By Nick Clay

On Tuesday May 13, Mike and Nick attended the 2014 ERISA Services, Inc. Retirement Symposium in Knoxville. The event was for advisors and firms who manage various types of retirement plans for businesses and business owners. As part of BCS Wealth Management’s Group Benefits and Business Services, we manage a variety of different types of retirement plans for businesses, including:

• IRA-Based Plans (SIMPLE Plans and SEP Plans)
• Defined Benefit Plans
• 401(k) Plans
• 403(b) Plans
• Defined Contribution Plans

While all of these plans have various differing benefits for businesses, the overwhelming theme of the symposium was how crucial retirement plans are for anyone whose goal would include retiring at some point in their life. I don’t know about you, but I don’t plan on working forever!

If you do not offer a retirement plan to your employees, you may find that it is much easier to implement than you think, plus it goes a long way towards employee retention. Our team can help you explore your options if you have an interest in starting a retirement plan. There are many cost effective ways to start a retirement plan that will not only help you as the owner, but go a long way towards helping your employees save money for retirement. You have heard time and time again how important it is to save money for retirement, but unfortunately many people do not have a way to do this through their employer.

If you do offer a retirement plan to your employees, kudos to you! You probably have found that it was much easier to do than you thought, and that you find it a major asset to your company. Our recommendation to you would be for you to review your plan annually and to have your advisor do some plan benchmarking. As part of a review and benchmarking study, you will be able to review some important items that you are charged with overseeing. Some of these items include, but are not limited to:

• Employee Behavior – Are your employees saving an appropriate amount?
• Operations of the Plan – Do you have the correct and most effective plan design?
• Investments – Are the investment options applicable to the current investment landscape? Do your employees have appropriate options to choose from?
• Costs – What are the total costs of the plan, to the business and the employees?

The other nice benefit about benchmarking your plan is you can see where your plan falls into line compared to other businesses of similar industry, geography, size and scope.

If you are interested in this service we are happy to help. We can do a complimentary Plan Benchmark Study for you with only a small amount of time and information from you. Just give us a call!