Help with Distributions

[Oh so SIMPLE]

Our pension document provider supplied us with blank form notices and distribution elections behind one of the tabs in the binder they sent to us.

We administer sign-up's and distributions in-house. A recent, informal compliance audit of our plan records showed that 32% of the packages we'd put together or the elections we'd based payouts on were incorrect or incomplete. (We had less than 0.1% error rates in providing SPDs, safe harbor notices, and 401k sign-up's.) Our risk management director wants us to outsource preparing distribution compliance.

Neither our pension document provider and our Form 5500 provider will prepare distribution notice/election packages, or routinely review completed and signed elections that we receive back. Our pension document provider did explain that they based our plan documents on documents the provider obtained from Sungard Relius.

Does Sungard or some other company offer a service of preparing distribution notice/election packages based on Sungard plan documents, review elections turned back in, and then advise us of when and how to make payout?

What I would really like, if it is available, would be an online service where one of our benefits employees could log in, enter information about the terminated employee and her benefits, and then it would generate the notices and elections appropriate for her in light of our Sungard documents. Does anyone know of such an online service?

[John Feldt ERPA CPC QPA]

I think Rollover Solutions might do something like this, but I think they rely on you to provide the initial sets of accurate payout forms when it gets set up. After that, they use those forms until you send modified forms to them. I'm gueesing from memory of a conversation we had with one of their folks.

[Guest Sieve]

Many (most?) TPAs provide distribution paperwork (perhaps even on-line) to participants, and confirm that it is properly compelted before taking the next step of processing distributions.

You have a document provider and a 5500 preparer, but do you have a TPA (who probably also can prepare 5500s)? If not, I wonder who's performing compliance testing.