Sheree and partner Tony Delfino started their firm in November 2008. They didn’t want it to be just any TPA firm – there were plenty of those already. Instead they dreamed of a boutique firm, one sophisticated enough to design complicated solutions such as combo plans yet to be nimble and responsive to clientele problems. “PlanPerfect” suited their vision for their firm perfectly.

That was the start of a retirement plan administration adventure that has to this day kept Sheree fully engaged.

Every firm has its origins – let’s take a look at how PlanPerfect’s unique journey began.

It Happened One Day . . .

Sheree likes to say she was “discovered” by Tony Delfino. It was 1984 and she was working for an accounting firm at $5/ hour when Tony approached her with an offer of twice that, a whopping $10/hour, with his TPA firm. “I didn’t know it yet, but I’d been ‘discovered’ – not exactly as glamorous as Joan Rivers being discovered by Johnny Carson, but still a legendary moment in my career!” The decision was a no-brainer for a UCLA student back then. Little did she know then that she and Tony would become partners 24 years later.

Several years after forming PlanPerfect with Tony, and at Tony’s urging, Sheree moved back to California, setting up the company in Newport Beach. There she handled much of the actuarial side of the practice, but found she needed help with its daily valuation plans.

She had already purchased the actuarial software and a DC administration recordkeeping system. But to fully round out the practice, she needed the technology for the daily valuation side.

It came in the form of a friend of Tony’s who introduced Sheree to a man “back East” in the Raleigh-Durham area, saying, “I think this guy would really be helpful for you on the daily valuation side of your practice.” He had the technology she needed. The result? “We’ve been working together now for almost 15 years,” Sheree said.

As PlanPerfect grew, and as the retirement landscape grew more demanding, increasing the complexity of managing sophisticated plans, Sheree embarked on a search for greater efficiency.

A Search For The Lowest-Hanging Fruit

Bob Dylan titled his 1964 hit song, “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” words that resonate with the retirement industry today. Between rapid technological advances and the number of rules and regulations government agencies generate every year, TPAs can easily be overwhelmed.

That is where Sheree found herself three years ago. Her expertise in combo plans had led to these plans being “a big chunk” of PlanPerfect’s 450-plan practice. Combo plans, which integrate cash balance and 401(k) profit-sharing plans, are ideal for one-person companies or those with a husband-and-wife team.

Combo plans are complex and require a large amount of paperwork for their administration. Though PlanPerfect isn’t an investment advisor, it manages trust accounting for their plans, receiving monthly brokerage statements from approximately 40 different brokerage firms, two for each combo plan. It was a volume that eventually required Sheree to dedicate a full-time employee just to scanning the mountains of brokerage reports into their administrative system.

That was too much for Sheree, who believes in looking for the lowest hanging fruit, something that could be automated to free up time doing manual tasks such as scanning brokerage statements.

Sheree first asked her copier’s tech team about automatic scanning. Sure, they said – but the system didn’t deliver.

She then tried a major administration firm’s workflow management system which promised to ease scanning and spreadsheet headaches – but it didn’t quite hit the mark.

There had to be a way to find a way to get their statements scanned in efficiently, Sheree thought as she continued to look for the lowest hanging fruit to get that done.

The solution arrived unexpectedly in a 2023 virtual TPA consortium’s  meeting where Stax.ai showcased their platform. Stax.ai had the ability, they said, to access a client’s system through an interface, sort scanned trust statements, and put them into the correct files. Clients could even scan their statements using the Stax.ai system, they said, an added benefit.

Sheree had found her lowest hanging fruit! She started working with Stax.ai in August 2023. Suddenly, what had been taking them three to four days to scan brokerage statements now took maybe fifteen minutes! The full-time staff who had been scanning the statements could now be freed for more strategic work.

After exploring several solutions, PlanPerfect had found a game-changer in Stax.ai – transforming how they manage data and operations.

Frictionless Admin Is A Reality

“I really do think Stax.ai found a niche with their third product, CX, their payroll integration and census export which just became a reality in the fourth quarter of 2024.” With the addition of their CX platform, alongside brokerage account sorting and trust accounting, Stax.ai offers a trio of tools that have made life at PlanPerfect a whole lot easier.

Sheree is enthusiastic about census importing and payroll integration. “When you have to send out that annual request to collect the census information each year, that’s a point of friction,” she recalled. With payroll data exporting directly to census templates, that friction is gone.

“When Naru said they were coming out with CX, these were magic words. And hook, line, and sinker, I bought it. Done.”

There have been a few hiccups, but Sheree remains enthused about Stax.ai’s Naru (its founder and CEO), Stax.ai, and what they’re doing to make TPA’s lives a lot easier. Census integration… payroll… seamless technology… frictionless administration. “It also eliminates the client having that friction or that bad taste,” she concluded.” Who wants to sit down and fill out an Excel spreadsheet with employee data? Nobody does. This [Stax.ai’s CX] solves the problem.”

The sum of Sheree’s experience with Stax.ai? A remarkable transformation. Seamless integration and significant time savings have allowed PlanPerfect to focus on strategic growth. Sheree has found the lowest hanging fruit, one that shows frictionless admin is not a myth, in Stax.ai. After years of managing complexity, PlanPerfect now enjoys smoother workflows and more time for growth.

About Stax.ai

Stax.ai was built specifically for the retirement industry to modernize and automate the way TPAs manage their operations. Their AI-powered platform streamlines compliance, client communication, trust accounting, and workflow automation – eliminating inefficiencies and empowering TPAs to scale. Today, Stax.ai serves leading TPAs nationwide, helping them increase productivity, reduce costs, and deliver superior service to plan sponsors and participants.