Two signals from the same public filings: employers that filed their annual return late and never corrected it, and employers that just crossed the participant count that makes an independent audit mandatory.
A plan that filed late is a plan whose current administrator or preparer missed a federal deadline. A plan crossing the audit threshold needs an auditor it does not yet have.
The obvious way to find late filers produces roughly half false positives.
We do not use it. Everything in the penalty-exposed tier clears a stricter test — ask on the call and we will show you the failure with real records.
We would rather show you records than describe them. Tell us the state or the practice area and we will send a short sample to look at — free, no invoice, and we will not add you to a list.