct access to their payroll system, so you're with Paycom and you can get direct access and they can pull the stuff themselves. So the the auditor can can kind of help you here but you you need to kind of reach out and show that you're you're willing to to help.
Karen Hill: Yeah. And. Yeah. And I could tell you the access to the record Keeper website is huge for the auditor because lots of times what we find if people don't give us access is they're not pulling the reports that we need. And there's a lot of back and forth, whereas the auditor we know because we're on those websites, all the. Time we know. Exactly where to go for those reports. So it really will save you a lot of headaches if you give your auditor access to the website.
Kim Moore: Absolutely, yeah. And and listen to them, they're they they know what they need. They know. You know, if you try to circumvent it, it's just going to take more time because auditors have required steps. They have to do. And if you try to circumvent those steps.
Karen Hill: Mm-hmm.
Kim Moore: You know you're you're on it. It's not going to get finished. So. So definitely listen to your auditor. I think that that's a real important area to help expedite the process. And and it's a good idea regardless of when it is in the year that you're doing the audit. And of course you want to ask about price. We get, we get that a lot. That's usually the first question is.
Karen Hill: Yes.
Kim Moore: You know, first question is can you do the audit? Second question is how much it's going to cost. People sometimes are surprised by the the cost of these audits. They are not cheap and that's because of all of the things that we have to do. As auditors, you you're not going to go talk to 10 different firms and you're going to see a huge variety in price and in scope of what they're doing because that's not set. By the auditor, per say, as you get into the details, it is but the general things that we have to do as auditors is the same for every audit firm. We're all governed by the same rules, so. You know, we don't have a lot of of leeway there to, to change that procedure, so. But anyways they they can be very. Very expensive, and if you're not familiar with how. Much autists cost. You may be able maybe get a. Little sticker shock, but. The one thing I always like to say, and I I'm not going to get into the specifics of actual pricing. Because, you know, we're not exactly sure when you're going to be listening to this and and pricing changes, but. Pricing shouldn't be your sole determinant, you know, as you're making a decision. And I know you're at this point probably in hurry and you wanna hurry up and and find an auditor. Let's just go with the cheapest 1. I talked to you ultimately are responsible for the audit. I know you're hiring an auditor. You're expecting that auditor has good expertise. They know what they're doing. And in the most of the cases, they will, but you ultimately are responsible for the auditor, the IRS and DOL regulate the plan, and the plan sponsors, they have no authority over the auditors. So they're going to come after you if the audit is insufficient. So you know you want to be careful that who you get it may save you a couple of bucks now, but it'll cost you a whole.
Karen Hill: Mm-hmm.
Kim Moore: Lot more if. If one of the regulators comes in and and finds that it's deficient, so yeah. So price is important. Obviously, you don't want to pay more than you have to for the audit, but. You don't want that to be your sole determining factor as you're as you're making your determination. A couple of things, just to point out with pricing, there's different ways audits can be priced. We here at Anders on my team use a fixed fee approach. So based on a few factors that we'll talk about, as I'm having conversations with the prospect, we'll determine the price. That's pretty much the price we're going to set. We we would only. Change that price if things turn out to be different than what you thought at the beginning, I'm not gonna get into a whole big discussion about all those factors, but generally the pricing will stay the same then. Uh. You know from that point forward, other firms don't use that same approach. They may use like a per hour charge and especially if you're late in the game here, they may want to impose a little bit of a kind of pricing penalty. And so they may want to charge per hour, they may charge an estimated fee, which of course could change. As they get into it, so pricing it kind of depends on. The the firm and just what their pricing is, but also. What? What the? Auditor finds when they get into it, so they may think the audit is going to be A and when I get into it, it's actually a plus something and so that that will impact the price. So my suggestion is be as honest and upfront as you can in those discussions because. You don't want to find out the audit is going to be a dollar amount and then you find out a month in oh, wait a minute. It's that times 150% or something. You know that that could be a pretty big surprise and and and you're too far end to to say Oh well, wait a minute. I'm going to get a different auditor now but. You know, you just don't really like the outcome on that pricing. So just be a little bit careful with that I also. Which is kind of a more of a minor point, but ask them what their payment policy is. So do they want all the money up front? Are they going to wait till the end which those are both unusual? Are they going to Bill monthly? Are they going to bill, you know, halfway through or something? Just so, you know. And so you're finance. Group can be prepared cause like I said, these aren't cheap, so and you've probably budgeted nothing for the for the audit price because you didn't know you needed one. So just ask those kind of things up front. Just just to help smooth process along and. So it doesn't cause a bump in the road as you're trying to get the audit done quickly. Anything else you can think of on that point that I might have missed, Karen?
Karen Hill: Not that I could think of, no.
