Certified Payroll Software: A Buyer's Guide for Subcontractors

If you have won a federally funded construction job, your contract almost certainly requires a weekly certified payroll report — federal Form WH-347— for every project, signed under a Statement of Compliance. Doing it by hand in a spreadsheet works until it doesn't: one miscalculated overtime rate or a fringe shortfall can hold up your payment or trigger back-wage findings. Certified payroll software exists to do that math correctly and hand you a signable report. This guide explains what these tools actually do, what to look for, and what they should cost.

What certified payroll software actually does

At its core, certified payroll software takes the hours and pay rates for your crew and produces a complete, print-ready WH-347 plus its Statement of Compliance. A good tool computes gross earnings, overtime, and net pay; checks that each worker's wage package meets the prevailing wage on your wage determination; and stores only the last four digits of each Social Security number, never the full SSN, exactly as the DOL form requires. The goal is not fancy dashboards — it is a correct document you can sign without losing sleep.

The features that matter

Feature lists get long, but only a handful of capabilities actually protect you in an audit. Here is the short list worth insisting on:

Getting the Davis-Bacon overtime right

This is where hand-built spreadsheets most often go wrong, so it is worth a concrete example. Say a laborer's wage determination lists a basic rate of $20.00 and a fringe of $8.00, you pay the $8.00 fringe in cash, and the worker puts in 50 hours in the week (40 straight, 10 overtime):

• Straight-time gross: 40 × ($20.00 + $8.00) = $1,120.00
• Overtime hourly rate: (1.5 × $20.00) + $8.00 = $38.00
• Overtime gross: 10 × $38.00 = $380.00
• Total gross: $1,500.00

The trap is multiplying the whole package by time-and-a-half — 1.5 × ($20.00 + $8.00) = $42.00 — which would inflate overtime to $420.00. Fringe is only ever paid at straight time, even on overtime hours, so the overtime premium rides on the base rate alone. Any tool you evaluate should return $38.00 here, not $42.00. Ask a vendor to run this exact case if you want a fast honesty check.

Fringe shortfall detection

The prevailing wage is base plus fringe, and you can satisfy the fringe portion with contributions to bona-fide benefit plans, cash in lieu, or a mix of both. The compliance test is on the total package: base cash you pay, plus fringe to plans, plus cash-in-lieu, must at least equal the required base plus fringe. If a carpenter's determination requires $25.00 base and $12.00 fringe but you provide $25.00 cash and only $7.00 to plans, you are $5.00 an hour short — and on a 40-hour week that is $200.00 in back wages waiting to be found. Good software catches that before you sign, not after the auditor does. Read more in our guide to certified payroll fringe benefits.

The landscape: enterprise, mid-market, and small-sub tools

The market splits into three rough tiers. At the top are enterprise compliance platforms — names like LCPtracker and eMars — built for agencies, prime contractors, and large firms that need labor-compliance workflows, document management, and portal integrations across many subs. They are powerful and expensive, and much of what they do is aimed at the party collecting certified payroll, not the small sub submitting it.

In the middle sit general construction-accounting and payroll suites that add a certified-payroll module. These can work well if you already run your whole business on that platform, but you often pay for a full accounting system to get one report. At the bottom — and this is the niche most small subcontractors actually need — are focused tools that do one job: turn your hours and rates into a correct WH-347 fast, without onboarding calls or a per-seat contract.

Pricing reality

Enterprise and mid-market certified-payroll tools commonly run $175 to $400 a month, and many add a one-time setup or onboarding fee in the hundreds to several thousand dollars before you produce a single report. That math makes sense for a firm running dozens of jobs. For a two-person crew on one or two public projects, it is punishing.

Certiwage is built for that smaller operator: $29 to $59 a month with no setup fee, no per-seat pricing, and no annual contract — and your first complete WH-347 is free to build and export. Because small subs often work public jobs in bursts, you can cancel when a job wraps and re-subscribe on your next prevailing-wage project without losing your history.

Questions to ask any vendor

• Does your overtime math add fringe at straight time, or 1.5× the whole package? (The answer should be straight time.)
• Do you flag fringe shortfalls automatically before I sign?
• Are you on the current DOL form version, and do you generate the Statement of Compliance?
• Is there a setup fee, a per-employee charge, or a minimum contract term?
• Can I copy last week's report and keep a printable history per project?
• Can I cancel and re-subscribe between jobs without losing my data?
• If my agency requires a portal, can I export a clean report to upload?

Why user-supplied wage rates keep the price down

Some platforms bundle a licensed wage-determination database and charge for the overhead of maintaining it. Certiwage takes the simpler path: you enter the classifications and rates straight off the wage determination attached to your contract — the same document you are legally responsible for following anyway. That keeps the software lean and cheap, and it keeps the accuracy of the inputs where the law already puts it: with you. The tool does the math and the checks; you supply the rates that are already in your contract file.

When you still need a portal

Software that builds the report is not always the thing that submitsit. Some awarding agencies require certified payroll to be uploaded through a specific system — a state portal or a designated compliance vendor such as LCPtracker. California, for example, wants electronic certified payroll filed through the DIR. In those cases you still use a builder to produce a correct WH-347 (and, where supported, the required export format), then upload or key it into the mandated portal. Always confirm your project's submission method before you file; see how to do certified payroll for the full weekly workflow.

The fastest way to judge any of this is to run one real week through a tool and see the numbers for yourself — build your first WH-347 free and check the overtime and fringe math against your own crew.