Plan Sponsor Resources
Practical tools for the people who actually run the plan: the compliance calendar, the annual fiduciary file, what to keep, what to benchmark, and the questions to ask your providers before renewal.
This section is built for the HR director, controller or CFO who inherited the retirement plan along with everything else. Everything here is operational — deadlines, checklists and documents — not theory.
The calendar-year compliance calendar
| When | What is due | Who typically owns it |
|---|---|---|
| Each payroll | Remit employee deferrals as soon as they can reasonably be segregated from general assets | Payroll / plan administrator |
| Jan 31 | Form 1099-R to participants who took distributions | Recordkeeper |
| Q1 | ADP/ACP and top-heavy testing; correct excess contributions to avoid the excise tax window | TPA |
| Mar 15 | Deadline to distribute prior-year excess contributions without a 10% employer excise tax (calendar-year plans) | TPA / recordkeeper |
| Jul 31 | Form 5500 due for calendar-year plans (extendable to Oct 15 via Form 5558) | 3(16) / plan administrator |
| Sep 30 | Summary Annual Report to participants (or 2 months after an extended 5500) | 3(16) / plan administrator |
| Dec 1 | Annual participant notices: safe harbor, QDIA, automatic enrollment | 3(16) / recordkeeper |
| Dec 31 | Required minimum distributions; discretionary amendments for the plan year | TPA / plan administrator |
| Annually | 408(b)(2) covered-service-provider fee disclosures collected and reviewed; 404(a)(5) participant fee disclosure delivered | Plan sponsor / 3(16) |
Deadlines assume a calendar-year plan. Off-cycle plan years shift accordingly — confirm your own dates with your TPA.
Your annual fiduciary file
If DOL, a plan auditor or a plaintiff’s attorney asked tomorrow, could you produce these within a week? This is the file that decides how the conversation goes.
- Executed plan document, adoption agreement and every amendment — signed and dated
- Current Summary Plan Description and any Summaries of Material Modification
- IRS opinion or determination letter
- Investment Policy Statement and the most recent investment review
- Fiduciary committee charter, member appointments and acceptances
- Committee meeting minutes for the last three years
- 408(b)(2) fee disclosures from every covered service provider
- Most recent fee benchmarking or RFP results
- Service agreements identifying each provider’s ERISA status
- ERISA fidelity bond and any fiduciary liability policy
- Filed Form 5500s with schedules, audit reports and SARs
- Annual compliance testing results and any correction documentation
- Payroll remittance log showing deposit timing
- Participant notice distribution proof (safe harbor, QDIA, blackout, auto-enrollment)
- Missing-participant search records and uncashed-check procedures
What to benchmark — and how often
All-in plan cost
Total plan cost in basis points and in dollars: investment expense, recordkeeping, advisory, TPA and any revenue sharing. Compare against plans of similar asset size and headcount — not against a national average.
Investment lineup
Performance against benchmark and peer group, expense ratios, share class eligibility, and whether a cheaper share class of the same fund is available to you.
Formal provider RFP
Even if you keep the incumbent, a documented market check is strong evidence of a prudent process and frequently produces a pricing concession.
Service quality
Deferral change turnaround, distribution processing time, notice accuracy, error frequency and how the provider handled the last mistake.
Questions to ask before you renew a provider
- Which ERISA section do you accept fiduciary status under — in writing, in the agreement?
- What is our total all-in cost in basis points, including revenue sharing and any float?
- Are we in the lowest share class our asset level qualifies for? If not, why?
- Which administrative functions are yours, and which remain ours?
- Who signs the Form 5500, and who is liable if it is wrong?
- What are your cybersecurity controls, and do they meet DOL’s guidance for plan data?
- How is participant data used, and is it shared with affiliated sales operations?
- What happens operationally if we terminate — and what does conversion cost?
Where to go from here
401(k) Benchmarking
An independent read on whether your plan’s fees and services are reasonable, documented in a form you can put in the fiduciary file.
402(a) Fiduciary Services
Admin316 is named in the plan document and takes responsibility for plan operation and administration.
Plan Sponsor Fiduciary Lunch
An invitation-only working session for a small group of employers — your plan, your numbers, your questions.
Want your plan measured against this checklist?
Send us your latest Form 5500 and provider agreements. We will tell you what is missing, what is exposed, and what it would cost to fix — before you commit to anything.
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