Kim Moore: OK. Well, I think those are the main the main things that that we suggest you consider. So obviously price, but timing the staff, the training you know their expertise, how many audits do they do, they're out of process. Those are those are all kind of the main areas that. That we suggest people consider. I'm sure there are others, but those I think cover the the the most important things. Obviously you want to make a decision as quickly as possible because you want to get the auditor started. You want to get them going. You also don't want to lose a slot because auditors are only going to have so much time and like. Said as you start getting into that November, you got stuff, holidays coming up November, December and you start getting into January depending on the firm, they may do a lot of tax work or they may have other other audits that they have to do starting in January. So get in, get it started, try to get it wrapped up as quickly as possible. We always say be responsive to your. Auditor, you know. You know, don't ignore them. Don't think if I just don't give them that they'll they'll just move on and they won't. You know I won't have to give them that. That never works. I'll just tell you that that 100% of the time that is not going to work. The auditor is asking for something because they really need it, and they're not going to be able to complete the audit without it. So. You know, if you're, if you're late in the day, getting the honest started, you might want to have regular meetings with the audit firm or the auditor. So you know, whether that's daily, weekly, whatever kind of timing you're looking at, but probably regular communications are better just to make sure that nobody's waiting on the other party. Again, it's it's a communication issue or you know that just something's getting held up in that communication gap. You also want to be careful on how you're passing documents back and forth because a lot of what you're going to be giving the auditor is very confidential information. It's going to include Social Security numbers. Pay. Information people's personal information could even include medical information, depending on what kind of benefit plan it is. So it's highly. Confidential information. So we've talked in other podcasts about cyber security risks and just the whole security aspects. I'm not going to. Go deep into that. But but be very careful with that as as you're discussing with the auditor. And actually moving in. To the audit process. Obviously you want to you want to get the audit done as quickly as possible and then immediately file the 5500 with the revised auto report. That will kind of stop the timer on the. The fee. Clock, if you will, and so that that will help you in the long run. So you want to get in, get it done, get it filed and then. Talk to the. Auditor about the next year's audit. Because by the time you get done.
Karen Hill: It's going to be time for the next year's audit prom or close to. Yep, it'll be time to get started. So, and my guess is you will not want to do the late thing again. The mad dash at the end. And. Your other certainly won't.
Kim Moore: Yeah. No, no. No, none of us like the mad scramble at the end. It it's not pleasant for us. It's not pleasant for you. It's not gonna be pleasant for your staff and and dealing with the fallout from it. It's certainly not pleasant. So the other thing is you don't know what your auditor is gonna run into either because a lot of these are first time. Audits, so you know you may be finding out things that you didn't do right or the auditor maybe having trouble working through a particular test stuff because. You know, it's new to everybody. Nobody's looked at this before, so it it's probably going to take more time than what you think, probably more time than what your auditors planning. So you know you you want to be responsive and you want to get in and out as quickly as possible and and then get ready. And and we always tell folks here too is is much easier. In the first year, that's always true. Yeah. Just because the auditor then knows your plan, they know your how it works. They know your company and they know the the staffing and it it just makes everything much easier. So. Kind of buckle down. Get that first one done and then. The whole process will will get. A lot easier as you move forward. Karen, any any last thoughts as we? Kind of wrap up for today.
Karen Hill: I just want to reiterate that responsiveness really will help push your audit along fast. Mr. Because that and then that helps with your auditor as well, because if they ask for something and you get it back to them quickly, then it's a lot easier for them to go back to what they were working on when they requested that item. If you delay in getting it to them, then the auditor has to take just like you would if you had it, any test that you were doing. It's going to take you a few minutes to try to remember where was I in this? What did I need this for? So yes, responsiveness really will make the audit go much faster. I've. It's it's a huge difference. It can make a difference between getting your audit done and five to six weeks or five to six months.
Kim Moore: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, just like, you know, you just think of anything you do if you have to set it down and then pick it back up again, you know, that's not efficient. And so clearly here you're you're already kind of late in the day. So you want to. The audit and the auditor to be as efficient as possible. Also, absolutely, and I think you know when we've talked about this before, don't be afraid to ask questions of the auditor too. So if they're asking for something and and you're not sure what it is that they're asking for, maybe they're asking for something and you're like, well, I could get that report 5 or 6, you know, kind of different formats or something. You know, and that's why I think having regular meetings is helpful because that way you can say, hey, OK, I just saw this request for this payroll report. I can get that to you as PDF or I could get it to you as excel. Does it matter? I've got, you know, I hear we hear all the time you need a year end payroll report. Well, I go into my payroll system and there's 1000 year end payroll. You know which one do you need. And so don't just guess and give them something and hope you know hope that's going to work because because yeah. Yeah. So that, that regular communication is very important the, you know being response is very important. And then the just kind of following up and asking questions I think is also important. And then the auditor is not going to be upset that you asked them a question. Don't don't feel like that. So I don't want to make them mad or offend. Them or something? You know, they would prefer you ask them versus you give them something and it's the wrong thing and then they've got to come back and then, oh, that's not right either. And I've got to come back. That's. That's gonna upset the auditor more than you asking them a whole bunch. Of questions.
Karen Hill: Yes, yes, it's very it's very frustrating when it feels like the person's just like throwing everything at. I'm just trying to see, OK, which one? 'S going to stick.
Kim Moore: Yeah. Yeah, that's. That's not a good thing. It just doesn't work out very well for anybody. And it will frustrate you because you'll have to keep. You'll have to keep doing it until you find the right thing and that's. You know, obviously not in the best interest of being efficient trying to get the the audit done so well with that, I think we're going to wrap up for this month. We thank you for joining us and listen to what we had to say. If you have any suggestions for our next month podcast or if you have any questions about what you heard today. You know, don't hesitate to reach out. We'd be happy to to talk about our process here at Anders or or answer any questions that you may have. I want to wish everybody well as we head into the final stretch trying to get their audits done and get that get those 5500. Child's gonna wish you all the best in trying to get all that wrapped up. So again, give us any. Give us a call if you have any questions and we look forward to seeing you next month. Thank you.
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