When employers think about retirement plan risk, the conversation almost always starts with investments. Are we offering the right funds? Is our advisor doing a good job? How has the market performed?

Those are important questions, but in our experience they are rarely the source of the biggest problems.

Instead, the issues that create the most cost, disruption, and liability tend to be administrative. An employee isn’t enrolled on time. A payroll change isn’t implemented correctly. Contributions are deposited late. The payroll system is calculating compensation differently than the plan document requires. None of these mistakes are going to make headlines, yet each can result in corrective employer contributions, regulatory filings, or hours of time spent unwinding an avoidable problem.

One reason these errors are so common is that retirement plans involve several different parties. HR manages eligibility and enrollment. Payroll processes contributions. The recordkeeper maintains participant accounts. A financial advisor oversees investments. A third-party administrator handles compliance and plan administration. Whenever responsibilities overlap, there is an opportunity for something to slip through the cracks, particularly if everyone assumes someone else is handling it.

Recent legislation has only made that coordination more important. SECURE 2.0 introduced new requirements around long-term part-time employees and automatic enrollment that require closer coordination between HR, payroll, and service providers. Employers that continue to rely on manual tracking or informal processes may find themselves exposed to risks they didn’t have just a few years ago.

Fortunately, most of these problems are preventable. They are usually the result of lack of process, not complexity. Organizations that periodically review how eligibility is tracked, how payroll changes are verified, how participant transactions are approved, and who ultimately owns each administrative responsibility tend to avoid many of the costly corrections we see elsewhere.

We’ve compiled the most common administrative mistakes we encounter, along with practical suggestions for preventing them, in a complimentary guide for HR professionals.