Now that you have an understanding of the types of contributions available to you, it’s time to start maximizing them. The first step is making sure you’re taking full advantage of your employer match.

Simply put, your 401(k) employer match is almost always the best investment return available to you. Because with every dollar you contribute up to the full match, you typically get an immediate 25%-100% return.

All told, in this example, your employer contributes an extra 4% of your salary to your 401(k) as long as you contribute at least 5% of your salary. That’s an immediate 80% return on investment. That’s why it’s so important to take full advantage of your 401(k). There’s really no other investment that provides such an easy, immediate and high return.

How does this work in the real world? Well, let’s say that you make $3,000 per paycheck and that you contribute 10% of your salary to your 401(k). That means that $300 of your own money is deposited into your 401(k) as an employee contribution each paycheck, and your employer matching contribution breaks down as follows:

A dollar-for-dollar match means that your employer has agreed to match 100% of your contributions, up to a specified point. So if you contribute 5% of your income to your 401(k), your employer also contributes 5%. Just like the partial match, anything above the match limit is not matched.

While every matching program is different, a typical plan offers a partial match or a dollar-for-dollar match. The names clue you into how they work. A partial match means your employer agrees to match a certain percentage of your contributions, up to a specified point. For example, your company could match 50% of your contributions up to 6% of your salary. That means if you contribute 4% of your salary, your employer will contribute 2%.

And if you have any trouble either finding the information or understanding it, you can reach out to your human resources representative for help. You should be able to find their contact information in the summary plan description.

As for where to find this information, the best and most definitive source is your 401(k)’s summary plan description, which is a long document that details all of the ins and outs of your plan. This is a great resource for all sorts of information about your 401(k), but you can specifically look for the word “match” to find the details on your employer matching program.

With those two pieces of information in hand, you’ll know how much you need to contribute to get the full match and how much extra money you’ll be getting each time you make that contribution.

So your job is to find out exactly how your employer matching program works, and the good news is that it shouldn’t be too hard. These are the two main pieces of information you’re looking for:

On a personal level, taking full advantage of your employer match is simply a matter of contributing at least the maximum percentage of your salary that your employer is willing to match. In the example above, that would be 5%, but the actual amount will vary from plan to plan.

Two big pitfalls to avoid with your 401(k) employer match

Your employer match is almost always a good offer, but there are two pitfalls to watch out for: vesting and front-loading contributions. Both of these could either diminish the value of your employer match or cause you to miss out on getting the full match.

Pitfall #1: Vesting

Employer contributions to your plan, including matching contributions, may be subject to something called a vesting schedule.

A vesting schedule means that those employer contributions are not 100% yours right away. Instead, they become yours over time as you accumulate years of service with the company. If you leave before your employer contributions are fully vested, you will only get to take some of that money with you.

For example, a common vesting schedule gives you an additional 20% ownership over your employer’s contributions for each year you stay with the company. If you leave before one year, you will not get to keep any of those employer contributions. If you leave after one year, you will get to keep 20% of the employer contributions and the earnings they’ve accumulated. After two years, you will get to keep 40%, and so on, until you’ve earned the right to keep 100% of your employer’s contributions after five years with the company.

Three things to know about vesting:

Employee contributions are never subject to a vesting schedule. Every dollar you contribute and every dollar that money earns is always 100% yours, no matter how long you stay with your company. Only employer contributions are subject to vesting schedules. Not all companies have a vesting schedule. In some cases, you might be immediately 100% vested in all employer contributions. There is a single vesting clock for all employer contributions. In the example above, all employer contributions will be 100% vested once you’ve been with the company for five years, even those that were made just weeks earlier. You are not subject to a new vesting period with each individual employer contribution.

Should vesting affect how you invest?

A vesting schedule can decrease the value of your employer match. A 100% match is great, but a 100% match that takes five years to get the full benefit of is not quite as great.

Still, in most cases it makes sense to take full advantage of your employer match, even if it’s subject to a vesting schedule. And the reasoning is simply that the worst-case scenario is that you leave your job before any of those employer contributions vest, in which case your 401(k) would have acted just like any other retirement account available to you, none of which offer any opportunity to get a matching contribution.

However, there are situations in which a vesting schedule might make it better to prioritize other retirement accounts before your 401(k). In some cases, your employer contributions might be 0% vested until you’ve been with the company for three years, at which point they will become 100% vested. If you anticipate leaving your current employer within the next couple of years, and if your 401(k) is burdened with high costs, you may be better off prioritizing an IRA or other retirement account first.

You may also want to consider your vesting schedule before quitting or changing jobs. It certainly shouldn’t be the primary factor you consider, but if you’re close to having a significant portion of your 401(k) vest, it may be worth waiting just a little bit longer to make your move.

You can find all the details on your 401(k) vesting schedule in your summary plan description. And again, you can reach out to your human resources representative if you have any questions.

Pitfall #2: Front-loading contributions

In most cases, it makes sense to put as much money into your savings and investments as soon as possible. The sooner it’s contributed, the more time it has to compound its returns and earn you even more money.

But the rules are different if you’re trying to max out your employer match. The reason is that most employers apply their maximum match on a per-paycheck basis. That is, if your employer only matches up to 5% of your salary, what they’re really saying is that they will only match up to 5% of each paycheck.

For a simple example, let’s say that you’re paid $18,000 twice per month. So over the course of an entire year, you make $432,000. In theory, you could max out your annual allowed 401(k) contribution with your very first paycheck of the year. Simply contribute 100% of your salary for that one paycheck, and you’re done.

The problem is that you would only get the match on that one single paycheck. If your employer matches up to 5% of your salary, then they would match 5% of that $18,000 paycheck, or $900. The next 23 paychecks of the year wouldn’t get any match because you weren’t contributing anything. And since you were eligible to get a 5%, $900 matching contribution with each paycheck, that means you’d be missing out on $20,700.

Spreading out contributions to take full advantage of your employer match

Now, most people aren’t earning $18,000 per paycheck, so the stakes aren’t quite that high. But the principle remains the same.

Still, to get the full benefit of your employer match, you need to set up your contributions so that you’re contributing at least the full matching percentage every single paycheck. You may be able to front-load your contributions to a certain extent, but you want to make sure that you stay far enough below the annual $18,000 limit to get the full match with every paycheck.

Now, some companies will actually make an extra contribution at the end of the year to make up the difference if you contributed enough to get the full match but accidentally missed out on a few paychecks. You can find out if your company offers that benefit in your 401(k)’s summary plan description.

But in most cases, you’ll need to spread your contributions out over the entire year in order to get the full benefit of your employer match.