Prevailing Wage Payroll Software: Compare Your Options

Summary

TL;DR

What tools or software can help my business manage prevailing wage projects?

A prevailing wage project puts four core demands on your software. It must pay each hour at the correct rate for the employee’s classification and the location where the work was performed. It must handle fringe benefits correctly. It must produce a certified payroll report every week in the format required by the contracting agency. And it must accurately cost the job so you can see whether the labor assumptions in your bid held up.

There are two basic ways to get there. You can keep your existing payroll and accounting systems and add software that handles prevailing wage, certified payroll, and job costing across them. Or you can replace your payroll system with a platform designed specifically around Davis-Bacon and prevailing wage requirements.

Dapt is built for the first approach. It connects the time tracking, payroll (ADP, Paychex, Paylocity, Paycom and others) and accounting systems a contractor already runs, maps hours to classifications, wage rates and fringe credits, and produces certified payroll in the federal WH-347 and every state format from the payroll record, with the fully burdened labor cost posted to the job. Nothing is replaced. This article covers what the work requires, the tools that add prevailing wage to the payroll you have, the platforms that replace it, the portals the reports go to, and how to choose.

What prevailing wage work requires of your software

Davis-Bacon and the state prevailing wage laws add rules that ordinary payroll does not carry:

The rate comes from the contract, the classification and the location. Each public contract carries its own wage determination. Within it, the rate and the fringe depend on the worker’s classification, meaning the trade or position they are working in, and on the county where the work is done. The same carpenter is paid one rate on Monday’s job and a different rate on Tuesday’s, and a worker who spends the morning as a laborer and the afternoon as a carpenter is paid two rates that day. Time has to be recorded by job and by classification, not just by hours. The Department of Labor’s WH-347 instructions are explicit about the alternative: if the contractor did not keep an accurate breakdown of hours by classification, the worker must be paid for all hours at the highest applicable rate.
Fringe. The fringe portion can be paid in cash, into a bona fide benefit plan, or both. What the employer already contributes to health, retirement and training is credited hour by hour, and how the credit is calculated decides whether the company is paying the right amount or overpaying.
Overtime on prevailing wage. Overtime is calculated on the base rate, and when a worker has more than one rate in a week the overtime rate itself will change.
A certified payroll report every week, whatever your pay cycle. Federal regulations (29 CFR 5.5) require covered contractors to submit payroll information weekly, and each weekly report is numbered from 1 for the life of the project. One is due for every week the crew is on the covered job, whether the company pays weekly, biweekly or semi-monthly. A biweekly payroll has to be broken back into the two work weeks it covers, each on its own numbered report. Payment on the job waits on those reports.
The report format depends on who you file with. The federal form is the WH-347. States have their own forms, and some require upload to a portal, such as California’s DIR. Many public owners also require submission through a compliance portal such as LCPtracker.
Union work on the same job. Where crews are covered by a collective bargaining agreement, prevailing wage and union rules apply together, and the union report is due as well.
Job cost. The prevailing wage job carries a wage and a fringe the private job next door does not. Unless the burdened cost is posted by job, the P&L cannot show whether the bid rate for public work was right.

Every tool below does some or all of the seven from one record of hours. The difference is what you keep and what you replace to get there.

Two approaches

-	Keep your stack, add prevailing wage	Replace payroll with a construction platform
Payroll	Stays with ADP, Paychex, Paylocity, Paycom or the provider you have	Moves to the platform’s payroll. Check the seven requirements above against it one by one, for every state and agency you file with
Accounting	Stays with QuickBooks, Sage, Dynamics or the ERP you have	Stays, or moves to the platform’s accounting if it has one
Time tracking	Stays with the field tool the crews use	Stays, or moves to the platform’s app
What changes for staff	Nothing in the tools they use; the prevailing wage work happens between them	Payroll staff and often the crews learn a new system
Implementation	Weeks; mapping jobs, classifications and pay rules	A payroll conversion
Best fit	Payroll and accounting already work; public work is a share of the business	Public or union work is most of the business, or payroll is being replaced anyway

Tools that add prevailing wage to the payroll you have

Dapt. Connects existing time tracking, payroll and accounting. Reads every recorded hour by job, classification and cost code, prepares the hours for payroll, applies the wage determination and fringe credit, and produces certified payroll in the federal and state formats, plus union reporting, from the payroll record. Fully burdened labor cost is posted to the job in the general ledger, so the same record serves certified payroll and job costing. Time comes from the field tool the crews already use: QuickBooks Time, ClockShark, eBillity, MakeShift, JobTread and others.
Points North. Certified Payroll Reporting software and managed services. It generates the weekly reports from data pulled from partner payroll and time systems, and its managed service submits them to the agency; WageIQ is its prevailing wage reporting product. Payroll and accounting stay; report production changes.
LCPcertified. LCPtracker’s certified payroll application for individual contractors, which generates the reports for prevailing wage projects from existing payroll data. Payroll and accounting stay.
eMars. Labor compliance and certified payroll software with auto-filled state formats, including California DIR, Oregon, Washington, New York and New Jersey. Payroll and accounting stay.
HCM TradeSeal. Prevailing wage and certified payroll software that validates pay across jobs, classifications, unions and jurisdictions before payroll runs, on enterprise payroll systems such as Workday, Dayforce, Paycor and Viewpoint Vista. Built for large contractors; payroll stays.

Platforms that replace payroll

eBacon. Certified payroll software for construction: construction payroll, time and attendance, prevailing wage, fringe management, job costing, general ledger integration, HR and benefits in one platform.
Payroll4Construction. A construction payroll service (“you submit time, we do the rest”) covering union wages, prevailing wage, multi-state payroll and certified reports, powered by FOUNDATION.
Foundation Software. Construction accounting software for contractors, with job costing, payroll, certified payroll and union reporting, and mobile time tracking as modules of one system.
Lumber. Construction payroll and workforce management software whose payroll covers prevailing wages, union payroll, certified payroll and union reporting, with time tracking and job costing on the field side.
Miter. Payroll, HR, expenses and field operations software for contractors: HRIS, payroll, benefits, time tracking, scheduling and daily reports in one platform.
Hammr. Construction payroll, HR and operations built for contractors, with payroll that handles multi-rate, prevailing wage and union work; listed on the Sage Intacct Marketplace.
Knowify. Project and service management software for trade contractors, built around QuickBooks, with prevailing wage alongside AIA billing, budgeting and job costing.

Each of these does the prevailing wage work from inside its own payroll. Before choosing one, check the seven requirements above against it for the states and agencies you file with, and count the conversion: a new payroll system for the office and, in most cases, a new time app for the field.

Where the reports go

The third group is not software a contractor buys. It is who the certified payroll report goes to, and any tool you choose has to produce the report in the form each of them accepts.

The general contractor. On many public jobs the trade partner does not file with the agency at all. It submits certified payroll to the general contractor, and the GC files for the whole job.
The general contractor’s accountants. Often it is the GC’s accounting firm that files on the GC’s behalf, and the firm sets the report structure it needs from every trade partner on the job, usually a spreadsheet of its own design. That structure is one more format the tool has to produce, and it changes from GC to GC.
LCPtracker Pro. Labor compliance software used by public agencies and prime contractors; the contractors working under them upload their certified payroll into it, and the agency checks it against the wage determination.
B2Gnow. Labor compliance, vendor diversity and grant management for public owners: state DOTs, transit agencies, housing authorities, cities and counties.
SkillSmart. Construction compliance, reporting and tracking for owners, public agencies and general contractors, covering prevailing wage, certified payroll oversight and apprenticeship reporting.
State portals. California’s DIR requires electronic certified payroll; other states have their own portals or forms.
U.S. Department of Labor. The WH-347 form, its annotated guide and an online fillable version are published by the Wage and Hour Division. For an occasional federal job with no automation, the fillable form is the baseline.

