What type of document do you use and how easy is it to amend?

[Rayofsunshine]

We have always been a Volume Submitter and now a pre-approved individually designed plan office. Sorry if they are not the exact terms. In other words no prototypes and have never had opinion letters in our name. Hope that makes sense.

I feel like we're not the norm, and most providers use non standardized prototypes but maybe I'm wrong.

If you do use IDP documents how difficult is it to amend your plan (discretionary amendments)? We use relius IDP documents and up until PPA(i believe) we were able to use their short amendment module to amend the VS documents. It was super easy it created the language for the amendment and SMM etc. However, since then it's become a very manual process. The module just provides a blank Amendment, SMM etc. and i have to add the modified language. 

If you use preapproved IDP do you agree or if you use another doc provider, are you able to amend easier.... maybe it just me, I'll should say I'm not an attorney 

[CuseFan]

We used to use Reliance for a long time (going back to when it was Corbel) and exclusively used the volume submitter IDP format. If we were amending a provision that was another standard checklist item, I would find a plan that had that provision and use that language to create the amendment, otherwise it was a manual crafting of the required language. We also had many plans with language modifications that were always fun to deal with and required IRS submissions. My description is for our actuarial DB/CB plan practice only. We have been off Relius for maybe 10 years now. 

Currently, we use FT William which our DC plan practice had migrated to earlier. The DC side uses the adoption agreement format, the DB side uses the adoption agreement format for most plans and the IDP format for others, especially those with modifications. All are pre-approved and licensed under our name as sponsor.

Adoption agreements are a snap to amend, for IDP format I can change my checklist item(s) and generate another document to pull the new language into an amendment - not very difficult. If changes are extensive then we just make it a restatement. If changes are not standard (checklist) provisions then your manually crafting amendment language (and likely taking the plan out of pre-approved reliance), hopefully not a frequent occurrence.