First Year Audit

Distinguishing Qualifications Factors:

Executive Summary

• 99+% client retention, satisfaction.
• Impeccable quality control record for more than 4 decades.
• Highly competitive fixed fee including year-round real time assurance service, self-correction at no additional charge. Annual increases capped at 3%.
• Big 4 caliber, boutique service approach, and low overhead results in high service value.
• Actively involved partners, in-house actuary, CPA relationship in-charge, and full-time benefit plan audit administrator.
• Well trained professionals with top academic records, high CPA pass rate, and minimal turnover.
• Audit approach that is internal control, data technology, deliverable, and efficiency based. PCAOB standards guided.
• Well-rounded CPA firm retained by prominent major corporations for decades.
• Flexible timing of services.

25 Distinguishing Factors:

QUALITY FIRST

1. BDG-CPAs’ quality control commitment started in 1983 by joining the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ (“AICPA”) quality control program Private Companies Practice Section (“PCPS”) when voluntary and relatively few firms belonged. In 1993, BDG-CPAs moved up to the SEC Section and then became a member of the successor Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (“PCAOB”) at its formation in 2002. We have also been members of the AICPA Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center since 2006.

2. Every AICPA, Department of Labor (“DOL”), and PCAOB program examination to date has resulted in the highest quality report.

3. BDG-CPAs’ service mission, culture, and growth has been designed, forged, and prospered by the leadership of partners with over 25 years of Big 4 accounting firm experience, mostly with PwC. This experience with the most highly regarded firms in the world coupled with a boutique environment enables close partner-client contact which provides significant client service value. Further, the inherent low overhead structure of BDG-CPAs as compared to regional and national firms ensures exceptional fees for value.

4. BDG-CPAs has never merged with other firms. Growth is almost entirely by way of hiring top college students and extensively training them in the highest of professional standards and techniques. New clients are mostly from referrals based on our reputation and reaching out to sponsors needing an audit for the first time. Our position is that growth by mergers is at risk for inconsistent culture and ultimately poor-quality service delivery. BDG-CPAs focuses much more on technical competency than marketing

5. BDG-CPAs’ continuing education with respect to employee benefit plans is distinguished as follows:

• All professional staff are extensively trained in the COSO Internal Control Framework, (“COSO”) by a world leading authority, the AICPA’s lead COSO instructor, Ron Kral, and partner-in-charge, Neil Della Torre. Our most recent classes were held in our Ridgewood, NJ, New York, NY, and Charleston, SC offices.
• Neil Della Torre is one of the first CPAs in the country to be certified by the AICPA in COSO, which is the most recognized framework by SEC registrants. He has taught audit and accounting training classes at PwC and cost accounting at NYU and Ramapo College.
• BDG-CPAs’ partners and staff have attended the annual AICPA/Department of Labor national accounting, auditing, and regulatory conference in Washington, DC for each of the past 10 years. The DOL leadership and industry experts, mostly from Big 4 firms, review the latest DOL developments including risk alerts. This is incorporated into our audit approach annually.
• All staff assigned to employee benefit plan audits are required to take benefit plan courses and pass an examination before starting the audit.

AUDIT APPROACH

6. The extensive COSO training sets up an internal control driven approach to our audits. Staff first meet to review the audit plan. Then the client is engaged in person or by Microsoft Teams or Zoom to review internal controls. The depth of identifying and testing key controls with related risk assessment distinguishes our service value.

7. Regarding internal controls, we work closely with you in reviewing your system and we share our documentation with you. We coordinate this with the results of your service provider’s SOC-1 report, as your system of internal controls is an ongoing process and is a critical component of fiduciary responsibility.

8. Our audit workpapers contain journals capturing activity, a trial balance, and adjustments, typically not provided by clients. BDG-CPAs compiles and shares this with clients including source references. Full GAAP and DOL disclosures are also included in the service at no additional charge. The process is highly standardized and communicated to client and service providers promoting efficiency and effectiveness year after year. These are distinguishing deliverables.

9. Every participant account is extensively tested by digital analytics as substantive procedures, as defined by COSO. This is far more substantial testing than non-statistical sampling, which can miss plan provisions. Our database identifies various participant account expectations, including matching parameters.

10. As noted in 5 above, a professional staff’s audit program step is to complete training and testing when assigned to an employee benefit plan audit.

11. As noted in 17 below, higher level PCAOB standards are incorporated into employee benefit plan audits.

12. Many of the administrative audit tasks such as confirmations and recordkeeper/trustee report gathering are managed by our full-time employee benefit plan administrator, see 20 below, distinguished from inexperienced staff used by other firms.

13. In summary, BDG-CPAs audit process is efficient and effective, adds value to clients, and with minimal time required by the client, year after year. This is essential to the long-term relationships that distinguish us.

EXPERIENCE

14. Neil Della Torre’s (founder and partner-in-charge) experience with employee benefit plans began with PwC where he was in-charge of Ogilvy & Mather, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP sponsor and plan audits when ERISA was first formed.

15. BDG-CPAs audits more than 100 benefit plans a year, mostly 401(k) with assets of over $9 billion and more than 100,000 participants. Note that three plan sponsors with $3 billion as of have retained BDG-CPAs on average 20 years. The historical retention rate is 99+% with the only exception being plan mergers or inappropriate fiduciary actions. Click here for representative clients. It should be noted that a DOL survey shows that inexperienced CPAs are at high risk of audit deficiencies: high risk to clients and themselves.

16. Presently, most of the BDG-CPAs staff members have experience with employee benefit plan audits. The 4 partners have a combined 95 years. Ten staff members have experience with more than 30 employee benefit audits each. With a full team, continuity is assured.

17. Benefit plans comprise 25% of the BDG-CPAs’ audit practice, the balance includes many PCAOB audits which are regarded as having additional, more rigorous standards. We incorporate many of these standards into employee benefit plan audits.

18. Most of our hires passed all four parts of the CPA exam in one year. The average BDG-CPAs turn-over in the past 3 years is 10% distinguished from an industry average of 30% and higher.

19. Neil Della Torre is Accredited in Business Valuations (“ABV”) by the AICPA. This is useful in determining asset value levels. Mike Magee is a Certified Fraud Examiner.

20. BDG-CPAs has a full-time employee benefit plan administrator with us for 29 years and previously an administrator with a Big 4 firm, Fran Barsky. Fran is in regular contact with service providers, and client audit point people. She greatly streamlines many of the client administrative procedures such as confirmations.

21. BDG-CPAs has had an Enrolled Actuary on staff, Larry Peters, CPA, EA, with both PwC and major benefit company experience, since 2010. Larry also worked with Neil at PwC.

22. BDG-CPAs assisted a Wall Street Law firm and a partner who was an ERISA author with the pending patent: System and method for monitoring fiduciary compliance with employee retirement plan governance requirements.

23. If needed, BDG-CPAs routinely, as part of the audit process, provides analysis and documentation to support self-correction, no reporting required, and in accordance with DOL and IRS guidelines. BDG-CPAs has also been retained by Wall Street law firms to analyze and support other DOL/IRS corrective action programs, when reporting is required.

24. A BDG employee benefit client has never filed late due to a delinquent audit, with the rare exception of adequate audit evidence not being received timely.

25. BDG-CPAs is engaged by a diverse clientele comprised of major corporations and other discerning business leaders served for decades in long-term, mutually successful relationships. See BDGCPA.com for distinguishing, representative clients.

BDG-CPAs is an original member of: