- Previous Solution
- Legacy audit software with manual checklists
- Firm Segment
- Mid-Market
- Region
- Mid-Atlantic (Delaware)
100 → 170 EBP audits since adopting Autire
Belfint, Lyons & Shuman, P.A. is a Wilmington, Delaware firm with one of the larger retirement plan audit practices in the mid-Atlantic. Tyler Starr, CPA, QKA, Audit Manager in the firm’s Retirement Plan Audit Services Practice Group, has spent 10 years at the firm and moved to EBP work full-time after his first few years. Today he spends most of his time managing and reviewing across a practice of 160 to 170 retirement plan audits.
Legacy Software That Never Changed
When Starr joined the firm in 2016, the practice was about 60 retirement plan audits. By 2020 it had reached roughly 100, running on audit software that gave the team nothing back.
“With our other audit software, it never changed in the 10 years we used it,” Starr says. “It just is what it is. And it was up to you to make things work.”
The daily reality was manual checklists that consumed hours without improving the audit. And when testing surfaced a problem, the software offered no help finding the rest of it. “If we found something wrong, we’d have to spend a ton of manual time figuring out everything else that was wrong.”
The Decision
The firm moved its eligible plans onto Autire starting in 2022. What drew the team in first was the automation: audit step conclusions generated from the work itself, no checklist to fill out by hand.
The team also looked at point solutions along the way, including a data extraction tool they demoed but passed on. Starr’s objection was: “You have to pair it with something else, which just seems like a headache. It’s a band-aid solution when you’re not solving the root cause.”
When asked what he would tell himself before the switch, Starr doesn’t hesitate to say: “The efficiency and our realization speak for themselves.”
What Changed
The transition wasn’t instant. The supervisors and above moved over first, and the team was used to the old manual process. “It was probably a bit of a growing thing for us,” Starr says. “We really started to see the benefits toward the end of that first year, into the second year.” The mechanics were the easy part; where the firm’s quality control standards called for extra documentation beyond Autire’s defaults, they added it. “We’ve added what we need to feel comfortable. Autire makes it easy: if you want to add in extra stuff, you can add extra memos.”
Once the benefits landed, they showed up in three places.
The work itself. “There’s no checklist you have to manually fill out. It really saves a ton of time that you would spend manually doing stuff that doesn’t add any real value,” Starr says. “I was able to focus more on figuring out what’s wrong and giving clients actual things they can fix, not just going through audit checklists.” Full population testing also changed error resolution from an investigation into an answer.
The client ask. New engagements now start with a smaller request. “I only need these files from you. I’ll need less of your time. We have an efficient process. If you do this, I can do 99% of the audit without you having to help.” Speed then became a selling point for both BLS and plan sponsors: “If they [plan sponsors] give me those initial documents, I can have the audit done in two weeks if it had to be done.”
The pipeline growth. Setting up a new client in Autire takes a fraction of the old setup work, which turned growth from a strain into a habit. Five to ten local TPAs now send the firm a steady stream of referrals. “We’ve really just been growing like crazy,” Starr says, “and Autire makes it easy for us to keep bringing new clients.”
The Numbers
The practice went from roughly 100 audits at adoption to 160 to 170 today, cutting average hours per audit from 80 to 54 for the preparer and both reviewers combined.
The economics are the part Starr calls the biggest selling point: “All our Autire audits are more profitable than the audits we do on our other software. Even if you’re paying the technology fee, you’re still saving so much time, you can do other work, and you’re still realizing more of a profit.”
New staff, who train on both systems, are drawn to Autire instantly. “Right away they want to work on Autire and not the other jobs,” Starr says. “The new people coming in automatically see the benefit: this software does it all this for me. Why would I want to use the other software?”
And when something does get flagged, the response is immediate. “You really can’t put a price on being able to email a senior person at Autire and have them respond that day with a solution.”
Pedal to the Floor
Since onboarding, BLS has converted almost all of its EBP plans to Autire and keeps taking on new plans. “We’re definitely pedal to the floor, trying to get as many clients as we can,” Starr says. The practice that ran 60 audits when he started now runs nearly three times that, and the constraint is no longer the software. For a team that spent a decade making an unchanging tool work, Autire provides BLS scale: “I like how they continue to improve every year. Autire continues to put out new features or make things better.”
