Keeping Meeting Minutes

In my new book, The Ultimate 401k Advantage, I talk about keeping a fiduciary file and specifically keeping meeting minutes.

This past week I had a example of why it’s so important to keep detailed meeting minutes and I want to share that with you.

But first, let me ask you a question.

The real question is, how can you as a company that sponsors a 401k or 403b plan, turn your plan from a liability into an asset that gives you an advantage in the marketplace, and become a 401k superhero to your employees?

That is the question, and these videos will give you the answers. Hey I’m Jonathon Schultheiss and welcome to the Ultimate 401k Advantage videos.

This past week I was in a committee meeting with a 401k plan that we service. This company had a couple new members to the committee. These new members were questioning why the committee had a certain procedure for how they handled several different things for the 401k plan.

After the meeting, I was able to look back through meeting minutes and see where the committee had conversations about these procedures and even the reasoning for making the decisions that were made.

After the new members read the past meeting minutes, it allowed them to have some insights into why these decisions were made and they then agreed with the procedure.

This is just a simple example of adding new members to the committee.

But imagine if the DOL were to ask your committee a question about why you do something. Do you think they would accept the answer of, that’s just they we do it?

Probably not.

But imagine if you were able to say, the committee discussed it on this date, and it was decided to it this way because of this outcome.

Don’t you think that would help you look better in the eyes of the DOL?

Don’t forget that the DOL doesn’t say you have to always make the right decision, they say that you must follow a prudent process in making the decision.

If you cant show the process you used to make that decision, how can you expect to prove that it was prudent.

So if you want to become a 401k Superhero to your company by helping them avoid additional liability, you should make sure that you keep very thorough meeting minutes.

If you’d like to learn more about becoming a 401k Superhero, you can click on the link and download a free copy of my book today.