Upload your census and every record is validated in seconds — and cross-checked against last year’s file — catching the errors that used to take weeks of back-and-forth to track down. Then send a clean file straight to ASC, FT William, or PensionPro.
20+ checksrun on every record
Prior-yearcross-referencing
100% localdata never leaves the browser
Your annual submission
Two quick steps to a clean census
Upload this year’s census — and, if you have it, drop last year’s file beside it to unlock cross-referencing. Everything is validated instantly, fixes are guided, and every change is logged.
1Upload
2Map fields
3Review & fix
4Finish & export
1This year’s census
Upload this year’s census file
Drop it here, or click to browse — CSV or Excel accepted
.csv, .xlsx, .xls · calendar-year plans · processed entirely in this browser
2Prior year · optional
Unlock prior-year cross-referencing ?
Missing employees — on last year’s census, no termination, gone this year
Changed hire & birth dates — flags any that moved vs. the prior filing
Compensation swings — large year-over-year moves that signal typos
Drop last year’s census here
.csv, .xlsx, .xls · auto-matched by SSN
Plan Reporting Questionnaire ?
Optional — complete the annual sponsor questionnaire alongside the census. With a census loaded, contribution answers are read from the file instead of asked.
Not started
What CensusCheck validates 20+ automated checks
Invalid or missing SSN
Nine valid digits, no invalid IRS ranges, no duplicates — and Excel-stripped leading zeros repaired with one click.
Data integrity
Details ›
Missing required fields
Flags any blank SSN, name, birth date, hire date, hours, or compensation before the file goes anywhere.
Data integrity
Details ›
Duplicate participants
Catches the same SSN — or the same name and birth date — appearing on two rows of the census.
Data integrity
Details ›
Date logic & sequence
Birth before hire, termination after hire, rehire after termination — plus ages outside 14–100 and future-dated entries.
Dates
Details ›
Plan-year window
Termination and rehire dates outside the plan year are flagged — clear or correct the date, or remove a participant whose prior-year termination means they no longer belong on this census.
Dates
Details ›
Hours reasonableness
Negative hours, unreadable values, or totals above 3,000 for the year all get a second look.
Eligibility
Details ›
Compensation limits
Caps against the §401(a)(17) limit for the plan year, catches negatives, and questions zero pay with hours worked.
IRS limits
Details ›
Deferral limits & catch-up
Total deferrals tested against the §402(g) limit, catch-up checked against age 50, and deferrals never above compensation.
IRS limits
Details ›
Missing employees
Someone on last year’s census with no termination date who has vanished from this year’s file — resolved with a guided fix.
Prior-year
Details ›
Hire date changed
Compares every hire and birth date to last year’s census and flags any that quietly moved — you choose which date is right.
Prior-year
Details ›
Compensation variance
Surfaces year-over-year pay swings of 50% or more — usually a typo, a mapping slip, or a missed status change.
Prior-year
Details ›
Spreadsheet artifacts
Trailing “.0” floats, accounting-style zeros, currency symbols, and thousand separators are read correctly, not rejected.
Data integrity
Details ›
Every fix is logged and re-validated instantly. Nothing is ever changed silently — each correction, cleared value, and confirmation lands in an audit trail, the engine re-runs the full rule set after every change, and anything only the client can answer goes into a ready-to-send question packet.
Map the file columns to the PDC standard ?
Suggested matches are pre-filled and outlined in green — confirm or correct each one. Required fields are marked *.
PDC standard field
Column in this file
Sample value
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Validating the census…
All checks passed. The file is clean against the PDC standard.
Bulk actions apply the proposed resolution to every matching card. Each change is logged as a fix. ?
0 question(s) queued for the client ?
0 of 0 resolved0%
Your census is clean
Processed by
Census overview
Export destinations ?
PDC standardStandard CSVThe clean PDC standard layout — one tidy CSV with every mapped field, ready for any downstream tool or archive.
ASC DGEM ?ASC importFixed 12/14-column ASC layout with employer-money bucket assignment, FICA handling, and hard error gating.
ftwilliam.com ?FT William importFill the census template downloaded from your ftwilliam.com plan — grid ID and all 5 header rows preserved exactly.
PensionPro ?PensionPro censusFill a census exported from PensionPro — its headers preserved, participant rows written beneath, delivered as .xlsx.
Plan Reporting Questionnaire
Confirm what we know. Answer what only you know.
Green statements are read from this session’s data — nothing to type. Everything you do enter is validated as you go, and “Not sure? Flag it” is always an acceptable answer: the purple flag button on any question marks it for your administrator instead of forcing a guess. Works entirely in this browser; the finished questionnaire downloads as a file to send in.
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This year’s census
Help Center · CensusCheck
CensusCheck validates your annual 401(k) census in minutes — every record checked against 20+ rules and, when you add last year’s file, cross-referenced year over year. Fixes are guided, every change is logged, and clean files export straight to your recordkeeping systems.
1
Upload this year’s census
Drop the completed PDC census template (or any CSV / Excel roster). Add last year’s file beside it to unlock prior-year cross-referencing — optional, but it catches what single-file checks can’t.
2
Confirm the field mapping
Columns are auto-matched to the PDC standard fields; green means matched, red means a required field still needs a column. Adjust any select and continue.
3
Review & fix
Each flagged item is a card: apply a correction, clear a spurious value, confirm the value is genuinely correct, queue a question for your client, or remove a prior-year termination. Every action re-validates instantly.
4
Finish & export
Download the graphical validation report, then send the clean census to ASC, FT William, PensionPro, or a standard CSV.
100% in your browser
The census never leaves your computer. No upload, no server — exports and reports are local downloads.
