How a Multi-Entity Electrical Contractor Simplified Certified Payroll and Accounting

The Certified Payroll Challenge: One Rate Is Never Enough

For certified payroll projects, employees must be paid at least the prevailing wage for the work performed.

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Each prevailing wage consists of:

• A base rate
• A fringe rate

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Because some fringe benefits are employer-paid, the effective hourly pay rate must be adjusted. As a result, pay rates can vary:

• By employee
• By job
• By location
• Within the same pay period

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Relying on manual adjustments to keep payroll, certified payroll reporting, and accounting aligned proved high-risk and unsustainable.

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The Solution: One Data Stream from Time to Payroll to Accounting

Dapt serves as the central synchronization layer for time tracking, payroll inputs, certified payroll reporting, and accounting.

Unified Time Processing

Dapt pulls time data from ADP TLM and BuildOps, applies job-specific wage and overtime rules, and prepares payroll-ready data. The customer then processes payroll using this standardized data set.

Dynamic Certified Payroll Processing

For certified payroll work, Dapt calculates and applies the correct pay rate by:

• Looking up the applicable prevailing wage for each job, including the base rate and fringe rate
• Adjusting the fringe rate to reflect employer-paid benefits
• Calculating and applying each employee’s regular rate per job (base rate + adjusted fringe)
• Calculating and applying each employee’s overtime rate using the required multiplier
  [(base rate × overtime multiplier) + adjusted fringe]
• Applying state-specific overtime rules, including California’s daily and weekly requirements

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The same calculated data is used consistently for:

• Payroll inputs
• Certified payroll reporting
• Accounting entries

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This ensures accuracy and alignment across all downstream outputs.

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Accounting Without Double Entry

Because Dapt synchronizes time data and payroll calculations within a single workflow, accounting entries are generated directly from the same data used to run payroll.

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After payroll is processed, Dapt:

• Creates accounting entries for each legal entity
• Routes entries to the appropriate accounting system (QuickBooks Online or NetSuite)
• Separates wages, fringe benefits, certified payroll adjustments, and overtime premiums

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As a result, profit and loss reporting is kept current each pay period, without manual journal entry work. This approach eliminates double entry, reduces reconciliation effort, and keeps payroll, certified payroll, and accounting fully aligned.

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The Result

With Dapt in place, the contractor now has:

• Consistently accurate payroll across 450 employees and 10+ entities
• Certified payroll rates calculated and applied dynamically by employee and job
• A single data stream from time tracking to payroll inputs to certified payroll reporting
• Correct application of state-specific overtime rules, including California
• Clean, auditable accounting entries across QuickBooks Online and NetSuite
• Significantly reduced manual effort across payroll and accounting teams

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This implementation supports the company’s broader post-merger consolidation efforts. By standardizing how time, payroll inputs, certified payroll, and accounting data move across all entities, the company has reduced fragmentation and gained more consistent, more timely, and more reliable data to evaluate performance and manage the business as a whole.

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What was once a fragmented, high-effort process is now a streamlined, repeatable workflow—reducing risk, saving time, and scaling cleanly across every entity and pay run.