Maintaining a retirement plan for your employees is no easy task. At various points during the year, employers and HR departments field participant questions, help with enrollments, deliver notices and statements, and participate in the distribution process. However, an additional responsibility, and one of the most important, is the collection of data that is used for compliance testing and government reporting.

As the year-end approaches, our to-do lists can be lengthy. There are holidays to prepare for, employee performance reviews to complete, and, oh, wait, there is also the year-end data collection package from your TPA! We have once again reached that magical time of the year when you get to submit information regarding your retirement plan so your compliance services can be completed. While your TPA firm does the heavy lifting, the information you submit is the basis for accurate compliance testing. While not very exciting, this information is important. So, what should you know about the year-end tasks?

With communication mediums like email, text, and IM’s becoming the standard in business industries worldwide, plan sponsors are becoming increasingly interested in abandoning paper processes for a more electronic means of communication with plan participants and beneficiaries. Since e-delivery is not an “all or nothing” prospect, this new approach presents itself as an accessible and easily implemented process with many advantages.

There has been much upheaval in the retirement world as of late and it centers around the new fiduciary rule. The New Fiduciary Rule means that many investment professionals that weren’t previously considered fiduciaries will now have to take on that role. So, why is that such a bad thing?

It is estimated that uncashed checks account for billions of dollars, representing a fortune of uncollected funds belonging to plan participants or beneficiaries that they are not able to use and also represent serious issues for fiduciaries.