Managed Payroll · Certified Payroll and Prevailing Wage

Certified payroll is a weekly filing deadline that does not move because you are busy on the jobsite.

Every week you have workers on a covered project, a WH-347 and a signed statement of compliance are due. Fringe benefits have to be annualized correctly, workers have to be classified by the work actually performed instead of by job title, apprentices only count at the registered ratio, and each state and agency wants it in a different portal. BEG manages the entire function at $25-$45 per employee per month, all-inclusive. Not software you operate. The reporting itself, done for you.

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Why Certified Payroll Breaks Normal Payroll

What makes certified payroll different from regular payroll?

Regular payroll has to be right once per cycle. Certified payroll has to be right, documented, certified under penalty of law, and filed every single week that anyone touches the project.

Weekly

The filing cadence is weekly, and it runs for the life of the project whether or not work happened

Under the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts, contractors and subcontractors on covered federal and federally assisted construction projects must submit a weekly certified payroll for each week in which contract work is performed, generally within seven days of the payroll period ending. The Form WH-347 carries a signed statement of compliance, which means someone at your company is personally certifying accuracy every week, not once a quarter.

Fringe

Fringe benefit credit is the single most common place certified payroll goes wrong

The prevailing wage determination sets a base rate and a fringe rate. You can pay the fringe in cash or take credit for bona fide benefit plan contributions, but the credit generally has to be annualized across all hours worked, not just the hours on the covered project. Contractors who divide an annual benefit cost by covered hours alone overstate the credit and underpay the wage, and the shortfall compounds quietly across every week of a long job.

Debarment

The downside is not a late fee, it is losing access to federal work entirely

Enforcement under the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts can include withholding of contract payments, recovery of back wages, contract termination, and debarment from federal and federally assisted contracts for up to three years. For a contractor whose pipeline depends on public work, debarment is not a compliance cost. It is the business.

Who This Is For

Every contractor position that triggers certified payroll

Coverage reaches further than most contractors expect. It is not only direct federal contracts.

Prime contractors on federal work

Direct contracts with a federal agency for construction, alteration, or repair. You carry your own reporting plus responsibility for collecting and reviewing what your subs submit.

Subcontractors at any tier

Second and third tier subs are covered too. Plenty of specialty trades discover the obligation after the award, when the GC asks for the first WH-347 and nobody has ever produced one.

Federally assisted projects

The Related Acts extend prevailing wage requirements to work funded through federal grants, loans, and assistance programs. A municipal or school project can be covered without a single federal signature on your contract.

State prevailing wage work

Many states run their own prevailing wage statutes with separate rate schedules, separate forms, and separate portals. Contractors working across state lines commonly file into several systems for the same week.

Contractors using apprentices

Apprentice rates only apply to workers in a registered program, and only within the allowed ratio to journeyworkers. Exceed the ratio and the extra apprentices owe the full journeyworker rate for those hours.

Crews working multiple classifications

A worker who runs equipment in the morning and does laborer work in the afternoon needs hours split by classification at each applicable rate. Paying the whole day at one rate is a finding waiting to happen.

What BEG Handles

The reporting itself, not a tool for producing it

This is the distinction that matters when you compare options. Most certified payroll products are self-serve software: you log in, import timecards, and the system generates a report you still have to review, sign, and file. BEG does that work.

WH-347 prepared weekly from your timecards
Statement of compliance prepared for signature
Wage determination applied by classification and county
Fringe benefit credit calculated and annualized
Cash fringe versus plan contribution tracked per worker
Split-classification hours allocated correctly

Apprentice registration and ratio monitoring
State prevailing wage forms and agency portals
Multi-project and multi-jurisdiction allocation
Deduction disclosure and documentation
Records retained to the required schedule
Agency questions and audit requests answered by BEG

All of it inside the $25-$45 PEPM rate. No per-report fee, no per-project fee, no separate compliance module. A $500 monthly minimum applies.

How It Works

Three steps to fully managed certified payroll

Scope review

We look at your active projects, the wage determinations attached to each, your classifications in use, your benefit plans, and which agencies and portals you file into. Fifteen minutes tells us whether this is a fit.

