Qualified Retirement Plan Forms Checklist - Ascensus

 

How To Find & Calculate the Ascensus for 401(k). Fees

You've come to right place if you have any questions about Ascensus fees for 401(k). This includes how they work, what they cost on average and how you can find them & calculate them in your plan. This guide will show you how to calculate the total cost of an Ascensus plan 401(k), using their DOL-mandated fees disclosure.

We want you to understand how Ascensus pricing works, what you are paying and how fees stack up by the end of this guide.

click here:Qualified Retirement

What is the Average Ascensus Fee for 401(k).

Our most recent Small Business HTML401(k) Fee Study found that Ascensus plans cost small business an average of 1.66% each year. Their admin fees totaled about $387.49 for each participant.

Average Ascensus 401(k) Fees
Avg. Plan Assets	$728,548.33
Avg. Plan Participants	21
Per-Capita Administration Fees	$387.49
All In Fees	1.66%

Their per-capita admin fees are lower than the $422.30 study average, but this number could easily rise due to how these fees are charged.

In our experience, about 30% of admin fees charged by Ascensus are paid by revenue sharing is a "hidden" fee for 401(k) that reduces the investment returns of plan members. Plan sponsors and participants are often unaware they are paying them. They're also charged as a percentage from plan assets. Ascensus will charge plan participants higher and more expensive administration fees to provide the same level of service , as their account grows. This is unfair!

These growing fees can have a significant impact on your retirement savings if you include compound interest. You should do all you can to avoid them.

You can avoid these fees if you are currently using Ascensus to manage your 401(k). Next, we'll help you to do this.

visite site:Plan Forms Checklist - Ascensus

How To Find & Calculate the Ascensus for 401(k). Fees

Summarising the administration and investment fees for your Ascensus Plan into one "all in" fee will help you understand how much you are paying. This will allow you to easily compare your Ascensus plan's cost to comparable 401(k), providers, and/or industry averages.

We've made it easy by creating a spreadsheet that you can use with all of the formulas and columns you need. Simply find the information you need for your plan and then copy it into the spreadsheet.

This can be difficult to complete for Ascensus. But we will show you how to do it in just 4 easy steps.

Step 1: Gather all the necessary documents

You will need at least two documents to calculate your Ascensus (401(k) fees).

• Disclosure of Service and Fees: Ascensus must provide employers with a 408(b)(2) fee disclosure. This document provides plan-level information about the fees they charge, as well any revenue sharing payments that they receive from the funds. This information will help employers assess the "reasonability" of their 401k fees. This document is available on the Ascensus employer site.
• Statement Of Assets Report: This document gives a breakdown of how much money was invested in each fund of your 401(k). These documents are also sent every year and can be found at the employer site.

You will need to include the fees of an outside financial advisor if you have hired them. These details are usually found in the services agreement or invoice.

Once you have all the documents you need, you can move on to the next step.

Step 2: Locate Ascensus' Direct Fees

Administration fees for 401(ks) can be either "direct" or indirect. Deducted from participant accounts and Paid from a corporate account. Indirect fees reduce plan investment returns.

Direct fees are transparent and the ones that you are most familiar with.

Ascensus's direct charges can be found under the "Appendix A- Schedule of Services" section of their document "Disclosure of Services & Fees".

Step 4: Add the amounts to a spreadsheet and calculate Ascensus' direct fees.

Next, we will check if Ascensus has any hidden administration fees.

Step 3: Uncover Ascensus’ Hidden 401(k), Fees

According to our experience about one-third the Ascensus administration fees are paid by Revenue Sharing. This is a form "indirect" fee that is paid from operating expenses of certain mutual funds. Revenue sharing can increase the mutual fund's cost and lower its annual returns. There are two main forms of revenue sharing:

• 12b-1 fees are usually a compensation for a financial advisor.
• Sub-Transfer Agency Fees (sub-TA), these fees usually compensate a recordkeeper.

Revenue sharing is not reported as hard dollars on the Ascensus fee disclosure. It is instead hidden in the expense ratio of plan fund funds, making it easy to overlook. These "hidden" fees are disclosed in the "Appendix B Investment" section of "Disclosure of Services & Fees".

To calculate Ascensus' revenue sharing, multiply these percentages with the relevant fund balance in step 4.

Step 4: Calculate Your All In 401(k), Fee

We'll now enter the information into our spreadsheet to calculate the total cost of your plan.

First, you will need to enter your Ascensus408(b)(2) fund information and Statement of Assets document into the spreadsheet. Your indirect fees will be automatically calculated by the formulas.

Next, we will calculate your direct fees.

Add the direct fees that you have found for Ascensus. In your spreadsheet, enter the amount.

Add any additional fees imposed by an outside financial advisor to your spreadsheet. These fees are always direct in nature.

This will give you the total fee for your Ascensus plan. For our example, $21,777.54

We recommend that you express your fees as a percentage of plan assets to make it easier to compare them with other plans. In our example, this number is 0.95% ($21,777.54/$2,296,086.01).

Calculate Your Admin Fees on A Per-Capita Basis

After you have determined your all-in fees, we suggest you look at your Ascensus administration costs on a per capita (i.e. headcount) basis.

Why?

If you only consider investment expenses and administration fees, excess fees (basically fees that exceed your 401(k), provider's service level) might not be apparent. This is especially true for plans with many assets.

Consider a $1625,825.48 HTML401(k), plan with 7 participants, from our 2018 small-business 401(k). This will demonstrate the value and effectiveness of this evaluation. Although the $25,611.64 all in fee (1.58%) was a little higher than the study's average 1.40%, its $2,521.81 per-capita administration fee (17,652.64/7 participants), was approximately six times as high!

Divide the total administration fee from your spreadsheet by your plan's number to calculate the per-capita fee. This $497.99 figure is for our 24 participant example. It's quite high compared to what participants would pay with a low cost 401(k).

Don’t Allow Your Ascensus (401(k)) Fees to Get Out Of Hand

You should now have a detailed breakdown of your Ascensus401(k) fees, and how they are being charged.

Even though yours may be below average, Ascensus can make them excessively high as assets grow. It is important to regularly compare the fees of your plans.

Too much trouble? We have a solution.

Simply switch to a 401(k) provider that charges fees based on headcount - not assets – to the extent feasible. This fee structure will allow you to reduce your 401(k), fees as your plan grows. It's possible to save money by doing this.