Signing 5500 on behalf of clients

[austin3515]

Under the DOL's new procedures that allow the TPA's to sign the 5500 on their behalf (i.e., they fax us the manually signed copy, etc), how are you completing the signature line? Are you leaving the actual plan administrators name, and then entering the TPA credentials (which obviously don't match the name), or are you entering the TPA credentials AND the corresponding TPA name as plan administrator?

As far as I can tell, this is not addressed anywhere...

[Tom Poje]

the DOL website you use to view 5500 that have been filed

http://www.efast.dol.gov/portal/app/dissem...?execution=e1s1

contains the following blurb:

The EFAST2 electronic filing system allows the plan administrator to authorize a practitioner/service provider to submit the plan’s Form 5500 or Form 5500-SF. If this e-signature option was used, the name of the practitioner/service provider whose electronic signature was applied to the Form 5500 or Form 5500-SF will appear on the image of the form in the signature area above the text “Signature of plan administrator.” The practitioner is not necessarily the plan administrator responsible for the filing.

ok, if you don't read all that stuff you might have missed it.

so, at least on FT William, the system 'magically' replaces the name on the left side with your own name, while the right side remains the clients name.

I know, you want your picture there as well, but that isn't happening at this time.

[austin3515]

That would be totally shagadelic!!! Of course, I don't sign these things under my real name (Austin Powers) - I sign under an alter-ego that I would prefer to keep confidential as it is top-secret...

Wouldn't it have beene easier if they just told us that in the FAQ?? I was leaving our name under plan administrator thinking how strange it was to put in my credentials next to someone else's name :angry:

[Tom Poje]

are you implying your picture isn't more recognizable than your signature?

not sure why the DOL didn't add something like that to the Q and A list, but it was an after-the fact decision to even allow this method of signing so maybe that's why they added the blurb where they did.

interestingly enough, despite everyone's grumbling about the electronic filing, I think we actually have more forms filed this year than we have had in the past. I'll go out on a limb and guess it may be the software. we're actually getting ready to make an attempt at filing a 2010 short plan year. Suppossedly we use a 2009 form on the system, create an xml file, and then import that into the 2010 file at the DOL. sounds easy, but who knows.

[austin3515]

On Relius, we can have two 5500's on the same file. We need to store the 2nd data file in a separate directory, but they do make it pretty easy to distinguish the two (they allow us to track on their web-site which plan year it is for). So in your case, we would see both the 2009 and 2010 filings, even though they are both on 2009 forms.