Pre-Approved Plan Providers

[Benefits Vet]

I am aware of Datair and FT William as qualified plan document providers. Are there any others that you would recommend? Thanks. 

[MoJo]

Relius and ASC.  We use them both.  Recommend?  Well, depends on what you are looking for.

[John Feldt ERPA CPC QPA]

FIS (SunGard) (Relius) (Corbel) (PPD) (etc.)

[Benefits Vet]

2 hours ago, MoJo said:

Relius and ASC.  We use them both.  Recommend?  Well, depends on what you are looking for.

Just documents and annual notices for DC and DB plans (Including cash balance). 

[John Feldt ERPA CPC QPA]

I personally like the Relius (PPD version) for DC plans, especially because of some of the flexibility that is available in the BPD (particularly regarding irregular compensation and for discretionary matching - they've gotten a lot of plans out of some trouble there with that). ftwilliam has additional flexibility in some areas, but less flexibility in other areas. Hard to compare. in my experience, FIS has provided good solid document support. ftwilliam has greatly improved in that area.

I have used the FIS (Corbel) cash balance document in the past. For their PPA restatement, I did not see a place to specifically identify the stability period and the lookback month(s) for any cash balance plan that defines their interest crediting rate as tied to a variable rate, such as the 30-year treasury rate. I see it for the actuarial equivalence/417 definition, but not for defining a non-fixed rate crediting rate. For example, it asks you to select the crediting rate, such as the lesser of the 30-year treasury or 5%, but I do not see where it asks you to define how the 30-year treasury is determined or for how long that rate stays in place. That's a really big deal for a cash balance plan. That said, I am sure this has been pointed out to them and they probably already have a custom language section in their system already to handle with a manual work-around. I do like that they give you a nice checkbox to apply the 1000 hours requirement for accruals only to HCEs (to help with 401a26 for young terminees that leave with few hours).

I use the ftwilliam document now for cash balance due to a change in jobs a few years back. There may be some things in their document that I'd like differently, but it does allow you to define the stability period and lookback period for a plan that does not use a fixed rate as its crediting rate. ftwilliam also has a wonderful time-saving checkbox to say: shall we provide a separate SPD for each cash balance rate group? or just one SPD with everyone's formulas in it?

[Patricia Neal Jensen]

I am the Practice Leader for 403(b) for our firm.  I like FTW.  The documents work well for my clients and I think the Support people are the best (and the fastest)  I have ever worked with. I can get answers to questions and advice about how to implement something in a document in less than 24 hours. 

PNJ