Meet the Brown Edwards Benefits Audit Team

Welcome back to the Brown Edwards Benefits Buzz Podcast blog. I'm Brittany Quinn, audit partner in our Roanoke, Virginia office, and today I'm thrilled to introduce you to five of our talented professionals behind our employee benefit plan audit practice. In this Meet the Brown Edwards Audit Team episode, you'll get to know our audit managers and seniors — the team members who are often your primary point of contact throughout an engagement. They coordinate the audit, guide staff, keep clients informed, and make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

Our managers and seniors play a critical role in every engagement. They help plan the audit, communicate with clients, supervise fieldwork, ensure we're meeting professional standards, and serve as both mentors and problem solvers when complex issues arise. I sat down with Dean, Katelyn, Megan, Rebecca, and Shannon to hear about what they do, what clients can expect when working with them, and some of the most common audit findings they encounter. Here's what they had to share.

Meet the Team

Dean Tyree — Senior Associate, Lynchburg Office

Dean Tyree focuses heavily on employee benefit plan audits — roughly 80% of his work — and also handles fiduciary tax work from time to time. What stands out about Dean is his commitment to making new clients feel at ease. As he explained, even though independence is essential from an audit perspective, he wants every client to feel like the team is in their corner — guiding them through the process and making them genuinely comfortable through the entire process.

Katelyn Tolliver — Manager, Roanoke Office

Katelyn Tolliver has been with Brown Edwards since 2014, starting as an intern and growing into her current role as manager. She has spent the majority of her career focused on employee benefit plan audits and has also served as a hybrid employee for the past five or six years. One of the things she loves most about this work is the chance to connect with people from all over the country — a breadth of relationships that keeps the work fresh and rewarding.

Megan Battey — Senior Associate, Lynchburg Office

Megan Battey works with a wide variety of clients on benefit plan audits, including banks, schools, colleges, construction companies, contractors, and all kinds of corporate organizations. That variety is one of the things she values most about the work. Collaborating with HR and finance teams across so many different industries — and building those relationships year over year — is something she finds genuinely fulfilling. Her goal in every engagement is to make the audit process as smooth as possible.

Rebecca Theimer — Senior Associate, Roanoke Office

Rebecca Theimer focuses primarily on employee benefit plan audits, with additional work on electric cooperatives and peer reviews. What motivates her most is the trust clients place in the Brown Edwards team — not just to get the audit done on time, but to provide real recommendations when issues arise. For Rebecca, the most rewarding moments come from helping a client work through a challenge and come out the other side in better shape.

Shannon Cook — Senior Associate, Bristol Office

Shannon Cook splits her year between employee benefit plan audits and construction audits and reviews, working with clients across a good mix of industries. Like her colleagues, Shannon has built lasting relationships with clients over many years of service — some of whom she now counts as genuine friends. That human connection is at the heart of what she loves about the work.

What Clients Can Expect When Working With Us

One of the first things I asked the team about was what clients should expect when they work with Brown Edwards. A few consistent themes emerged.

SuraLink: Keeping the Audit Organized and Transparent

Across the board, the team relies on SuraLink — our provided-by-client (PBC) listing software — to manage audit requests and keep things organized. Rather than letting requests get buried in email chains, SuraLink gives both our team and our clients a platform for clear, real-time view of where things stand. Each request has its own conversation thread for back-and-forth discussion, and items can be marked as completed, outstanding, fulfilled, or returned. A progress indicator at the top of the platform gives everyone an at-a-glance picture of the audit's status. As Megan noted, clients also receive real-time notifications when documents are uploaded or comments are left — which cuts down on a lot of unnecessary back-and-forth.

Flexible, Responsive Communication

While SuraLink is the hub, the team is clear that they meet clients wherever they're most comfortable. Email, Zoom, Microsoft Teams calls, or a simple phone call — all are on the table. Rebecca made a point worth emphasizing: sometimes the fastest path to resolution isn't a document thread or an email chain, but simply picking up the phone. When things can get lost in translation electronically, a quick call or meeting can resolve an issue far more smoothly and efficiently.

