Auditor "Statement of Financial Assets"

[Guest Form5500]

I have dealt with an Auditor who has done the Employers 401K limited scope Audit for the past nine years. I have only been provided hands on training and have learned the 5500 the hard way. The Recordkeeper and the Auditor are the only trainers I have had (along with my research and sites like this).

My first question is "Isn't the Employer obligated to change Auditors at least once every 2 to 3 years" ?

The Auditor is required to only audit and report - correct? This Auditor walks a fine line between being an Auditor and being the one who dictates my job duties.

Each year it seems this Auditor adds another job duty to my responsibilities. I will be researching the fiduciary sites also. However, I need to ask this question, this auditor has prepared the "Statement of Financial Assets" and included it with his Table of Contents along with his "Independent Auditor's report" and "Independent Auditor's communication of internal Control related matters" for the past 9 years, and has never relayed to me that I should be preparing this "Statement of Financial Assets". Now after nine years, he states that there is some sort of new "law" that "I', as Plan Administrator should be preparing this (even though he includes it in his report). If I should have been preparaing this report for the last nine years, why has he just this year gone to my employer to tell them this report is my responsibility?

[TPAMan]

To answer your first question, there is no requirement to change auditors on a periodic or any other basis.

Your second question leads to the many changes that have occured in the past several years shifiting the audit role, in some respects, from service to compliance. I believe SAS 112 says that the reponsibility for preparing trust financials belongs to the plan administrator and though auditors have done it for years, they would now be required to advise of a material weakness in the administrators procedures if they continued to do so. In other words, the plan adminstrator should not be relying on the auditor to tell them how the plan is doing. If you think about it, it makes sense.