Propose & approve
Nothing is changed automatically. The tool proposes; you approve; the audit trail records the original and revised value.
Prior-year cross-reference
Hire-date changes, compensation swings over ±50%, and employees who vanished without a termination date.
Every record runs through the full battery. Errors must be fixed, confirmed, or sent to the client before export; warnings and info items are review-recommended and can be confirmed as correct.
Identity & data integrity
SSN format, range, and duplicate checks — including one-click repair of Excel’s stripped leading zeros and trailing-.0 artifacts. Required fields present on every row; duplicate people caught by name + birth date.
Dates & plan-year window
Unreadable dates, hire-before-birth and rehire-before-termination sequences, ages outside 14–100, future dates, and termination dates outside the plan year — with the option to remove a participant whose prior-year termination means they don’t belong on this census.
Hours & compensation
Hours outside 0–3,000, negative compensation, compensation over the §401(a)(17) cap for the plan year, and zero compensation with hours worked.
Deferrals & IRS limits
The §402(g) test adds pre-tax + Roth + catch-up together and applies the age-correct limit. Deferrals over compensation, negative money amounts, and catch-up contributions under age 50 are all flagged.
Prior-year cross-reference
With last year’s file loaded: hire dates and birth dates that moved, compensation that swung more than ±50%, and participants on last year’s census who are missing this year with no termination date.
Honest by design
If a fix doesn’t clear the rule, the card reopens and says exactly why. If the prior-year file isn’t loaded, the report says those checks were not run — never silently skipped.
The limits the validation engine applies, by plan year. The year selected on the upload step drives every test.
Catch-up note: participants age 50 or older by plan-year end may defer the combined amount (402(g) + catch-up). CensusCheck applies the age-correct limit automatically from date of birth.
Plan year
The 12-month period the census covers. CensusCheck supports calendar-year plans; every date and limit test keys off the selected year.
§402(g) limit
The IRS cap on employee deferrals for the year — pre-tax and Roth combined, plus catch-up for participants 50+.
Catch-up contribution
The extra deferral allowance for participants who are age 50 or older by December 31 of the plan year.
§401(a)(17) limit
The maximum compensation that can be counted for plan purposes. Amounts above it are flagged; plan compensation is capped at the limit.
Roth deferral
After-tax employee deferrals. Tested together with pre-tax deferrals against the §402(g) limit.
HCE
Highly compensated employee — flagged on the roster when your census marks one; used downstream in nondiscrimination testing.
Propose & approve
CensusCheck’s rule for every change: the tool flags and suggests, the administrator decides. No silent mutations, ever.
Audit trail
The permanent log of every applied fix — row, field, original value, revised value, timestamp — reproduced in the validation report.
Confirm as correct
The resolution for a flagged value that is genuinely right (an unusual but real compensation figure, for example). Logged with a note, and the card turns green.
Prior-year reconciliation
Squaring this year’s census against last year’s — including recording a missed termination against the prior year when a participant is removed.
ASC / FT William / PensionPro
The recordkeeping and administration systems CensusCheck exports to, each in its native template format.
Ask Client packet
Questions you can’t answer from the file alone, bundled into one email to the plan sponsor instead of a drip of one-off messages.
No. Every parse, check, fix, and export happens inside your browser. Nothing is uploaded to any server — reports and export files are generated locally as downloads.
CSV and Excel (.csv, .xlsx, .xls) — including the standard PDC census template, which maps automatically. Headers are auto-matched to the PDC standard fields either way.
The change saved and was logged, but the rule still fails with the new value — the card reopens and states exactly what the rule now sees. The classic case is the §402(g) test: it adds pre-tax + Roth + catch-up together, so those cards offer a breakdown with one input per deferral type.
Use Confirm as correct on the card. It records your attestation with a note in the audit trail and the report, and the item stops counting against you.
When their termination date falls in a prior plan year — they likely belong on that year’s census, not this one. The confirm step warns you if the row shows current-year pay, and removal is logged, excluded from every export, and undoable. If they’re on the loaded prior-year file with no termination date, the removal records the termination against the prior year in the same step.
No — it’s optional. Without it, the year-over-year checks simply don’t run, and the report says so honestly rather than implying they passed.
ASC (portal upload layout), FT William template fill, PensionPro template fill, and a standard CSV of the mapped fields. Removed participants are excluded from all of them.
The graphical report covers the whole session: record outcomes, issues by category (surfaced vs. resolved), everything still open, the complete fix-by-fix audit trail, confirmations, removals, client questions, prior-year reconciliation, and the full roster. A Word version is available beside it.
Email census@plandesign.com — the bar at the bottom of this window can copy the address or open a pre-filled message in Gmail, Outlook, or your mail app. The pre-filled message includes your plan name, plan year, and app version, which helps the team answer faster.
v2.5
Full PDC visual refresh — ink-outlined cards with color borders, cream field, signature bar, and the graphical report restyled to match.
v2.4
Graphical validation report: outcome pipeline, clean-percentage donut, issues by category, full audit trail. Word version retained.
v2.3
Remove-participant flow for prior-year terminations — guarded, logged, undoable, and reconciled against the prior-year file automatically.
v2.2
§402(g) and deferral-vs-compensation cards now offer a per-type breakdown fix, and every fix reports honestly when a rule still fails.
v2.0–2.1
Prior-year cross-referencing, confirm-as-correct, guided missing-employee resolution, the four-step flow, 2026 plan year with published IRS limits, and the app shell.
census@plandesign.comOpen in
Client Question Packet
Send to · client contact (clears when a new file is loaded)?
