Retirement plan sponsors, get ready. A little more than a yearfrom now, participants in 401(k) plans must be able to see how muchthey're paying for their investments.

Last month, the Department of Labor issued rules requiringsponsors to include administrative and investment fees on quarterly401(k) statements by January 2012. The additional disclosure isintended to help employees make more informed choices.

Two big retirement plan providers, Putnam Investments andFidelity, have already said they will provide the informationearlier and will begin offering expense ratios online as soon asthis month.

It remains to be seen how the new rules will affect retirementplans; changes to fee structures, asset classes and investmentoptions are all possibilities. But in the near term, companies havea chance to scrutinize their plans and prepare to explain, andpossibly defend, them.

Employers should start by making sure they're at least a chapteror two ahead of employees in this process, says Gregory Ash,partner at law firm Spencer Fane Britt & Browne and chairman ofits ERISA litigation group.

“The very first thing that every employer should do is tothoroughly understand the fees that are being assessed at everylevel with respect to the plan,” Ash says. “If employers don'tunderstand the fees to begin with, they can't answerquestions.”

Next, type up a document that provides answers to theanticipated questions, suggests Robert Liberto, senior vicepresident at Segal Advisors. A Q&A that explains why certaindecisions were made, and how the employer selected the investmentchoices “will help defray a lot of questions,” Liberto adds.

Ash also suggests working out the process for handling questionsthat do come in, including the person in charge, the turnaroundtime and whether questions will be documented.

It's a teachable moment for participants. There's an opportunityto explain why certain fees are charged and why a more expensiveactively managed fund might be worth it, if the performance isthere, experts agree.

However, companies should definitely take this opportunity tomake sure their 401(k) plan's expenses are moderate, urges JohnKent Graham, vice president and regional director of complianceresearch at Sibson Consulting. “The question is, 'Is this areasonable cost of administration?'” he says, adding that plansponsors “basically have a little bit more than a year to get theirplans where they want them to be.”