IRA Checklists | Retirement Account Compliance Checklists

Practical tools for advisors who do not want to miss critical IRA and plan deadlines

The Retirement Account Compliance Checklist Library is designed for financial advisors, CPAs, attorneys, and retirement plan professionals who need structured, technically accurate guidance throughout the year.

These checklists convert complex IRA and employer plan rules into clear, sequential action steps. Each checklist is built to help you identify required actions, avoid preventable errors, and coordinate properly with tax professionals and custodians.

They are not educational summaries. They are operational tools.

Use them during client meetings, internal reviews, onboarding, distribution planning, rollover processing, and beneficiary consultations.

Quarterly Retirement Account Checklists

• First Quarter Checklist for Retirement Accounts
  Focuses on early-year action items including contribution deadlines, prior-year corrections, beneficiary reviews, RMD planning strategy, and coordination with tax reporting.
• Second Quarter Checklist for Retirement Accounts
  Designed to ensure mid-year compliance reviews are completed, including RMD monitoring, beneficiary confirmations, rollover tracking, and plan contribution adjustments.
• Third Quarter Checklist for Retirement Accounts
  Emphasizes year-end distribution planning, Roth conversion coordination, QCD timing strategy, and beneficiary distribution tracking before fourth-quarter bottlenecks.
• Fourth Quarter Checklist for Retirement Accounts
  Concentrates on final RMD completion, QCD execution, excess correction deadlines, rollover timing, and preventing year-end operational errors.

Specialized Transaction & Compliance Checklists

1. RMD Checklist
   Step-by-step framework for identifying required minimum distributions, determining the correct life expectancy table, confirming aggregation rules, verifying beneficiary status, and preventing missed RMD penalties.
2. Beneficiary Checklist
   Designed to guide beneficiary consultations. Covers beneficiary classification, application of post-2019 distribution rules, 10-year rule considerations, spousal options, trust review triggers, and transfer requirements.
3. Qualified Plan to IRA Rollover Checklist
   Operational guidance for reviewing distribution eligibility, mandatory withholding rules, direct vs. indirect rollover requirements, plan document restrictions, and 1099-R reporting considerations.
4. IRA to IRA Transfer Checklist
   Helps ensure transfers are structured correctly as trustee-to-trustee transfers, not rollovers. Includes RMD timing coordination, inherited IRA transfer considerations, and common reporting pitfalls.

Why These Checklists Matter

Retirement account errors are rarely caused by lack of knowledge. They are caused by missed steps.

These checklists are designed to:

• Reduce compliance risk

• Prevent reporting errors

• Avoid missed RMD penalties

• Improve client meeting efficiency

• Create consistent documentation procedures

• Strengthen internal workflow discipline

Each checklist reflects current IRS guidance and operational realities faced by custodians and plan administrators.