Construction Payroll Services: Certified Payroll & Prevailing Wage

Construction payroll is the process of paying a field crew across multiple jobs, wage rates, and jurisdictions while producing the records those jobs require. It covers certified payroll reporting, prevailing wage rates, union fringe benefits, multi-state withholding, and labor costs coded to the right job so your job-cost reports stay accurate.

Key Takeaways

• Certified payroll reports are required weekly on most federally funded construction contracts.
• Prevailing wage rates vary by county, trade, and contract – one crew can carry several rates in one week.
• Labor burden coded to the wrong job quietly destroys your job costing, and the error compounds every pay period.
• CentsIQ runs payroll through Gusto, ADP, and QuickBooks Payroll, and ties every hour back to the job.
• Flat monthly pricing. No per-report surprise billing during audit season.

Why Is Construction Payroll Harder Than Normal Payroll?

Most payroll runs are the same every period: same people, same rate, same state. Construction breaks all three assumptions. A single employee can work three jobs in a week at three different wage determinations, cross a state line, and accrue union fringes that must be reported separately from base pay.

On top of that, the labor cost has to land in two places at once – your payroll tax filings and your job-cost report. When those two disagree, your gross margin by job is fiction, and you will not find out until the job closes.

What Is Certified Payroll?

Certified payroll is a weekly report showing every worker on a covered job, their classification, hours, pay rate, and deductions, signed under penalty of perjury. Under the U.S. Department of Labor’s Davis-Bacon and Related Acts, contractors and subcontractors on federally funded or assisted construction contracts in excess of $2,000 must pay locally prevailing wages and fringe benefits, and submit weekly certified payroll records.

The DOL provides Form WH-347 for this purpose. The form itself is not the hard part – keeping the classifications, rates, and fringe calculations correct across a crew that moves between jobs is.

What About Washington Prevailing Wage?

Washington runs its own prevailing wage program through the Department of Labor & Industries, with rates published by county and trade. Public works contractors file a Statement of Intent to Pay Prevailing Wages before starting and an Affidavit of Wages Paid at completion.

State and federal requirements can both apply to the same job. When the rates differ, the higher one generally governs. We track which determination applies to which job so the crew is paid correctly the first time.

What We Handle

• Weekly or biweekly payroll processing for field and office staff
• Certified payroll reports, including WH-347 preparation
• Prevailing wage rate tracking by job, county, and classification
• Union fringe benefit reporting and remittance tracking
• Multi-state and multi-jurisdiction withholding registration and filing
• Workers compensation class code review and L&I reporting
• Labor allocated to jobs and phases so job costing stays accurate
• Quarterly and annual payroll tax filings, W-2s, and 1099-NEC for subcontractors

How Does Payroll Connect to Job Costing?

This is where most contractor books fall apart. Payroll is usually treated as an overhead expense and posted in a lump sum. That is fine for the tax return and useless for running the business.

We code labor – including burden, taxes, and fringes, not just gross wages – to the job and phase it was worked on. That makes your construction bookkeeping reports real: you can see actual labor against estimate per job, per phase, while the job is still open and something can still be done about it.

Who This Is For

• General contractors and specialty trades running crews across multiple jobs
• Public works contractors with certified payroll obligations
• Contractors working across state lines or in multiple counties
• Union shops with fringe reporting requirements
• Anyone whose payroll is technically correct but whose job costing does not reflect it

Frequently Asked Questions About Construction Payroll

What is certified payroll and who has to file it?

Certified payroll is a weekly report of workers, classifications, hours, rates, and deductions, signed under penalty of perjury. Under the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts, contractors and subcontractors on federally funded or assisted construction contracts in excess of $2,000 must pay prevailing wages and submit weekly certified payroll records. Many state and local public works contracts carry similar requirements.

What is prevailing wage?

Prevailing wage is the hourly rate, including fringe benefits, that must be paid to workers in a specific trade classification on a covered public works project. Rates are set by jurisdiction and vary by county and trade. In Washington, rates are published by the Department of Labor and Industries.

Can one employee have more than one pay rate in the same week?

Yes, and it is common. A worker can move between jobs with different wage determinations, or work in more than one classification. Each combination of job and classification carries its own rate, and the payroll records have to reflect that split accurately.

Do you handle union fringe benefit reporting?

Yes. We track fringe contributions by fund, prepare the remittance reporting your agreements require, and keep the fringe portion separated from base wages so certified payroll reports are correct.

Can you run payroll and my bookkeeping together?

Yes, and it works considerably better that way. When payroll and the general ledger are handled by the same team, labor lands in the right job and phase automatically instead of being reconciled after the fact.

What payroll systems do you work with?

We work with Gusto, ADP, and QuickBooks Payroll, and integrate payroll data into QuickBooks Online or Xero. If you already have a system that works, we are not going to make you switch to start.

Get Construction Payroll Off Your Desk

Certified payroll is not the kind of paperwork you want to get wrong. Wage determinations change, jobs overlap, and audits look backwards.

We handle the payroll, the reporting, and the job costing behind it, so the numbers agree with each other and with the record you have to produce.

Flat monthly pricing. No hourly billing. No surprise invoices at audit time.