Quick comparison

Tool	Approach	What stays	What changes
Dapt	End to end on the payroll you have: rates and fringe in, certified payroll and union reports out, burdened cost to the job	Payroll, accounting, time tracking	Nothing. Staff keep using the tools they know
Points North	Reporting add-on and managed service	Payroll, accounting, time tracking	Report production
LCPcertified	Reporting add-on	Payroll, accounting, time tracking	Report production
eMars	Compliance and reporting add-on	Payroll, accounting	Report production
HCM TradeSeal	Pre-payroll validation, enterprise	Payroll, accounting	Validation added before payroll
eBacon	Construction payroll platform	Accounting	Payroll, time tracking
Payroll4Construction	Construction payroll service	Accounting	Payroll processing
Foundation	Construction accounting and payroll	Depends on modules chosen	Payroll; accounting if the ERP is adopted
Lumber	Construction payroll and workforce platform	Accounting	Payroll, time tracking
Miter	Payroll, HR and field platform	Accounting	Payroll, HR, time tracking
Hammr	Construction payroll and HR platform	Accounting	Payroll, HR, time tracking
Knowify	Project management with prevailing wage	QuickBooks	Project management, time tracking

How to choose

Four questions settle it:

Does payroll work today? If ADP, Paychex, Paylocity or your current provider handles the company’s payroll well, the reason to replace it is prevailing wage alone. A tool that adds prevailing wage to that payroll keeps everything else as it is.
How much of the business is public or union work? A contractor whose work is mostly Davis-Bacon or union may want payroll built around those rules. A contractor with a public job now and then needs the rules applied without changing how the rest of the business runs.
How many states and agencies? Every state form and portal the company files into is a format the tool has to produce, and every public owner’s compliance portal is a file it has to export. Ask for the list.
Do you need job costing anyway? Certified payroll and job costing read the same record: hours by job, classification and cost code. A tool that produces the report but does not post burdened cost to the job leaves the second half undone.

Verdict: add the rules to the stack that works

For most contractors, prevailing wage is a set of rules applied to some of the work, not a reason to change the systems that run all of it. Dapt adds those rules to the payroll, accounting and time tracking a contractor already has: hours by job and classification, wage determinations and fringe credit applied in payroll, a certified payroll report for every week in the federal WH-347 and every state format from the same record, union reporting where it applies, and burdened labor cost on the job so the P&L shows whether public work is paying. The platforms that replace payroll do the same work from inside their own payroll, and are the right choice when payroll is being replaced anyway.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to change payroll providers to do certified payroll? No. Dapt produces certified payroll from the payroll record in ADP, Paychex, Paylocity, Paycom and other systems. The provider stays; the reports come from the data it already holds.

How often do certified payroll reports have to be filed? Every week the crew works on the covered job, regardless of how often the company runs payroll. Federal regulations require weekly submission, and each report is numbered in sequence from the first week. A biweekly payroll is split back into its two work weeks and each week gets its own numbered report. Payment on the job waits on the reports, so a missed week is a cash flow problem as well as a compliance one.

Which certified payroll formats do these tools produce? The federal WH-347 is the common one. State forms and portals differ; Dapt produces the federal form, each state’s form, and the upload for states with their own portal. Ask any tool for the list of formats it produces, not just whether it “does certified payroll.”

Is LCPtracker certified payroll software? LCPtracker Pro is the compliance portal a public agency or prime contractor runs; the contractor’s certified payroll is uploaded into it. LCPtracker also sells LCPcertified, a reporting tool for individual contractors. A payroll or certified payroll tool has to produce a file that the portal accepts.

Do I need a job costing tool as well? Not a separate one. Certified payroll and job costing read the same record, hours by job and classification, and Dapt produces both from it. The public job carries a wage and fringe that private work does not, so posting the fully burdened cost to the job is what shows whether the bid rate for public work held. Dapt does that in the same run that produces the certified payroll report.

Talk to us

Schedule a consultation with our specialist group to review your existing setup. We know this stack well and can walk through how it would handle your prevailing wage requirements on the payroll you already run, and show what the job-cost side looks like for your work, without changing what your crews use. Get in touch to begin.