Glossary
Recordkeeper
A recordkeeper is the company that tracks a retirement plan's individual accounts — who contributed what, where it is invested, and what each participant owns — and runs the website and statements participants see.
The recordkeeper is the most visible vendor in a 401(k) but usually not a fiduciary: it executes instructions and keeps ledgers, while responsibility for the fund menu and fees sits with the plan sponsor and any hired fiduciary adviser. Payroll companies and large fund firms commonly fill this role.
Why it matters in practice
Recordkeeping is paid for somewhere — as an explicit per-head fee, as an asset-based charge, or embedded in fund expense ratios through revenue sharing — and the embedded versions are the ones participants never see. For employers, understanding what the recordkeeper is paid and whether it is a fiduciary are two of the most clarifying questions in a plan review; the required annual fee disclosures answer the first.
Related terms: Plan Sponsor · Third-Party Administrator · Custodian · 401(k) · Expense Ratio