Audit & Assurance Archives

If July 31 isn’t already flagged in your firm’s calendar, now is the time. For CPA firms managing multiple clients with calendar-year plans, the Form 5500 filing deadline arrives faster than it should, and the firms that feel it most are the ones that waited too long to start.

Employee benefit plan audits are one of the most technically demanding, deadline-sensitive engagements in public accounting. They require deep ERISA audit support, meticulous documentation, and careful coordination across multiple parties. And in 2026, with SECURE 2.0 changes still rippling through plan operations and regulators sharpening their focus on compliance accuracy, the stakes are higher than ever.

This is not the season to wing it.

Why EBP Audit Season 2026 Is Different

Every year brings its share of EBP audit complexity. But 2026 has added a few new layers that CPA firms need to account for, literally and figuratively.

SECURE 2.0 Is Still Reshaping Plan Operations

The SECURE 2.0 Act continues to drive operational changes across 401(k), 403(b), and defined benefit plans. Updated catch-up contribution rules, revised eligibility tracking requirements, and new amendment deadlines mean plan sponsors are navigating a moving target, and auditors need to keep pace.

For CPA firms, this means EBP audit planning for CPA firms that worked cleanly last year may need adjustment. Workpapers need to reflect current law. Testing approaches need to account for mid-year changes. And staff need to be briefed before fieldwork begins, not during it.

Regulatory Scrutiny Is Up

The Department of Labor and the IRS are not easing up. In 2026, regulators continue to emphasize operational accuracy and documentation consistency, with recurring focus areas including late participant contribution deposits, inconsistent Form 5500 reporting, eligibility tracking errors, and insufficient internal control documentation.

The DOL has also long flagged high deficiency rates among auditors who do not regularly perform ERISA compliance audits. If your firm is taking on EBP engagements without dedicated expertise or support, that is a compliance risk for your clients and for your firm.

The July 31 Deadline Is Closer Than It Looks

For calendar-year plans, the EBP audit deadline for the United States standard is July 31, 2026. An extension via Form 5558 pushes that to October 15, but extesnsions are not a strategy; they are a safety nest. And with employee benefit plan audits taking three to four months from engagement to final report, firms starting in May are already working with a tight window.

What Makes EBP Audits So Demanding for CPA Firms

Understanding the pressure points is the first step to managing them. Employee Benefit Plan (EBP) Audit Support looks structurally different from standard financial statement audits, and the documentation demands alone can derail an unprepared team.

Multi-Party Coordination Takes Time

EBP audits involve more moving parts than most engagements. The plan sponsor, recordkeeper, custodian, investment advisor, and third-party administrator all play a role, and getting information from each of them takes time your team may not have budgeted for.

SOC 1 reports from service providers, for example, can take four to six weeks to obtain. If your team requests them in June, you are already behind.

Document Volume Is Substantial

A thorough EBP audit requires plan documents and all amendments, the IRS determination or opinion letter, the trust agreement, the Summary Plan Description, service provider contracts, year-end financial statements, payroll reconciliations, and participant-level transaction data. That is before fieldwork even begins.

For firms managing five, ten, or fifteen EBP clients simultaneously, the document management burden alone can stretch a team to its limits.

Participant-Level Testing Is Labor Intensive

Unlike a standard audit, EBP audit services USA procedures require participant account testing, verifying contributions, distributions, loans, eligibility, and vesting across individual participant records. For large plans, this is a significant time investment that requires both technical accuracy and ERISA fluency.

Capacity Peaks Collide

EBP audit season lands right after tax season, which means the same staff that just wrapped April 15 engagements are expected to pivot immediately into intensive plan audit work. For many CPA firms, especially small and mid-size practices, this capacity crunch is the single biggest threat to EBP audit quality and on-time delivery.

The Real Cost of Starting Late

Late EBP audit planning does not just create internal stress; it creates compliance exposure.

Missing the July 31 Form 5500 filing deadline without an approved extension triggers DOL and IRS penalties that can reach $250 per day. Incomplete filings, particularly those missing required audit attachments, frequently invite regulator correspondence and additional scrutiny. And findings that require retroactive corrections cost far more in time, fees, and client trust than proactive preparation would have.

For CPA firms, a delayed or deficient ERISA compliance audit engagement also carries reputational risk. Clients expect their auditors to be the steady hand in a complex process. Showing up underprepared is not a position any firm wants to be in, especially with DOL compliance testing drawing increased attention in 2026.

Your July 31 deadline is closer than it looks. Partner with
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How CPA Firms Can Get Ahead of EBP Audit Season

The good news: if your firm is acting in May, you are not too late. But the window for comfortable preparation is narrowing. Here is what early planning actually looks like in practice.

Confirm Your EBP Audit Client List Now

Start by identifying every client that requires an employee benefit plan audit for the 2025 plan year. Pay particular attention to plans approaching the 100-participant threshold. First-time audit requirements carry their own set of complexities and onboarding demands.

For plans in the 80 to 120 participant range, confirm whether the prior-year filing status allows deferral or triggers an immediate audit requirement. Do not assume, verify.

