Progressive Produce, LLC., was founded in 1967 by Nace Cohen and Charles Gilb as a potato and onion company with one sales staff and one truck. But hold onto your spuds. Now this ‘small’ potato company has four locations: Los Angeles, La Mirada, and Edison, CA, and Quincy, WA.
Progressive Produce
Who Knew a Pension Audit Could Be Small Potatoes?
Progressive Produce Testimonial
It’s Nice When the Audit is No Big Deal
A Case Study and Testimonial from Stephanie Lord, HR Manager at Progressive Produce, LLC
As Progressive added fruits, vegetables, and herbs, they have acquired more trucks and have increased their employees to be over a hundred. That means they manage robust benefits and pension plans, which need to be audited to ensure every “i” is dotted and “t” is crossed.
Stephanie Lord, the Human Resources Manager for Progressive Produce, LLC, needed an audit for her company’s 401(k) plan and chose to use us to do the job. She said, “Because of the relationship we’ve had with LSL CPAs, it was a no brainer to have them do our 401(k) audit. They’ve handled our accounting for years, and we’ve always been happy with their work, so when the time came for us to need a 401(k) audit, we didn’t see a need to look further than LSL.”
“Because of the relationship we’ve had with LSL CPAs, it was a no brainer to have them do our 401(k) audit. They’ve handled our accounting for years, and we’ve always been happy with their work, so when the time came for us to need a 401(k) audit, we didn’t see a need to look further than LSL.”
“The team at LSL CPAs made the first pension audit so easy, we’re already on year three, and I don’t even worry about it anymore. It is great to partner with such a great team!”
Circumstances: LSL CPAs had been doing Progressive’s taxes for many years. Stephanie says, “When the warehouse decertified from the union in 2016, we suddenly had 97 more employees, and almost all of them joined the company’s 401(k) plan. Until then, we had been under the limits for audited plans. However, LSL told us we would need to have the plan audited.”
Challenges: Stephanie continues, “We’d never had to do one of these audits. I was a little nervous even though we do everything correctly. It’s just a little nerve-wracking having to find the paperwork and answering all the questions and things.”
Pension plan audits can be messy, but Progressive’s audit was clean. Stephanie shared, “On that first audit, the LSL audit team got our information well in advance, so when the time came, they’d already done a lot of the legwork. They were very organized and it took all the stress out of the process. In fact, the LSL folks were calm and reassuring, and they educated me on the whole process, so it wasn’t as stressful as some audits can be.”
Stephanie continues, “The team at LSL CPAs made the first pension audit so easy, we’re already on year three, and I don’t even worry about it anymore. It is great to partner with such a great team!”
It’s a definite happy ending to a good audit report and is the quintessential Horatio Alger business story. Progressive’s pension audit turned out to be small potatoes for what is now a big company, continuing to grow – a lovely “American Dream” story.