Choosing a third-party administrator to manage your company's document design, compliance or government reporting services should be based on careful due diligence, rather than on the price of fees, DWC Managing Partner Keith Clark wrote in an article on choosing a TPA published on the Benefit News website. 

"If I am hiring an attorney or any professional service firm," Clark wrote, "I want to hire the provider who best meets my service criteria. My buying questions will be focused on their experience and service model. If I like the answer, I will then ask about their fees."

Facts

Due to a glitch in our payroll system, one of the participants in our 401(k) plan contributed more than the IRS limit last year. It came to light while she was preparing her individual income tax return, and she is now asking us to return the excess amount to her?

Facts

My company sponsors a 401(k) plan. With everything that has been in the news about retirement plan fiduciaries and some of the lawsuits against them, we are trying to decide whether or not we should get fiduciary liability insurance for ourselves. Then I looked at our Form 5500 and it shows that we already have plan-related insurance.

Facts

One of our employees recently asked about changing his primary beneficiary on his 401(k) account. The beneficiary form says the participant must obtain the consent of his spouse in order to make the change, but when I called the company that manages our plan for us, I was told that spousal consent rules do no apply to our plan. Now, I am really confused.

Facts

Our business is considering setting up a 401(k) plan for our employees. We know that it can include both employee contributions and company contributions, but we keep hearing about all sorts of other contributions. There are profit-sharing contributions, matching contributions, qualified nonelective contributions, and Roth contributions.

Facts

When we first established our 401(k) plan, the company didn’t have a lot of discretionary income, so we went with a low-cost provider and set it up so the plan would pay for its own fees. We have since been told that paying fees out of the plan isn’t that straightforward.

Facts

Our company pays a number of different types of bonuses—signing bonuses, spot bonuses, holiday bonuses, production bonuses, etc. You get the idea. We know that bonuses paid once the employee has worked for us for a while count for purposes of the retirement plan, but we would like to carve out signing bonuses.

Facts

I am self-employed, and my company does not have any employees. Occasionally, my spouse will help out with various projects but does not work for the company full time. It is likely that I will add an employee later this year or next year.

Facts

Our company has a retail store that sells items like patio furniture, swimming pool supplies, and equipment. We also have a department that cleans and services swimming pools. The service department is much busier during the summer months, so we hire students to fill these seasonal roles while they are on break from school.

DWC partner Jen Gibbs Swets recently spoke with Enterprise Radio host Eric Dye to discuss selling a business and the impact it has on retirement planning.

Swets, who has more than 15 years of experience in the industry, shared her expert opinion and advice on how to handle this kind of transaction, what to expect (both the good and the bad), and how to deal with the parties involved. She noted that selling a business can be an overwhelming process, but advised listeners to rely on the people that they trust.

“The most important thing is surrounding yourself with the right people, the trusted advisors who have been there with you throughout the time you’ve built your business and who know you, know your motivations, and can really support you through it,” Swets said.

During the rest of their conversation, the pair unpacked the different challenges that come with selling your business and retirement planning. To hear more insights into this topic, you can hear the rest of the podcast here on Entrepreneur Podcast Network.