It seems to be my week - NOT!!!

An auditor for one of our plans has requested the following, and they maintain that they are provided this information from 'many' TPA firms:

1. Participant information in an electronic/downloadable format;

2. 5500 information in an electronic/downloadable format; and

3. Access to participant documents (such as enrollment guides!) and other correspondence on the web.

Are other auditors asking for information this way, and is anyone actually providing information this way?

We are not receiving this type of request (yet, anyway...) but we also deal almost exclusively with small employers, so perhaps your case is a larger employer?

I don't recall seeing requests for the type of information you reference in #3. Other than that, the remainder of those items are pretty standard requests from most auditors that I deal with. Frankly, for the last couple years, I don't think I've exchanged any paper with an autitor. Between PDFs and Excel spreadsheets, I can ususally get them everything they want.

DISCO, the indication is that they do not want PDF documents, they want the information either on spreadsheets, or such that they can import the information into their system. They do not want to type anything.

We have been providing PDF files to this auditor in the past, but it seems they now want 'more easily accessible' data.

I was wondering if anyone else, or any of the auditing CPAs reading this are providing/requesting information this way. This particular auditor is claiming that 50% of the TPAs they deal with provide them all three items! And yet I have failed to find even 1 that actually does it.

Without some corroboration it would appear they are 'blowing smoke' and running up the bill.