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2026 EBP Audit Season: Key Regulatory Updates + Best Practices to Avoid Common Deficiencies
▲ 2 r/EBPAudits+3 crossposts

2026 EBP Audit Season: Key Regulatory Updates + Best Practices to Avoid Common Deficiencies

EBP audit season is right around the corner and the DOL is still laser-focused on audit quality (their latest study showed 30% of audits had at least one deficiency).

Quick 2026 rundown:

• SECURE 2.0 changes (Roth catch-up, contribution limits)

• Tighter scrutiny on participant data, contributions, and internal controls

• Fewer CPA firms willing to do EBP audits → capacity crunch is real

Best practices that actually work:

  1. Engage your auditor in Q2, not April

  2. Keep year-round organized documentation (SOC 1s, payroll exports, plan docs)

  3. Choose firms that do 100+ EBP audits/year, experience matters

  4. Benchmark your own workflow (time per reconciliation, error rates)

We’re running a quick anonymous EBP Audit Benchmarking Survey (1 min, 12 questions) that gives you a personalized snapshot vs firms your size. Link below if you want to see where you stand.

What’s one thing your firm is doing differently this EBP season? Drop it below, always good to learn from each other.

https://tally.so/r/BzQEZN?trk=public\_post\_comment-text

u/Significant_Owl_8319 — 2 hours ago
▲ 3 r/EBPAudits+2 crossposts

The DOL's own data says 55% of EBP audits from firms doing fewer than 25 plans have major deficiencies. Somehow this isn't a bigger conversation.

Been looking at the DOL audit quality study numbers again.

Firms doing 1-2 EBP audits a year: 70% deficiency rate.

Firms doing 25+: drops significantly.

Firms doing 100+: under 20%.

So the profession has known for years that EBP audit quality is almost entirely a function of volume and specialization. And the response has been... peer review checklists and CPE requirements.

Meanwhile the number of CPA firms doing these audits dropped from 7,330 in 2011 to 4,300 in 2020 while the number of plans that need auditing went up. Less firms. More plans. Same manual process. Same deadline. I don't think this is a competence problem. I think it's a capacity problem that the profession keeps trying to solve with training.

What's actually going to fix this?

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u/Significant_Owl_8319 — 1 day ago
▲ 5 r/auditing+4 crossposts

Found these tools for EBP audit. Let me know how it helps you!

Hey everyone,

Been going down a rabbit hole on EBP audit tools lately, especially with AI starting to make a real dent in the space. One that caught my eye: Tieout (tieoutai.com) just got covered in Accounting Today. It automates the plan document analysis side of EBP audits. You upload your base plan doc, amendments, adoption agreements, set your own legal precedence order, and it extracts every auditable provision (eligibility, vesting, contributions, loans, distributions, NDTs) with source citations. Then it generates test procedures and routes steps to the auditor for sign-off. Runs on a combo of OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic models, all optimized for EBP-specific language, which is apparently a big deal because generic LLMs struggle with plan document nuance. Curious if anyone here has tried it or anything similar. What's your biggest time sink in EBP audits right now? Does a tool like this actually solve it, or are there gaps? Drop your thoughts below.

reddit.com
u/Significant_Owl_8319 — 3 days ago
▲ 0 r/Accounting

SECURE 2.0 Roth catch-up changes are hitting EBP audits this season: Here's what's actually different in the procedures

The Roth mandatory catch-up provision under SECURE 2.0 kicked in January 1, 2026. For

employees over 50 earning more than $145,000 in prior-year wages, catch-up contributions

now have to be Roth — not pre-tax.

reddit.com
u/Significant_Owl_8319 — 4 days ago
▲ 3 r/auditing+2 crossposts

SECURE 2.0 Roth catch-up changes are hitting EBP audits this season: Here's what's actually different in the procedures

The Roth mandatory catch-up provision under SECURE 2.0 kicked in January 1, 2026. For

employees over 50 earning more than $145,000 in prior-year wages, catch-up contributions

now have to be Roth, not pre-tax.

reddit.com
u/Significant_Owl_8319 — 4 days ago
▲ 5 r/auditing+1 crossposts

What's the most time-consuming part of an EBP audit that nobody talks about?

DOL data consistently flags participant data and contributions as the top deficiency areas.

But I'm curious what actually eats the most hours on the ground: Is it the reconciliation work, chasing TPA documentation, the Form 5500 tie-out, or something else entirely?

reddit.com
u/Significant_Owl_8319 — 5 days ago