Get Engagement Letters and Document Requests Out Immediately

Every week of delay at the front end compresses the timeline at the back end. Send engagement letters, establish internal contacts at each plan sponsor, and issue your document request lists now. The sooner your clients start gathering materials, the smoother the fieldwork will run.

Request SOC 1 Reports Without Delay

This is the step most firms underestimate. SOC 1 reports for recordkeepers, custodians, and TPAs are essential to EBP audit procedures, and they take weeks to arrive. Requesting them in May gives you a reasonable buffer. Requesting them in June does not.

Run Discrimination Testing Early

ADP/ACP testing for Actual Deferral Percentage and Actual Contribution Percentage is another area where late action creates downstream problems. Getting this done early means corrections, if needed, can be processed without deadline pressure compounding the complexity.

Assess Your Firm’s Internal Capacity Honestly

How many EBP audits can your current team realistically handle between now and July 31? Factor in review time, client communication, and the inevitable back-and-forth on missing documents. If the honest answer is fewer than your client list requires, that is not a failure of planning. It is a signal that additional support is needed.

Why CPA Firms Are Turning to Outsourced EBP Audit Support

Across the US, CPA firms of all sizes, from growing solo practices to established regional players, are increasingly partnering with offshore EBP audit services specialists to manage capacity, maintain quality, and meet deadlines without burning out their teams.

Outsourced EBP audit support is not about replacing your CPAs. It is about giving them the bandwidth to do what they do best: review, advise, and sign off, while a trained offshore team handles the documentation-heavy, time-intensive groundwork.

Here is what that looks like across firm sizes:

Small CPA firms growing their EBP audit practice remove the capacity ceiling that limits how many clients they can serve
Mid-size firms managing seasonal overflow get a flexible, reliable extension of their existing team
Larger firms seeking cost-efficient output at scale get high-quality, audit-ready deliverables without the overhead

What Unison Globus Covers

Unison Globus provides Employee Benefit Plan (EBP) Audit Support focused on ERISA and regulatory requirements, built specifically around the way CPA firms operate. Here is the full scope of what we support:

Core EBP Audit Support

Audits of 401(k), pension, and defined contribution or defined benefit plans across all plan types
Testing support for participant data, contributions, distributions, and plan activity
Preparation of audit schedules and internal control documentation
Coordination with plan administrators, custodians, and third-party service providers

Additional EBP Audit Services

Form 5500 Support: Preparation, review, and reconciliation assistance for Form 5500 filings
DOL Compliance Testing: Testing aligned with Department of Labor compliance requirements
SOC 1 Report Reviews: Review and documentation of SOC 1 reports for plan custodians and recordkeepers
Discrimination Testing Support (ADP/ACP): Assistance with Actual Deferral Percentage and Actual Contribution Percentage testing

Your CPAs retain full control of every engagement. Unison Globus extends your capacity, not your liability.

Why Unison Globus

Unison Globus is not a general accounting outsourcing firm that happens to offer EBP audit support. It is a dedicated audit & assurance solutions partner built specifically for Audit & Assurance Services for CPAs across the United States.

Our team brings hands-on experience in US GAAS standards, ERISA requirements, and the exacting documentation expectations that define quality employee benefit plan audits. Every deliverable we produce is formatted, labeled, and review-ready from day one, so your senior staff spends their time on judgment calls, not chasing paperwork.

We work with firms of all sizes. Whether you are a small practice taking on EBP audit planning for CPA firms for the first time, a mid-size firm looking for dependable outsourced EBP audit support, or a larger firm building a scalable employee benefit plan audit outsourcing model, Unison Globus fits into your workflow without friction.

The July 31 deadline is eleven weeks away. We are ready to onboard now.

Start Your EBP Audit Planning Today

The firms navigating EBP audit season smoothly in 2026 are the ones making decisions right now, not in June, and certainly not in July.

If your CPA firm is looking to strengthen its employee benefit plan audits practice, manage seasonal capacity, and deliver consistent, compliant results for your clients, Unison Globus is ready to support you.

Get in touch with the Unison Globus team today and find out how our offshore EBP audit services can help your firm stay ahead of the deadline and the competition.

Get Ahead of the July 31 Deadline with Expert EBP Audit Support

Partner with Unison Globus to eliminate documentation gaps, ensure ERISA compliance, and deliver high-quality audits on time.

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The Department of Labor rejects nearly 1 in 3 EBP audit reports it reviews due to quality deficiencies. Not because CPA firms lack technical knowledge, but because these engagements demand a level of preparation and coordination that is difficult to sustain during peak season.

July 31 does not move. Your team’s bandwidth does.

EBP Audits Are Not Just Another Assurance Engagement

Most audit work follows a rhythm. Employee Benefit Plan audits follow one too, but it is far less forgiving.

Plans with 100 or more participants require an annual audit, filed alongside Form 5500 seven months after the plan year ends. For most calendar year plans, that deadline lands on July 31. On paper, it seems manageable. In practice, firms are often handling multiple engagements at once, all with identical deadlines and documentation requirements.

