Audit Relief™.

Reduce the costs and stress of annual audits—so you can free up time to focus on your business.

THE PROBLEM

Required annual 401(k) audits are a pain point for plans with 100+ participants

Audits are required by law and can cost $10,000-$15,000+ per plan year, often eclipsing the cost of the plan itself.^1,2 They require hours of manual work, and the cumbersome back-and-forth process between auditors and plan sponsors can drag on for months. Despite this, auditors generally only review a small sample of a plan’s transactions—leaving your organization potentially exposed to errors. While approximately 95,000 organizations required an audit in 2024, the industry has done nothing to address the needs of plan sponsors.

OUR SOLUTION

Audit Relief helps relieve the burden of costly, time-consuming 401(k) audits

Our first-of-its-kind solution automates manual tasks and consolidates data across multiple systems. This helps give auditors audit-ready data and reduces the time to perform an audit to as little as five hours.² Audit Relief enhances audit quality by validating 100% of transactions to help ensure greater accuracy and protection for the organization.² All of this is available at no incremental cost when working with an auditor using Audit Relief.³ You’ll receive a credit at the start of your plan year to cover audit costs, potentially saving you $10,000+ on audit fees annually.

How it works

Opt-in to Audit Relief

Choose an auditor

Select a participating auditor of your choice via your Human Interest dashboard. During the year, Human Interest will add monthly credit(s) on your account that will cover the cost of most audits.

Audit performed

Using the Audit Relief package, the auditor conducts the audit, and Human Interest pays the invoice from the plan’s credit.

Audit Relief is available at no extra cost to Human Interest plans.³

Human Interest Inc. does not provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. Plan Sponsors should take independent steps to validate the tax, legal, or accounting considerations of hiring any service provider for the Plan, obtaining guidance on any Plan document (or amendment thereto), and for any issues pertaining to design, implementation, or operation of a Plan.

Frequently asked questions

When is my 401(k) plan required to have an audit?

How much does a 401(k) audit cost?

How much time does an audit take?

What are the biggest challenges during an audit?

Can an audit be performed by an employee who is a CPA?

Does Human Interest communicate directly with auditors?

Human Interest works with auditors and brings them into our marketplace. After the plan year ends, Human Interest automates the collection of 20 new data sources, reconciles data with payroll information, and creates an audit-ready data package for direct upload into audit software. Human Interest delivers the data package to the firm chosen by the customer, which helps eliminate manual data entry and reconciliation that, in some cases, may take up to 80 hours.

What happens if I don’t file a required audit?

Failing to file a required audit can result in penalties from the DOL of up to $2,739 per day, with no maximum limit. Other consequences include:

IRS penalties of up to $250 per day, capped at $150,000.
Increased likelihood of DOL or IRS audit investigations.
Loss of plan qualification, leading to tax consequences for the plan and its participants.
Possible breach of fiduciary duty, which could expose fiduciaries to personal liability for any losses to the plan resulting from the breach.