Setup and parallel week

We configure classifications, rates, and fringe treatment inside your existing system or on isolved, then run one week in parallel against your current process so any difference surfaces before it becomes a filed document.

Weekly, on schedule

You send timecards. We produce the report, apply the correct determination, calculate fringe, file into the right portal, and hand you a statement of compliance ready to sign. Every week, for the life of the project.

What You Get

Three things most certified payroll vendors do not offer

Bonus 01

Free fringe annualization review before you commit

Common objection: “We think our fringe credit is fine.”

Send us one recent WH-347 and your benefit plan costs. We recalculate the fringe credit on an annualized basis and show you the delta per hour. If it is zero, you get a clean report confirming that and you keep it for your file. If it is not zero, you have found a back wage exposure before an investigator did.

Bonus 02

We work inside the system you already have

Common objection: “We are mid-project. We cannot switch systems now.”

You do not have to. BEG manages certified payroll inside your current platform, which means no migration, no new logins for the field, and no disruption to an active job. If you would rather move to isolved, we handle that between projects instead of during one.

Bonus 03

Your certified payroll and your regular payroll are one function

Common objection: “We already have a certified payroll tool.”

Most contractors run two systems: normal payroll in one place, certified reporting bolted on somewhere else, reconciled by hand. BEG manages the whole payroll function, so the covered hours and the non-covered hours come from the same source of truth and the annualization math actually has all the hours it needs.

The Math on Waiting

Certified payroll errors do not stay small. A fringe credit that is off by a dollar an hour is a rounding error in week one and a five-figure back wage calculation across a crew by the time a project closes out. The weekly cadence that makes this burdensome is the same thing that makes an error compound, because you file the same mistake fifty-two times before anyone reviews it.

Your Next Transition Window

The cleanest time to hand this off is before an award, not during one. Live managed payroll runs 3-5 business days from signing, so a scope review now means the next covered project starts with the reporting already handled.

FAQ

Common questions about certified payroll services

What is certified payroll?

Certified payroll is a weekly report showing the wages, hours, classifications, and fringe benefits paid to each worker on a covered public works project, submitted with a signed statement of compliance. On federal and federally assisted construction it is generally filed on Form WH-347 for each week that contract work is performed.

How often does certified payroll have to be filed?

Weekly, for every week in which contract work is performed, generally within seven days of the end of the payroll period. The obligation runs for the life of the project, which is why it is a staffing problem and not just a reporting problem.

What is the difference between certified payroll software and a certified payroll service?

Software generates the report and leaves the review, the judgment calls, and the filing with you. A service does the work. BEG is a managed service: we apply the wage determination, calculate the fringe credit, allocate split classifications, file into the agency portal, and answer the questions that come back.

Why does fringe benefit annualization matter so much?

Because it is where the money is. Credit for a bona fide benefit plan generally has to be spread across all hours a worker works, not just the covered hours. Dividing an annual plan cost by covered hours alone inflates the hourly credit, which understates the cash wage owed, which becomes back wages across every week of the job.

What happens if certified payroll is wrong or late?

Consequences under the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts can include withholding of contract payments, recovery of back wages, contract termination, and debarment from federal and federally assisted contracts for up to three years. Willful falsification of a statement of compliance carries additional exposure.

Do state prevailing wage projects work the same way?

Similar in principle, different in the details. Many states run their own prevailing wage statutes with their own rate schedules, forms, filing portals, and deadlines. BEG files into the applicable state systems as well as the federal one, which matters most for contractors working across state lines.

Can BEG handle certified payroll inside our existing payroll system?

Yes. That is the usual arrangement. We manage certified payroll inside your current platform so there is no migration mid-project. Moving to isolved is an option, not a requirement, and we schedule it between jobs when it makes sense.

What does certified payroll cost with BEG?

It is included in managed payroll at $25-$45 per employee per month, all-inclusive, with a $500 monthly minimum. There is no separate per-report or per-project charge, and the rate covers your regular payroll as well as the certified reporting.