Value Beyond Compliance

Shannon put it well when she described what the team is truly aiming for: audits that go as smoothly as possible, with as little disruption to the client as possible, while still delivering real value. That means not just checking required boxes, but providing useful observations and suggestions throughout the process. And if a client realizes that a particular request is going to take hours to fulfill, Shannon wants to know — there may be a different report or approach that accomplishes the same objective while saving significant time.

Common Audit Findings — and How to Avoid Them

I asked each team member to share one of the most common audit findings they encounter, along with some practical guidance for plan sponsors. Here's what they had to say.

1. Late (or Early) Employee Contributions — Dean Tyree

One of the most frequent issues Dean sees is the timeliness of employee contributions. Most often, the problem is contributions being remitted late — when amounts are withheld from payroll but not deposited into the plan promptly. Late contributions end up on a supplemental schedule and may result in a management comment. Also, less frequent but still an area to focus, contributions remitted too early can also be problematic, as both the IRS and the DOL take issue with that as well.

Dean's recommendation: coordinate with your payroll provider and third-party administrator (TPA) to set up an automated file feed that remits contributions as close as possible to the payroll check date. Automation goes a long way toward making the process seamless and keeping the plan in compliance. For a deeper dive, Dean pointed to the first episode of our podcast series, which covers this topic in detail.

2. Forfeiture Account Errors — Katelyn Tolliver

Forfeitures — the unvested employer contributions returned to the plan when a participant leaves — are a hot topic right now with the DOL, and Katelyn has been seeing related errors come up frequently. The issue often surfaces during plan restatements, when updated forfeiture provisions may get overlooked. Sponsors need to ensure that the way they're using forfeitures (typically to reduce employer contributions or pay plan expenses) aligns with what the plan document actually specifies, including any required order of use and applicable timeframes.

Many plan documents now require that forfeitures be used within a year of occurring in a participant's account. If your forfeiture account is growing from year to year, that's worth addressing. Katelyn's advice: review your plan document carefully to confirm forfeitures are allocated appropriately and timely.

3. Eligibility and Enrollment Errors — Megan Battey

Eligibility and enrollment errors are among the most common issues Megan encounters. These can take many forms: missed entries, late entries, and ineligible employees who were inadvertently allowed to participate in the plan. The root causes vary, but the consequences can be significant. Megan pointed to Episode 2 of our podcast series for a comprehensive look at the different types of eligibility and enrollment errors and the proactive steps plan sponsors can take to avoid them.

4. Employer Non-Elective Contribution Errors — Rebecca Theimer

Rebecca flagged an issue that has become more visible to her in recent engagements: errors related to employer non-elective contributions, particularly in situations where an employee hasn't yet established a plan account but is still eligible for a contribution. Proper tracking of all eligible employees is essential, and allocations need to be completed at the right time — even when accounts don't yet exist. If your plan includes a non-elective employer contribution feature, this is an area worth careful attention.

5. Compensation Definition Errors — Shannon Cook

It might seem like compensation is the most straightforward element of a benefit plan — after all, what you get paid is what you get paid. But Shannon points out that plan compensation is specifically defined by the plan document, and that definition may include or exclude certain types of pay in ways that don't always align with actual payroll practices. The plan's compensation must match the plan document. Shannon's advice: review the compensation definition in your plan document and make sure your payroll reporting reflects it accurately. A small mismatch here can create real compliance issues down the line.

Closing Thoughts

I want to say a sincere thank you to Dean, Katelyn, Megan, Rebecca, and Shannon for sharing their insights and giving our listeners and readers a window into the work they do every day. The depth of experience and genuine care for clients that each of them brings to their work is something I'm proud to highlight.

If you found this post helpful, please share it and subscribe to the Brown Edwards Benefits Buzz Podcast for more insights on employee benefit plan topics. And if there's a subject you'd like us to cover in a future episode, reach out — we'd love to hear from you.