Broker statements - calc gain/loss

[Chippy]

We have quite a few pooled profit sharing plans with monthly broker statements that do not calculate the gain/loss. How important is it to go through the statements and calculate the realized and unrealized gain/loss? I go through each monthly statement and look for anything unusual, pick out the deposits and withdrawals, fees charged and the rest is income. The plan files the 5500 SF. It is very time consuming to go through the statements and record every sale and purchase to calculate the gain/loss.

So, I'm just wondering if there is a reason to go through all that to calculate the gain/loss? If so, is there an easy way to do it? some plans have 100's of buys and sells throughout the plan year.

Thanks for your input.

[Draper55]

if you are not required to report it and don't need it for allocation purposes then I would not calculate it.

[BG5150]

Closing balance - additions - fees - distribs - opening balance = earnings.

[Chippy]

thanks. I was just making sure there wasn't something that said you had to do it. They are so time consuming and didn't really want to do them if not necessary.

[Kevin C]

We've always done complete accounting for plans with pooled accounts. We do it for one person plans, too. Yes, it can be time consuming and yes it can be a pain, but I've seen enough weird things on statements that would be missed if you back into the earnings that I agree with my boss that it needs to be done. We've had many transfers between accounts where not everything gets moved, "corrected" transactions that are not corrected properly and even an occasional investment dropping off of a statement. We've also taken over plans where the prior TPA backed into the gain/loss and the Trustee asks us what do we do about this other plan investment that isn't included in the valuation? If the accounting takes an abnormal amount of time, we charge extra. If the volume of transactions is causing the accounting to be difficult, to me that is a reason for the Trustee to stop the churning in the account, not a reason to stop doing the accounting.

[shERPA]

We stopped doing that level of accounting many years ago, as clients don't want to pay for it. We do account for every deposit and withdrawal from the account, break out the YTD interest, dividends and fees as reported on the statements, the rest of the change in value is investment earnings/loss.

[Bird]

I'm with Kevin C on this; we reconcile statements and make sure that our calculated cash balance = actual cash balance. (Except for a handful of managed accounts where our fees to reconcile would be insane, and they sign off that it's not part of our job.) We found a $30,000 erroneous transfer out of an account one time where we were the only ones who knew about it.