Three things you are already responsible for, and only one is visible from the outside.
One of these is checkable from the public filing: whether your plan offers a brokerage window shows up as a feature code, including on the short form most small plans file. The other two rarely appear there — they live in your plan document and fee disclosures. These are the three questions the review answers.
Whether your money can be managed at all.
Feature code 2R on the public filing means the plan offers a self-directed brokerage window. If it is absent, every dollar in the plan — including your own balance, usually the largest one — is confined to the preset fund menu, with no way to respond to a changing market inside the plan.
Who is actually paying the plan fees.
Plan fees get paid one of two ways: by the company, or out of participant accounts. If yours come out of accounts, the business may be missing a deduction it could take by paying them directly, and because account-drawn fees are typically allocated by balance, the largest balance pays the largest share, usually the owner’s — retirement dollars instead of deductible business dollars. Public filings rarely show this clearly; your fee disclosure and your CPA will.
That the person on the hook is probably you.
Under ERISA §402(a) the plan has a named fiduciary, and in a company your size that is almost always the owner personally — including the duty to monitor the providers and the fees. It is a personal responsibility, and it does not transfer by assumption.
A short written review, from a named human.
Not a proposal, not a portfolio, and not a slide deck. One page you can read in a few minutes and hand to your accountant.
Whether 2R is present.
We pull your Form 5500-SF from the Department of Labor’s public EFAST2 database and confirm outright whether the plan reports feature code 2R. This is a fact, not an opinion, and it is the one thing the short form answers cleanly.
Where the fee and fiduciary answers live.
Because most small plans file the short form, provider compensation and the named fiduciary are not public. We show you exactly which documents hold them — your 408(b)(2) fee disclosure and your plan document or adoption agreement — what to ask for, and what the answer means when it arrives.
What it means, and what it does not.
Every observation is written so you can repeat it to your CPA, your attorney, or your provider without translation. Where the filing is ambiguous, we say so rather than guessing.
Two business days.
You spend about two minutes requesting it. The review comes back from Edward G. Rainford, AIF®, typically within two business days.
No pitch, no product, no obligation.
The review is the review. It exists because the filing is public and almost no owner has ever read it.
We do not use it to open a pitch.
If you want to talk about next steps afterwards, that conversation happens separately and only because you asked for it.
We do not need your books.
No plan statements, no participant data, no privileged information. The filing is already public, and your own disclosures stay in your hands.
Nothing changes at your plan.
Requesting a review does not authorize us to contact your provider, move an account, or alter a single thing about the plan.
A complimentary 5500 review.
Send your company's name and we pull the filing. The one-page review answers the brokerage window question outright from the Form 5500, then marks the two questions the filing can't answer — fees and the Named Fiduciary — and tells you exactly where to find each in your own documents.
No feature code 2R: the plan has no self-directed brokerage window. The largest balance is confined to the same fund menu as everyone else.
Administrative fees are paid from participant accounts. Because fees are allocated by balance, the owner's account pays the largest share — and the business misses a deductible expense.
The owner is the Named Fiduciary under ERISA §402(a). The duty is personal, and the standard is higher than most owners realize.
Reviews come from Edward G. Rainford, AIF®.
Fee-only · independent since 2001
Request logged · {{ company }}
Got it. We'll pull the filing and your review will come from a human, usually within two business days.
No call required · answered by a human within two business days
Prefer to talk first? Call 800/416-1063 or email Edward directly.
For owner-led companies of 10-50 employees with $1–5M in 401k plan assets
You can read the filing yourself.
Everything we do is done with public information and your own documents. If you would rather verify it before asking anyone, the guide walks through the four boxes that matter: How to Read Your Own Form 5500.