Introduction
To be awarded government jobs, or to be hired for your expertise in your field as a Sub-Contractor by a General Contractor working on a job requiring payment of a prevailing wage for each of the skills employed in completing that job – you will likely be required to provide a certified payroll report. The actual wage your employees must be paid for their work on the project will be determined by asking the General Contractor (project manager) what the experience level and type of wage rate is that you must pay. (Apprentice, Journeyman, Master, etc.)
Once the rate and experience level is known, your employees that will be working on the project must have an earnings category set up and a wage rate set up to conform to these requirements. (The company level payroll items must be set up before the individual employee’s earning item is added.) The set up will include regular hours at the rate and over time hours. (Over time hours for a trade may not always be calculated at the usual “time and a half” rate…checking this with the project manager would also be wise.).
Usage
Total Office Manager can generate the necessary reports to verify that employees on the project are being paid the correct rate for their level of experience, and that all of the regular and over-time hours they work at the site are being reported correctly.
Form Access
- To enable certified payroll to be reported, you must first go into “Preferences”, and choose the “Payroll” tab. On the Company Preferences tab, at the bottom is a box that says “Use Certified Payroll”. Make sure the box is checked.
Once your company payroll items for earnings include the prevailing wage rate and over-time rate for hours worked on the project, and the employees who worked on the job site have been set up for the same wage rate and over-time rate- you may enter time to your time sheets in the manner you normally would enter it. Be careful to specify the “customer” (job) carefully. Any hours over 40 for the week- regardless of job site/customer must be reported and calculated as over-time.
Field Definitions
Employees who work on a project where certified payroll reports must be submitted, are required to have the following information set up in their individual employee payroll items record:
To access this form, click Employees | Employee List. Open an employee’s record. Click Menu | Payroll Items.
- Marital Status – Either Single or Married as defined by the Internal Revenue Service.
- Ethnicity – This field is setup depending on the types your governmental body dictates.
- Default Class – The experience level of the employee (Apprentice, Journeyman, Master, etc.)
Step-By-Step
Certified Payroll Letters:
To create a certified payroll letter (essentially, the back-side of the federal certified payroll reporting form #WH-347), go to your “ Report” command in the main screen of Total Office Manager. Scroll to “Report Navigator” and then click on the button for “Options”.
In the options section, choose a date range for the last pay period. At “Certified Payroll Letter”, leave at “ Default Letter”.
At Customer/Job, scroll to the pertinent job, and at “Employee” make sure “All” is checked. (You will not forget someone in your report who may have worked a few hours on this job, if “All” is checked.)
Click “Preview” (above Options button.)
A report will be generated that includes the front page (Payroll Register) of the form #WH-347. All of the fields that are required to be displayed by the government will be shown in the Total Office Manager generated form.
Example
Below is an example report (which may have been cropped and shrunk to conserve space).
Tips
- Payroll must be run for a payroll letter to be created in the Certified Payroll Report.
- The Certified Payroll Feature supports the US Department of Labor “Employment Standards Administration- Wage and Hour Division form #WH-347″, which is used by most states. To be sure you are in compliance by utilizing this very valuable Total Office Manager report, consult the project manager for this job.
- States that include: Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, N. Carolina, N. Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, S. Dakota Washington and Wisconsin may have other reporting requirements.
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