This is where Employee Benefit Plan (EBP) Audit Support becomes essential, and why many firms begin to rely on Employee Benefit Plan audit outsourcing as their EBP client base grows.

The challenge is not the testing itself. Teams experienced in delivering Audit & Assurance Services for CPAs are well-equipped to handle that phase. The pressure builds much earlier, in the preparation work that must be completed before testing can even begin.

Census data arrives incomplete or unreconciled. SOC 1 reports must be obtained, reviewed, and documented. Contribution schedules require detailed tracing across payroll runs. Workpapers need to be structured and formatted to support review. Plan documents must be aligned with actual operations.

Even within 401(k) audit support services, the level of coordination required across payroll systems, trustees, and participant records can slow progress long before the audit formally begins.

Individually, these tasks are manageable. Together, across multiple engagements, they create a steady drain on time and attention that is easy to underestimate and difficult to recover from once deadlines begin to close in.

The Real Cost Is Not the Deadline. It Is What Happens to Your Team

The strain of EBP season rarely shows up all at once. It builds gradually.

Senior staff begin picking up preparation work that should have been completed earlier. Review timelines compress as testing starts later than planned. Attention to detail becomes harder to maintain when everything is happening at once.

This is where ERISA audit support becomes more than a convenience. It becomes a way to protect both quality and team capacity.

When preparation, testing, and review phases begin to overlap, the entire engagement gets compressed into a window that is too narrow for the work to be done at its best. Reviewers have less time to evaluate documentation thoroughly. Issues surface later than they should. The audit is completed, but with less margin for error than anyone is comfortable with.

Firms that rely solely on internal teams for every stage of the process often find themselves using highly experienced staff for work that does not require their level of judgment, while increasing the risk of missed details in the process.

This is not a question of effort. It is a question of structure, and whether the firm has the right audit & assurance solutions in place to support the workload.

Take control of your EBP timeline
before it starts controlling your team.

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Why Offshore EBP Audit Services Fit the Way These Engagements Actually Work

The shift toward offshore support for CPA firms has become less about experimentation and more about practical necessity.

EBP engagements, in particular, are well suited for this model because so much of the workload sits in structured preparation. Tasks such as census reconciliation, SOC documentation, contribution tracing, and workpaper organization require consistency, accuracy, and familiarity with EBP requirements, but not constant client interaction or partner-level oversight.

This is what makes offshore EBP audit services effective when they are set up correctly.

Preparation work is completed in advance by teams that understand what an audit-ready file should look like. By the time the engagement moves into testing, your internal team is working with clean, organized documentation instead of building it under time pressure.

For many firms, this naturally evolves into a broader CPA firm EBP audit outsourcing model, where preparation is consistently handled outside the core team, allowing internal resources to stay focused on higher-value work.

Time zone differences also become an operational advantage. Work handed off at the end of the day can be ready for review the next morning, helping teams maintain momentum during the busiest parts of the season.

From a cost perspective, the model is equally practical. Senior staff time is best used on analysis, review, and client communication. Shifting preparation work to a dedicated offshore team allows firms to use their resources more efficiently without compromising quality.

What Working With Unison Globus Looks Like

For more than 19 years, Unison Globus has supported accounting firms with audit & assurance solutions designed around real engagement workflows. Our approach to expert CPA audit services reflects the way firms actually operate during peak periods.

Firms working with us for Employee Benefit Plan audit outsourcing can expect a structure built around clarity, consistency, and reliability.

Our teams include qualified CAs, CPAs, and specialists who understand ERISA requirements, Department of Labor expectations, and the level of documentation needed for a clean audit file. Every engagement is handled with a clear understanding of what your reviewers and partners expect to see.

We integrate directly into your existing systems, using your templates and aligning with your internal processes. The goal is not to change how your team works, but to support it in a way that feels seamless. When your staff picks up a file, it is organized, complete, and ready for the next stage.

Data security is managed through ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified systems, with strict protocols in place to ensure confidentiality and continuity across all engagements.

Our delivery model is built around fixed timelines, with dedicated teams assigned to each engagement to maintain consistency and accountability. As your EBP portfolio grows, our support scales with you, allowing you to adjust capacity without restructuring your internal team.

The Firms That Plan Ahead Own the Season

EBP audits are becoming more demanding. Regulatory scrutiny continues to increase, documentation standards are tighter, and more plans are crossing the threshold that requires an audit.

The firms that manage this well are not necessarily the largest. They are the ones that understand where time is spent and make deliberate decisions about how that time is used.

They ensure preparation is handled early and consistently. They build workflows that deliver clean files into the testing phase. They allow senior staff to focus on areas where their expertise has the greatest impact.

In many cases, that includes integrating offshore audit support for CPA firms as part of a broader, more sustainable approach to audit delivery.

This is not about changing how audits are performed. It is about structuring the work so it can be completed at a high standard without putting unnecessary strain on the team.

If your firm is already looking at EBP season and thinking about how to stay ahead of the workload, now is the time to put the right support in place. Working with Unison Globus allows you to approach the July 31 deadline with a clearer structure, stronger preparation, and a team that is not constantly playing catch-up.

Let’s talk about your EBP season